Study of the Ecological Footprint and Carbon Footprint in a Reverse Osmosis Sea Water Desalination Plant

The water situation in the Canary Islands has been a historical problem that has been sought to be solved in various ways. After years of work, efforts have focused on desalination of seawater to provide safe water mainly to citizens, agriculture, and tourism. Due to the high demand in the Islands,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Membranes (Basel) 2021-05, Vol.11 (6), p.377
Main Authors: Leon, Federico, Ramos-Martin, Alejandro, Perez-Baez, Sebastian Ovidio
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agricultural production
Carbon dioxide
Carbon footprint
Consumer goods
Desalination
Desalination plants
Ecological footprint
Ecological studies
Emissions
Energy
Energy consumption
Energy costs
Environmental impact
Footprint analysis
Islands
Mathematical analysis
Per capita
Population
Productivity
Reverse osmosis
Seawater
Tourism
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Summary:The water situation in the Canary Islands has been a historical problem that has been sought to be solved in various ways. After years of work, efforts have focused on desalination of seawater to provide safe water mainly to citizens, agriculture, and tourism. Due to the high demand in the Islands, the Canary Islands was a pioneering place in the world in desalination issues, allowing the improvement of the techniques and materials used. There are a wide variety of technologies for desalination water, but nowadays the most used is reverse osmosis. Desalination has a negative part, the energy costs of producing desalinated water are high. To this we add the peculiarities of the electricity generation system in the Canary Islands, which generates more emissions per unit of energy produced compared to the peninsular generation system. In this study we have selected a desalination plant located on the island of Tenerife, specifically in the municipality of Granadilla de Abona, and once its technical characteristics have been known, the ecological footprint has been calculated. To do this we have had to perform some calculations such as the capacity to fix carbon dioxide per hectare in the Canary Islands, as well as the total calculation of the emissions produced in the generation of energy to feed the desalination plant.
ISSN:2077-0375
2077-0375
DOI:10.3390/membranes11060377