As the host country for the COP27 climate conference, Egypt has kept water security front and center. Monday was ‘water day’ at the summit and desalination was a hot topic. Desalination, a costly and energy-intensive way of turning seawater into a potable resource, is one of the cornerstones of the country’s—and the region’s—response to water scarcity. Egypt is trying to increase desalination capacity, aiming to quadruple production by building 17 new desalination units over the next five years. The entire conference center in Sharm el-Sheikh operates with water filtration with desalination technology. Although desalination technology is so energy-intensive, experts warn that in many cases its use could further contribute to climate change by increasing emissions. In 2016, for example, desalination accounted for 3% of water supplies in the Middle East, but 5% of total energy consumption, according to a report by the International Energy Agency. However, Egypt’s plans to expand desalination are, to date, expected to run exclusively on solar power. “Desalination is a very energy-intensive process. Forty percent of the cost is electricity,” said Ayman Soliman, CEO of the Sovereign Fund of Egypt, a sovereign wealth fund established in 2018 by the Egyptian government to manage private investments in the country. . “The genesis of the idea was: How do you control costs? It was a natural direction to move towards renewables because renewables have become so dominant, they’ve become so competitive, that renewables are now a more competitive source energy for desalination.” A man walks near a boat moored on the bank of the Nile in Sudan’s northern state, near the Kassinger Islands, on October 28, 2022. Climate change, pollution and exploitation are putting unsustainable pressure on the world’s second largest river, on which millions of Africans depend. (Ashraf Shazly/AFP/Getty Images)
“It’s not something you should put a price on”
Egypt is not the only North African nation moving towards desalination to secure its water supply. Morocco’s Minister of Equipment and Water, Nizar Baraka, spoke on Monday and said that according to their estimates, the country will lose a third of its water supply by 2050. “Morocco is facing a very significant hydrological stress. In the last five years, we have had a severe drought. This year was the (worst) drought in more than 40 years,” Baraka said. WATCHES | Rising temperature targets cause concern at COP27:
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The goal of the COP27 climate conference is to limit the rise in average global temperatures to 1.5 C. While meeting that goal looks increasingly unlikely, delegates are reluctant to call it dead. Baraka explained that Morocco has used dams to control its waterways. They have more than 150 dams in use in the country to try to maintain the water supply. “But it’s not enough,” he said. Some desalination is already in operation in the coastal city of Casablanca, with six new plants scheduled to open in 2023, he said. By 2030, one billion cubic meters of water will be desalinated in Morocco, Baraka said. “When you’re dealing with water, it’s a very sensitive commodity, it’s a necessary ingredient for life. It’s not something you should have a price for,” Egypt’s Soliman said. The problem is that water as a necessity does not lend itself well to private investment because it is undervalued, Soliman explained, especially because of how critical it is to survival. “Water has a cost but not a price,” he said.
Desalination is gaining traction worldwide
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is among the institutions that helped foot the bill for desalination projects. Part of the established regulations for projects to be approved is that they use renewable energy sources, according to Sue Barrett, the bank’s head of infrastructure for Turkey, the Middle East and Africa. Egypt’s expansion plan also depends on the sovereign wealth fund subsidizing construction by private companies. The estimated capital cost of water desalination is about US$1,000 per cubic meter, and Reuters previously reported that the fund plans to reduce that price by 20 to 25 percent. That has sweetened the deal to attract investors, Soliman said, with open tenders attracting a lot of attention. Soliman said on Monday that the country is also looking for investors in green hydrogen projects, and those investments should come with enough desalination capacity to be self-sustaining. Gov. Gavin Newsom, center, speaks to reporters during a news conference at the construction site of a water desalination plant in Antioch, California, on August 11, 2022. (Godofredo A. Vásquez/The Associated Press) African nations are not the only countries looking to desalination technology to tackle climate change. California rejected a $1.4 billion project in May, only to reverse tack and approve a smaller project last month, while the US state is in the midst of a historic drought. Saudi Arabia and Israel also rely heavily on desalination and have invested heavily in the technology over the past decade. But as desalination becomes more popular, disposal of the brine will become an environmental issue in its own right, along with concerns about how it disrupts marine life. One study found that enough brine is currently being discharged to cover the state of Florida with 30 centimeters of brine per year. It can either be returned to the sea, put underground or spread on land. The United Nations Environment Program warns that for every liter of drinking water produced through desalination, 1.5 times that amount of water is contaminated with chlorine and copper due to disposal. “While switching to low-carbon energy sources in desalination plants can help reduce carbon dioxide emissions, the discharge of toxic brine from desalination plants into the ocean is a more difficult problem,” the agency notes.
