SWRO Costs: Don't Believe Everything You Read

Abstract

To address unprecedented demand on existing freshwater supplies, water providers across the globe are increasingly turning to seawater desalination, particularly using seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO), to unlock a large water supply in oceans. Unfortunately, the cost of SWRO is a significant impediment to broad use of this new water resource. Consequently, the fact that more people have an interest in SWRO has sparked widespread publication of information about the technology's costs. Such reporting has real benefits, but the notable absence of critical qualifying information is deceptive. The dearth of detail can tempt even experts to determine that SWRO is unrealistically affordable or prohibitively expensive. In reality, cost estimates for one project cannot be inferred for another—even for preliminary analysis.