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China turns on tap for more desalination

Reporter: Martina Fuchs 丨 CCTV.com

10-26-2016 17:24 BJT

"Green development" is one of the key issues being discussed at the 6th plenum of the Communist Party of China.

One aspect of that discussion is better water management and desalination.

China is playing catch-up but it still lags behind peers and is racing to guarantee sufficient drinking water for its huge population and the generations to come. To talk about the challenges, our reporter Martina Fuchs now joins us in the studio. Martina?

Lei, not only the sky, but also the sea seems to be the limit for China. The water challenge however is evident. Most cities in China face water shortages, while coastal areas in particular are the most stressed. Like anywhere else in the world, water crises can threaten economic growth and social stability.

Experts project that the water supply won't be able to meet demand by 2030 if China carries on with business as usual. That's why the government introduced national water usage caps and set aside 4 trillion yuan for water infrastructure between 2011 to 2020. Currently, 85 percent of water use in China is by agriculture and industry.

The implications are wide. The competition for water resources between agriculture and industry could impact global trade and the prices of agricultural goods due to China’s crucial position in global production. In addition, 97 percent of China’s electric power requires water to generate. Limited water resources would impact the future energy mix, as well as plans to more than double hydro capacity by 2030. One of the key methods used to gain more water resources is desalination - the process of extracting salt from seawater.

In a country of 1.4 billion people, every drop of water counts.That was crystal clear to the hundreds of participants, local and international manufacturers, at WaterEx earlier this month in Beijing. And that is why China is aiming to advance with new and cutting-edge water treatment and desalination technologies.

"You see a lot of producers of membranes, pressure vessels. China in practically 15 years has come up to the front in the production of the equipment and technologies which are required to be used in desalination and water re-use. So China will play an increasingly important role in this technology." Emilio Gabrielli, president of Interational Desalination Association said.

China's water resources are severly affected by both shortages and pollution. Although the country has the 5th largest amount of renewable water resources in the world, after Brazil, Russia, Canada and Indonesia, it is faced with a domestic water crisis. Signs of water stress are not hard to find.

Home to 20 percent of the world’s population but only 7 percent of its fresh water, China has turned to the sea. The government's "Special Plan for Seawater Utilization" calls for producing 3 million tons a day of purified seawater by 2020 - roughly quadruple the country’s current capacity.

Rapid urbanization and economic growth across China half led to more than half the cities facing water scarcity issues... This in the meantime has triggerd many business opportunities in the Chinese desalination market.

This is further boosted by an expected rise in consumption. So far, a Chinese person uses 12 cubic meters of water per year, compared to 52 in India or 215 in the United States.

"Currently, China's desalination capacity of sea water is around 1 million tons per day. Of course, compared with the average capacity of other countries, it is still relatively small." Li Linmei,director of Institute of Seawater Desalination said.

The challenge is the price. Beijing pays about 4 yuan - or 65 cents - per cubic meter for tap water, while desalinated water costs 7 yuan. To save the planet's water resources, we have to drink it more responsibly... so that there is enough for all.

To give you some technical details as well, there are two main methods to remove salt. One is reverse osmosis - where water is pushed through membranes that trap the salt.

The other is called multi-stage flash, which involves boiling seawater several times. To understand the importance of desalination a bit more, data from the World Economic Forum shows that less than 6% of China's land mass provides more than two-thirds of the country's water supply.

It also says that at least one-third of China’s lakes and rivers are unfit for human use, and 73% of the watersheds that supply water to China’s cities face medium to high pollution levels. And of course, by protecting forests and improving agricultural practices, China can also improve the water quality.



 

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