In the desalination and water reuse industry, as well as in the rest of our everyday lives, the start of the New Year is always an auspicious time to look to the future. It’s a time to anticipate opportunities that await or devise strategies to overcome potential challenges that may lie ahead. It’s a time to identify the most promising pockets of opportunity and the most pressing concerns, and identify the steps we need to take to make our future as bright as possible.
As we enter 2014, my experience at two recent events offers some food for thought on these topics as they relate to our industry.
First are the insights that I gained during our recently concluded IDA World Congress in Tianjin. I recently returned from this landmark event – our first World Congress ever to take place in the People’s Republic of China. Throughout World Congress Week, I listened to enthusiastic dialogue about ways to enhance energy efficiency and environmental stewardship, and tap the power of renewable energy to create true sustainability in desalination. I witnessed the great excitement among our colleagues in China about the potential of desalination and water reuse not only to support the health and well being of their country’s burgeoning population and economy, but also to create new opportunities for companies based there as they stand poised to serve that dynamic market.
In 2012, China’s State Council announced its 12th Five-Year Plan for desalination, more than doubling the country’s online capacity by 2015. One of the goals of this plan is to increase domestic equipment production so that 70% of all equipment used in Chinese desalination plants is produced by domestic manufacturers. These new and emerging companies need access to information and knowledge-sharing that events like the World Congress – and publications like the IDA Journal of Desalination and Water Reuse – provide.
The second occasion was a press briefing on the ‘State of Desalination’ conducted prior to the start of the World Congress. One of the key insights was that the global desalination market is not responding in its usual fashion. Instead, we are seeing greater growth in industrial applications, not the traditional municipal marketplace. And this trend is expected to continue, at least in the near future.
Since 2010, 45% of new desalination plants have been ordered by industrial users such as power stations and refineries. Compare this to data from the prior four years, when only 27% of new capacity was ordered by industrial water users. Industrial applications for desalination grew to 7·6 million cubic meters per day (m3/d) for 2010–2013 compared with 5·9 million m3/d for 2006–2009. Of that 7·6 million m3/d, the power industry accounted for 16%; oil & gas, 12% - up from 7% from 2006–2009; mining & metals, 11%; refining & chemicals, 11%; electronics, 5%; and food & beverage, 3%. Other industrial applications accounted for the remaining 40%.
In some aspects, this dynamic is showing the energy-water nexus in action. The energy industry needs water for exploration and production as well as in refining and power generation, and of course, the water industry needs energy to produce fresh water or treat it for recycling/reuse or disposal. In the past two decades we have seen a huge improvement in energy efficiency, and further reductions in energy consumption continue to be high on the list of priorities for our industry.
All of these insights relate directly to the content in the IDA Journal. Information exchange is the key to our industry’s continued success, and our goal is to cover a wider selection of topics that reflect these new and emerging trends. We invite you, as a valued reader, to submit an article or suggest your ideas on topics that explore the brave new worlds that the desalination and water reuse industry sets out to conquer this New Year.
Patricia A. Burke ([email protected]) is the IDA Secretary General and an officer on IDA’s Board of Directors. She was one of IDA’s founding members and has been actively involved in the association and its predecessors since 1973.
