Wind power for water desalination including a comparison with solar power desalination - Dissertation Example

Sew water desalination through the renewable energy resources can solve the problem. Wind energy has the most potential in the coastal regions of the world due to high availability of wind. Wind desalination utilized the RO, MVC and ED techniques to desalinate the sea water. RO method of desalination is considered the most efficient method of desalination. Wind desalination has many advantages over solar desalination, particularly at coastal regions. The advanced wind turbines have more efficiencies than that of the previous designs.

On the other hand the desalination methods involving coupling of solar and wind energy are much efficient. TVC desalination method can couple solar and wind energy. Greece is facing the water scarcity and desalination is the most effective and efficient method to provide fresh water for the economic and social growth of the country. Some Greece islands are facing droughts and desalination is the economic solution. Greece islands have major coastal regions, which can be considered suitable to harness the wind energy for the desalination.

However, solar and wind energy both can be coupled to enhance the gain and efficiency of the desalination plants. RO desalination technique is considered best to be coupled with the wind energy. Some disadvantages of the wind desalination are the noise, disposal of concentrated brine and disposal of chemicals. However, the advantages are more than disadvantages and thus wind desalination has a promising future. Wind power for water desalination including a comparison with solar power desalination Chapter 1- Literature Review Among the many problems, the human race is facing, the two major problems are the worst of all.

The two problems are the environmental pollution and climate change and the second is the water scarcity. As the population is increasing the problems of fresh water scarcity and climate change is increasing are becoming more severe. In fact, the fresh water resources in the world remained lesser than what is demanded by the population, thus billions of people will have to suffer and have to drink contaminated or low quality water (Sen, 2008). There is a need to establish such systems that equally encounter the climate change as well as water scarcity.

The system, thus, have to utilize the alternate resources of energy like the solar energy, wind energy, geothermal energy, hydropower, etc (Kalogirou, 2005). Earth has plenty of saline water; in fact, the major portion of the earth is covered with saline water in form of oceans and seas. In order to encounter the water scarcity, there is a need to treat the saline water to make it in the purely drinkable. On the major process is the water distillation that converts the dirty or saline water into steam by utilizing the heat from different sources and the then converting it back into the liquid state.

All the impurities remain at the bottom of the container in which the water is heated. The other methods are the utilizing the different layers of filters to file the impurities and adding chemical additives. The major process that has the potential of providing the necessary amount of water without worrying about heating the water is the RO process, in which dirty water or saline water is forcefully passed through different layers of filters. The layers provides a passage for the only water molecules, as the width of the pores in the filter is about in the range of nanometres allowing only the water molecules to pass through the filter.

In nature such type of layers can in found in eggs and layer of ash. However, the process of RO consumes much energy having a purification plant of a grand scale, thus a large amount of energy is required