![Aerial view taken on February 2, 2024 shows an old pier and boats on the dry bank of the Sau water reservoir in the province of Girona in Catalonia. Aerial view taken on February 2, 2024 shows an old pier and boats on the dry bank of the Sau water reservoir in the province of Girona in Catalonia.](https://huffpost-focus.sirius.press/2024/04/19/477/0/6630/3729/320/180/60/0/eadce76_1713531124920-000-34hj32b-1.jpg)
PAU BARRENA / AFP
Aerial view taken on February 2, 2024 shows an old pier and boats on the dry bank of the Sau water reservoir in the province of Girona in Catalonia.
ENVIRONMENT – “These factories represent a failure in water management.” The hydrobiologist Christophe Mori is indignant with the HuffPost of the installation, announced by the Catalan government this Wednesday April 17, of a floating desalination plant in the port of Barcelona in the face of the worst drought experienced by the region in a century. His anger is all the greater as 19 other mobile desalination plants are being built in Catalonia, and in particular where the very touristy Costa Brava is located.
The use of a “floating desalination plant is a more economical, more environmentally sustainable solution” and which allows better “security of supply”justified the person responsible for climate action within the Catalan government, David Mascort, during a press conference on Wednesday in Barcelona.
Too energy consuming
This plant, which will be installed by October on a huge liner moored in the port of the Catalan capital, will produce around 14 cubic hectometers of water per year, or 6% of the water consumed in Barcelona and its metropolitan area. specified the Minister of the Environment. Concretely, like desalination infrastructures on land, this plant will suck up volumes of seawater, clean it, treat it, remove the salt, to make it into drinking water.
While fresh water resources are becoming scarce, causing conflicts of use between individuals, farmers and tourism professionals, this technology seems ideal on paper. But that’s without taking into account the colossal environmental impacts it generates.
Firstly, desalination plants are very energy intensive and release significant quantities of CO2, peaking at HuffPost Aude Vincent, hydrogeologist. Even though technology has progressed well since the 1970s and 1980s, and requires less and less energy to operate, “the question also arises of the origin of this energy”, she continues. In fact, fossil energy (coal, oil, gas) drawn underground to run the machine will have a greater environmental impact than if it comes from a wind turbine.
Asphyxiates biodiversity
The other big problem with these installations is the rejection of the brine, the ” waste “ produced by technology. It’s a “ sort of soup twice as salty as sea water, around 70 g/L (compared to 37.5 g/L in the Mediterranean, editor’s note) enriched with a chemical cocktail of anti-foam, anti-algae, copper, chlorine, anti-scaling, etc.”, describes Christophe Mori, lecturer at the University of Corsica. The researcher protests again: “the water discharged is 3 to 4°C warmer” than the sea.
And it is the marine ecosystems that suffer, deplores the hydrobiologist: “ Certain seabeds of the Persian Gulf (which covers 50% of global desalination) are devastated. » For good reason, the rejected brine, “denser, prevents the mixing of water, particularly oxygen”suffocating biodiversity.
Researchers have also highlighted the damage caused by the change in salinity and temperatures of seas and oceans on living organisms, particularly on Posidonia meadows in the Mediterranean, explains The world. The evening daily also reports the “quantity of larvae and other living organisms” sucked up by desalination plants. A desaster “in a context of climate change making marine ecosystems more vulnerable”comments Christophe Mori.
End of opulence
“It is a form of resistance to climate change rather than a form of resilience that we should all promote”, concludes the researcher. Asit K. Biswas, renowned expert from the University of Glasgow and member of the World Water Commission, agrees in The worldemphasizing the importance of ending freshwater opulence: “ Desalination or not, per capita water consumption in much of the world must be significantly reduced. »
The Catalan government did not have the choice of sobriety, realizing that even desalination plants would not be enough to meet the needs of each sector of activity. While the region’s reservoirs are only at 18% of their capacity, the Minister of the Environment announced this week that he would establish for the first time in certain municipalities a maximum water consumption threshold for accommodation tourism, equivalent to the average consumption of residents.
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