Are There Renewable Distillation Technologies?
Aside from the obvious use of solar photovoltaic or wind-generated electricity desalination can use waste heat from a nearby power plant or solar energy can be used directly in solar distillation. Similar to a solar still that you might use in an emergency survival situation in the desert or on a life raft, solar distillation uses the suns energy to evaporate water and then condense it. The drawback of this technology is that it yields relatively little fresh water and requires a large area. On a small scale a solar still is very effective but it isn’t feasible for supplying water to a city or for irrigation of fields. As with energy, the cheapest form of drinking water is water that is conserved. For a fraction of the cost of building and operating a desalination plant a community can support and fund water conservation efforts. These can include assistance with drought resistant landscaping, incentives for the removal of lawns, free replacement shower heads and subsidized replacement
