{"id":13953,"date":"2016-11-04T17:56:36","date_gmt":"2016-11-04T21:56:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digital.hbs.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/san-diego-water-authoritys-new-desalination-plant-shows-the-promise-and-problems-with-responses-to-the-effects-of-global-warming\/"},"modified":"2016-11-04T17:56:36","modified_gmt":"2016-11-04T21:56:36","slug":"san-diego-water-authoritys-new-desalination-plant-shows-the-promise-and-problems-with-responses-to-the-effects-of-global-warming","status":"publish","type":"hck-submission","link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/san-diego-water-authoritys-new-desalination-plant-shows-the-promise-and-problems-with-responses-to-the-effects-of-global-warming\/","title":{"rendered":"San Diego Water Authority\u2019s New Desalination Plant Shows the Promise and Problems with Responses to the Effects of Global Warming"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the more harmful consequences of global is growing water scarcity.[1] It\u2019s a challenge that threatens the livelihood and way of life of many, and in so doing, risks pulling countries and regions into conflict over dwindling water resources. Water authorities are on the front lines trying to plan for this challenge, and the San Diego Water Authority has aggressively pursued one new approach: looking out at rising sea levels and seeing a huge potential source of fresh water through desalination. But if its new Carlsbad project \u2013 the largest seawater desalination plant in North America \u2013 reflects part of the promise for how organizations might respond to global warming, it also illustrates how the misaligned incentives and fragmented decision-making that hinder our ability to prevent global warming bedevil responses to it.<\/p>\n

California\u2019s droughts have gotten more severe with climate change and are projected to get worse over the course of the century.[2] Recognizing the environmental and population pressures on its water supplies, the San Diego Water Authority has made lots of progress to reduce water consumption through more conservation, leading to a 12 percent fall in water usage since 1990.[3] Yet over the past ten years it has realized that this is not enough, and pushed to add seawater desalination, an energy intensive process that converts seawater into potable freshwater, as a key part of its water supply by entering into a long-term purchase agreement to secure 7% of its water supply from the new Carlsbad Desalination Plant, the largest seawater desalination plant in North America.[4]<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"san-diego-water-authority-consumption\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Data from San Diego Water Authority 2015 Urban Water Management Plan<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What\u2019s novel about this isn\u2019t just that it is a different source of supply but how the San Diego Water Authority is being helped to develop it. The advanced technology for the plant comes from IDE Technologies which has developed world-leading desalination plants in Israel. Those plants have now led to water surpluses in what was previously a very water constrained country.[5] The collaboration was facilitated by an agreement signed by Israel\u2019s prime minister and California\u2019s governor that, among other things, called for cooperation on water conservation and sharing of technical expertise. The agreement shows how new forms of international partnerships outside of traditional nation-to-nation diplomacy are emerging between areas suffering similar effects from climate change.[6]<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, the San Diego Water Authority\u2019s decision to open a large desalination plant illustrates how some of the same problems hobbling efforts to stop climate change leave organizations with tough trade-offs when trying to respond to its effects.<\/p>\n

Water desalination is very energy intensive. Though the energy required has halved over the last 20 years,[7] the Carlsbad plant will still use 38 megawatts a day, enough to power 28,500 homes.[8] At present, that energy usage will not be from renewable resources, so the San Diego Water Authority has moved ahead with a plant that is contributing to the global climate warming whose effects it is trying to deal with locally.<\/p>\n

The San Diego Water Authority instead should have announced a commitment to power the plant with renewable energy, if not right away that shortly after its opening. Such an approach would have allowed the Water Authority to set a very positive example that efforts to mitigate the effects of global warming must at a minimum not add more fuel to the fire.<\/p>\n

Second, the creation of the plant reveals how fragmented control over resources inhibits cooperation on efforts to manage the effects of global warming in the same way that it makes it tough to limit global emissions in the first place. Only 10% of water used in California is for urban consumption, while 80% goes to agriculture.[9]<\/p>\n

\"mother-jones\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Chart from Mother Jones http:\/\/www.motherjones.com\/environment\/2015\/01\/almonds-nuts-crazy-stats-charts<\/p>\n

