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How long will it be until desalination becomes economical?

California's hyper-environmentalism is unlikely to make it politically viable.

California in fact could have invested more in water collection and reservoir building but they did not. Desalination is pretty distant.

Santa Barbara's just rebuilt their desalination plant.

http://www.santabarbaraca.gov/gov/depts/pw/resources/system/...

(note: .asp!)

It is a real old desalination plant from 80s that is being re-activated.

Yeah it was never turned on due to economic reasons. They are currently retrofitting it with updated pumps, membranes, pipes, etc, and increasing its capacity. They've definitely hit some interesting roadblocks along the way.

Ag interests in California have consistently fought for more reservoirs and storage, only to be consistently denied by the state government in recent decades.

http://www.mercurynews.com/2014/08/31/california-drought-why...

That article paints a pretty different picture than your summary of it does.

Probably depends more on the price of energy (solar?) than on the absolute reductions in energy requirements for desalination. The Israeli's have been making great strides in making more economical plants, but they're still off on price for agricultural use.

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