Solar desalination

Solar desalination ‘the only way’ for Gulf to sustainably produce water.

Current desalination systems are expensive and inefficient, and might last only another 30 years in the Gulf, said Dr Adil Bushnak, the chairman of Bushnak Group, a desalinat

ion company in Saudi Arabia.

“But after that we cannot continue the same way we are doing now,” Dr Bushnak said on the sidelines of the 10th Gulf Water Conference, in Doha.

He proposes that GCC states use the money they saved by going solar to cover the cost of the transition.

“Every barrel of oil we save because we built solar should go to that fund to finance the extra cost of solar [plants],” Dr Bushnak said.
“Wishful thinking is not enough. We have to set targets.”

The UAE desalinates its water with non-solar methods, including thermal and reverse-osmosis (RO) desalination plants. But these require a lot of power from oil or from electricity, which is largely produced in oil-fired plants.

And although energy is cheap in the GCC, it might not stay that way.