WHAT'S WRONG WITH DESALINATION?

The Times often prints many irrelevant articles on topics that don't matter. But even when the Times flails around and finds a topic that matters, they often miss facts, print lies, and take a bonehead position due to sloppy journalism that would not pass muster in sophomore class.

For example, the Times came out in favor of our neighborhood desal scammers, "Poseidon Industries", which has been described as "three guys and a hat-rack" looking for funding for their next failed project. A similar hat-rack scammer was "Safe Energy Systems" ("SES") which tried the "LNG refinery" scam in Long Beach, CA. Despite SES' glossy literature and high-falutin' pretensions, they just faded away after doing their thing, which was of no help to anyone except perhaps some sleazy politicians.

Poseidon, you may remember, came to Huntington Beach with paid tributes about their wonderful expertise; when we investigated, we found that their one project, Tampa Bay, was enveloped in a long history of failure and controversy. But the Times, supposedly the main regional publication, missed the facts.

The Times didn't even do a Google search, which would have indicated something that responsible journalists would have followed up -- and at least found out about.

Here's the Times false and lying editorial:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-desal28-2008jul28,0,4607037.story

And my letter they rejected for publication:

The Times fails the facts in calling for the Coastal Commission to approve Poseidon's Carlsbad project at their Oceanside meeting on Aug. 6. The Ocean Outfall Group is running a bus and caravan down to Oceanside to argue the facts and support Staff's recommendation to reject Poseidon's latest gaffe.

Poseidon's Tampa Bay project was enveloped in controversy, expensive buyouts, failure to perform, and bankruptcy.
http://media.cleantech.com/2369/tampa-bay-desalination-plant-rises-again

Their scheme in San Diego involves subsidies, as the Times notes, which are levied by raising water prices for everyone else. This essentially taxes the rest of us for San Diego's lack of foresight.

Even worse, this "paper water" may be used to justify continued over-building, but never materialize, leaving us, as Tampa Bay, worse off after Poseidon moves on to the next sucker.

LADWP projects the cost of purified seawater using Poseidon's methods, even if successful, at more than $1500 per acre-foot; other estimates are much higher. While Poseidon claims a lower cost, they have yet to aquire equal credibility with LADWP or the Coastal Commission. Even a subsidy of $250 would make desalted seawater more than twice as expensive as current water supplies; and that subsidy would come at the expense of higher water prices for everyone else.

Huntington Beach Mayor Debbie Cook presented a study, drawn from all relevant authorities, showing that conservation and less waste in water-trading has a much higher potential to provide adequate water supplies for future needs. Part of this study showed that Poseidon's technology works with brackish water, but has had difficulties with higher-salinity seawater. This key point was missed by the Times.

The 17,000 seawater desalination systems currently in operation worldwide generally use a different technology, distillation, instead of Poseidon's reverse osmosis. Expensive filters and many unforseen difficulties have indicated that so far, Poseidon's ideas have not been shown to be cost-effective.

There is little basis for believing in Poseidon, and it's unfortunate that the Times didn't do more research or at least ask knowledgeable authorities about the issue.

Poseidon's business plan is to "piggy-back" its permits on existing ocean outfall permits held by many obsolete single-pass power plants up and down the California Coast. Their more expensive water would provide "paper water" supplies whose potential could be used to foster even more unsustainable development.

Single-pass power plants use massive amounts of seawater for cooling. They kill creatures by impingement on screens from which they are scraped off and hauled to landfills, by entrainment into the giant pumps, and then by being boiled for cooling the inefficient boilers. Finally, the dead and dying creatures that remain are discharged in a heated "dead zone" of decaying organic matter that kills other sea life and provides a breeding ground for dangerous bacteria found in nearby sewage discharges.

For this reason, the Coastal Commission requires that Poseidon justify anew, or "de novo", these permits. Staff states that they cannot do so, legally. If desalination becomes part of the operation of these ancient and costly power plants, it will be more difficult to force utilities to upgrade them and reduce the burden on our Coast.

More modern combined-cycle power plants don't require massive quantities of cheap seawater, and can be sited away from the fragile coastal environment. Moreover, they are less costly to run, generating less expensive electric, are more reliable, and generate much less greenhouse gas emisssions.

The march of the future is to more energy-efficient use of resources making a less harmful footprint on the land. The Times editorial stands in the way of this progress.