Section 04 of 04
Engineering
Everything that works costs energy, brine or money. Four pages, and the measurements behind them.
- 01Desalination and the brine that comes with itReverse osmosis works and is expensive in energy, and it produces a concentrated stream that has to go somewhere.
- 02Reuse, and who will drink itTreated wastewater can be made cleaner than most sources; the obstacle has rarely been the engineering.
- 03Drip irrigation's real arithmeticEfficiency at the field can increase total consumption at the basin, because the water that used to return underground no longer does.
- 04The cheapest water there isLeakage repair and metering deliver more water per unit of money than any new source, and neither photographs well.