However, water is not centrally allocated in California, so it can\u2019t easily be most cost-effectively redistributed. As a result, San Diego\u2019s Water Authority is moving ahead with a plant that will produce water costing 2,000 an acre foot, whereas conserving the same amount of water upstream through drip-irrigation would costly only one fourth that amount.[10]<\/p>\n

The San Diego Water Authority should have made its expensive desalination plant contingent on commitments from upstream, largely agricultural users of its water sources reducing their water consumption of traditional water sources by equivalent amounts through conservation. Such an approach would leverage the Water Authority\u2019s investment to generate greater water savings, build trust across communities for future, more integrated water agreements, and ensure that drought mitigation efforts don\u2019t fall so heavily on the backs of the urban poor.<\/p>\n

Water authorities, like San Diego\u2019s, are benefiting from impressive new technologies to generate freshwater from the sea. The question moving forward is at what cost \u2013 to consumers and to the energy use of our planet \u2013 we\u2019ll get that water, and if we\u2019ll learn anything from failures to stop global warming in the steps we take to mitigate it.<\/p>\n

791 words (excluding citations and title)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1] \u201cAnthropogenic warming has intensified the recent drought as part of a chronic drying trend that is becoming increasingly detectable and is projected to continue growing throughout the rest of the century.\u201d Contribution of anthropogenic warming to California drought during 2012-2014. Geophysical Research Letters, 28 August 2015.<\/p>\n

[2] For Drinking Water in Drought, California Looks Warily to Sea. NY Times. http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/04\/12\/science\/drinking-seawater-looks-ever-more-palatable-to-californians.html?_r=1<\/a><\/p>\n

[3] 2015 Urban Water Management Plan http:\/\/www.sdcwa.org\/sites\/default\/files\/files\/water-management\/water_resources\/2015%20UWMP%20Final%2006222016.pdf<\/p>\n

[4] Israel’s revolutionary water management methods aren’t going to be enough to solve California’s devastating drought Business Insider http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/israel-style-methods-arent-going-to-solve-californias-devastating-drought-2015-6<\/p>\n

[5] Israeli water tech reaching America\u2019s biggest states. Times of Israel. http:\/\/www.timesofisrael.com\/israeli-water-tech-reaching-americas-biggest-states\/<\/p>\n

[6] For Drinking Water in Drought, California Looks Warily to Sea. NY Times. http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/04\/12\/science\/drinking-seawater-looks-ever-more-palatable-to-californians.html?_r=1<\/p>\n

[7] Nation\u2019s largest ocean desalination plant goes up near San Diego. Mercury News. http:\/\/www.mercurynews.com\/2014\/05\/29\/nations-largest-ocean-desalination-plant-goes-up-near-san-diego-future-of-the-california-coast\/<\/p>\n

[8] Israel’s revolutionary water management methods aren’t going to be enough to solve California’s devastating drought Business Insider http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/israel-style-methods-arent-going-to-solve-californias-devastating-drought-2015-6<\/p>\n

[9] Nation\u2019s largest ocean desalination plant goes up near San Diego. Mercury News. http:\/\/www.mercurynews.com\/2014\/05\/29\/nations-largest-ocean-desalination-plant-goes-up-near-san-diego-future-of-the-california-coast\/<\/p>\n

[10] Nation\u2019s largest ocean desalination plant goes up near San Diego. Mercury News. http:\/\/www.mercurynews.com\/2014\/05\/29\/nations-largest-ocean-desalination-plant-goes-up-near-san-diego-future-of-the-california-coast\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is San Diego Water Authority’s new, huge desalination plant a breakthrough response to climate change or a repetition of the same mistakes that prevented us from stopping climate change in the first place? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1888,"featured_media":13954,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","categories":[1767,1980,427],"class_list":["post-13953","hck-submission","type-hck-submission","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-desalination","category-effects","category-water"],"connected_submission_link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/assignment\/climate-change-challenge-2016\/","yoast_head":"\nSan Diego Water Authority\u2019s New Desalination Plant Shows the Promise and Problems with Responses to the Effects of Global Warming - Technology and Operations Management<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/san-diego-water-authoritys-new-desalination-plant-shows-the-promise-and-problems-with-responses-to-the-effects-of-global-warming\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"San Diego Water Authority\u2019s New Desalination Plant Shows the Promise and Problems with Responses to the Effects of Global Warming - 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