Cyprus-Forum.com

[purdey]

What are the options Murf ?

[Free Spirit]

But it takes 3 tonnes of oil to desalinate one tonne of water. Is that what the planet needs?

Did you not see the bit about sunshine, they've been using the sun in desalination plants for years!

[devil]

If you had read what was in the link above, you would have known that solar flash distillation is unsuitable for this country (and is being discontinued in the desert regions elsewhere). This was a technique heavily promoted by Weir in Glasgow in the 50s and 60s. The major problem for Cyprus is a lack of land along the littoral. For 1 m3 of water/day, you require between 100 and 200 m² of land, assuming the normal triple-flash. That means to supply just Nicosia, you would need about 7,500,000 m². Where do you find that land? And that does not count the actual plants. However, the clincher is the cost od maintenance. Experience in Saudi Arabia, where land is no problem, that the cost of maintenance is prohibitive, even for an oil-rich state.

If you go to the Weir Group website at http://www.weir.co.uk, you can select 'desalination' in the drop-down for 'area of expertise' and you will get nowhere other than a lead into pumps and valves and other components. They no longer make turnkey solar flash distillation desalination systems, even though they are the world #1 in the technology. Ask yourself why.

[Kikapu]

If only Cyprus and Turkey were good friends, the water in the picture just flows into the sea in AKSU near Antalya, which could be piped to Cyprus. It would go a long way to help the water shortage.!

[unbezable]

I think that is probably the future in the longer term. Water from Turkey.......

[Nikitas]

A Swiss company I have been talking with have a solar powered desalinator which gives several tons of water daily. When it is not desalinating it can provide electricity to the grid or to batteries.

Oil is NOT the only solution.

Rain water is there through the winter. A 100 square meter roof can collect 28 tons of water. Look at your water bill and see how much a family consumes in a year. It is probably less than 28 tons for a normal family.

It costs very little to retrofit a house to collect rainwater.