Reply To: Direct conversion

[zapkitty]

delt0r wrote: Desalination is much less energy intensive than boiling water. Because that steam can be used to heat the incoming water. ie recycle the heat.

Certainly, more efficient engineering will reduce water costs further. It’s just that a straightforward method makes for a nice upper limit on BOTE calculations… “The final product cost should be no more than $X” 🙂

delt0r wrote: Staged flash desalination needs a “lot” of power but its all low grade heat (less than 100C since it runs at partial vacuum) and it is *way* less than the latent heat requirement to vaporize the water processed.

But the cost of the water rises because of the costs of the vacuum chambers, associated gear and maintenance… and FF units would have power to spare.