Desalination

[barry1010]

I am no scientist and struggle to understand a lot of things so I hope somebody can explain in simple terms why we don't desalinate seawater for general use in the UK as they do in some Middle East countries.
Surely it would end water shortages

[WSpa]

Both distillation and reverse osmosis methods use a lot of energy. This is fine if your country is awash with oil.

[douglas9401]

Fix leaks, problem evaporates.

[barry1010]

Ah! Thank you, WSpa. I have little understanding of reverse osmosis but do understand the cost of energy, so that explains it for me.

[ToraToraTora]

desal uses a lot of energy. If it became necessary we'd do it, for us it is not. ME countries often are fuel rich and water poor so for them Desal makes sense. Also they often have a huge amount of solar energy that is local to the desal plant that can be used to generate the needed electricity.

[New Judge]

Because, like most things in this country which involve long term vision, successive governments simply kick the can down the road knowing that when the excrement finally does hit the air conditioning, they will have long since sailed off into the sunset and a happy retirement, giving after-dinner speeches which bring in far more than they ever earned in politics.

There is one desalination plant in East London, at Beckton. It cost £250m to build and as far as I know, apart from testing it when it was completed in 2010, it has never been used. It was not used during last summer’s dry spell as it was “undergoing essential maintenance work.” How something that had hardly been used had to undergo maintenance at the very time of year it was most likely to be required remains a mystery. Some critics suggest it is the cost of running it which means it is effectively mothballed for now. But I couldn’t possibly comment on that.

[New Judge]

Of course it's worth noting that approximately a third of the water leaving Thames Water's treatment plants is lost to leaks and that, despite huge population growth, no new reservoirs have been built in the South East since the 1970s. There is one due to become operational in 2029, near Portsmouth but that will supply water for only around 150,000 people.

[Old_Geezer]

Regarding the excuses. We are so awash with energy here that we are forcing cars to use our excess electricity. Besides, stick some renewable energy sources next to the desalination plant if it needs topping up.

[Zacs-Master]

‘ We are so awash with energy here that we are forcing cars to use our excess electricity’

Eh?
You do realise that we import electricity from France at times, don’t you OG?
https://www.nationalgrid.com/uks-second-electricity-link-france-starts-flowing-full-capacity

[Old_Geezer]

You do realise we are putting all our vehicles onto 'lectric don't you ? Ergo we are clearly getting so much it must be coming out of our ears. (Which is what we should expect if we have had at least, barely competent government over the last 6 decades.)

[William51]

I completely agree with you. We are surrounded by water yet do not use it. The companies say it would be too expensive to do, but they should plan for the future and secure our water supply.

[Zacs-Master]

‘You do realise we are putting all our vehicles onto 'lectric don't you ? Being a 2 electric car household, yes. I can see you were being ironic (or at least having a swipe at the Govt’s of the last 30 years for not making the most of our natural resources).