The floating desalination machines powered by the waves

I’m actually a lot more hyped about this one than the last article that was posted a lot here. This one is actually in production and cities in CA have purchased them, so we’ll get to see how they function in the real world soon.

A big question is what the lifespan and maintenance needs are for a device that is exposed to a lot of wave energy. We’ll see.

Not sure if this is more resource efficient than solar powered on land, given the small scale (=inefficient) and the additional complexity from being the seawater all the time. Oh and all the handling, like pipes to transport it back to land from all those tiny things.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

While large, shore-based desalination plants typically require vast amounts of energy to remove the salt, Oneka's small units are powered solely by the movement of the waves.

If this is not properly diluted before being discharged back into the sea, then it can create "dead zones" - areas where the salt levels are too high to support marine life.

Oneka's floating desalination machines - buoys anchored to the seabed - use a membrane system that is solely powered by the movement of the waves.

The buoys absorb energy from passing waves, and covert it into mechanical pumping forces that draw in seawater and push around a quarter of it through the desalination system.

Louise Bleach, Desolenator's vice president of business development, adds that global shortages of fresh water are making it ever more valuable.

Chedly Tizauoi, a professor of chemical engineering at Swansea University, is an expert on water supply and treatment systems.

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why not combine offshore wind power and desalination? The larger scale of the bigger wind turbines offers sufficient power to operate a more efficent desalination machine.