Spain's Desalination Ambitions Unravel

Published on by in Government

Spain's Desalination Ambitions Unravel

In the arid Spanish Mediterranean city of Torrevieja, Europe's biggestdesalinationplant stands idle six years after construction began. The plant is finished; it just needs a power hookup to operate at full capacity. But it has few buyers for its water and would cost too much to run.

The Torrevieja plant cost about €300 million, or $408 million, to build and has a capacity of 220 million cubic meters, or 7.7 billion cubic feet, a day. It was part of an ambitious government plan conceived in 2004 to more than double the availability of desalinated seawater by adding 2 million cubic meters of water per day of capacity. The plan anticipated a surge in water demand along Spain's Mediterranean coast to supply sprawling apartment complexes, golf courses and a tourism-driven economic boom.

Read more:http://nyti.ms/19YjFSr

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