[article]Dublin to "import" Shannon water?

mike65

from sunday business post

Dublin water authorities are set to decide on a €600 million plan to pipe drinking water more than 100 kilometres from the River Shannon because the region is rapidly running out of water.

Dublin water authorities are set to decide on a €600 million plan to pipe drinking water more than 100 kilometres from the River Shannon because the region is rapidly running out of water. Tom Leahy, Dublin City deputy engineer, said the authorities would decide in the next three months whether to recommend taking Shannon water from Lough Ree or build a desalination plant in north county Dublin at a cost of €590 million.

Census returns for the Dublin water region – which includes north Wicklow, the four Dublin districts and most of Kildare – show that the population has soared by 60,000 to over 1.37 million in the last four years. ‘‘That is a very large number,” Leahy said. During the heatwave last Wednesday, a record 570 million litres of drinking water were provided, up from an average daily production of 520 million litres.


Engineers have looked at all potential sources, including piping water from the Mournes, but only the Shannon or desalination would produce enough drinking water. There is not enough water left in the River Liffey system to provide for future needs.

‘‘If Shannon were to be the preferred scheme - and it obviously has to go through significant public consultation - we are making a provision for the supply of 50million litres a day to provide for regional development around the Shannon,” Leahy said.

Consultants have estimated that the Lough Ree scheme would involve extracting only 4 per cent of the river flow at that point.

Dublin first piped fresh water through the Dublin mountains to the city in the 1860s from the River Vartry 40km away. ‘‘The Shannon is 100 km away. It is not that much out of scale from what we have been doing in the past,” said Leahy.

Experts say that energy costs and the taste of desalinated water may weigh against the building of a desalination plant.

Should'nt surprised if this happens and quite soon. I fully expect a water shortage crisis by mid-September through to November if this weather holds.

Mike.

Capt'n Midnight

The resevoirs in Roundwood and Blessington were fairly full today, right up to the road so should be ok for a wee while yet.

€600m sounds high, could they use canals part of the way
60,000 extra people - €10,000 each !
Fair enough if it will sort out the water supply for another 70 years.

As for the population change, from 1.31m to 1.37 is a change of 5%, sorting out the pipe leaks might have a similar effect and be a tad cheaper.

Pocari Sweat

Piping it from the Shannon and the treatment required to make it potable is pure madness, not only on a cost basis but also for the fact there is going to be uproar from Athlone water users.

The only financially viable method, with complete security of supply and for extra purity is by Ultra filtration / Reverse Osmosis Desalination.

This is an extremely well established, low cost, high volume water treatment method. China are now going for these huge state of the art plants examples of which can produce 90 million litres a day for some of their new giant power stations which require the finest water for the intercoolers / boilers etc, with a surplus of high purity potable water able to be sold to the local towns.

For plants that produce just a few million litres a day, the overall operating costs would between 200 to 300 euros per million litres production of high purity potable water.

Most links golf courses in the US have now switched away from expensive mains scheme water and have implemented RO desalination plants which produce every 1000 US gallons for around 50 cents on some of the bigger courses which may use half a million US gallons per day - nearly 2 million litres per day, up to maybe 1 or 2 dollars per 1000 US gallons for the smaller courses taking into account scale of return, investment, maintenance, electricity etc.

The middle east have been using them for years, they have long been established there.

They are the perfect system for extreme reduction of dissolved contaminants, and can produce ultra soft water and ensure water is free of heavy metals, nitrates, sodium and a long list of other commonly found contaminants, that altogether do not get removed by traditional treatment means.

link :

www.zenon.com/newsroom/articles/yuhuan.shtml

silverharp

Now that there will be an obvious marginal cost to supplying the water, should this imply that water metering is on the way?

How energy intensive is desalination?

Pocari Sweat

Across the gross cost range of 200 euro to 300 euro per million litres, the electrical energry costs are roughly 50%, and the rest are maintenance, capital repayments etc.

So for every 100 million litres the electricity supply costs would be around 10,000 to 15,000 euro, nearer 10,000 for a plant of the size required.

Thats about 18 million on electric and 36 million total costs per year including repayment of cost of new plant for a pay back period of around 10 years, supplying 500 million litres per day.