Is part of our future in terms of drinking water lying in the troughs of the waves? In any case, this is what Oneka Technologies, a Canadian start-up, is working on.
One of the many swords of Damocles remaining suspended over our civilization is that of the drinking water crisis. The WHO estimates that 2.2 billion people on the planet do not have access to it. An observation which will necessarily worsen over the years, catalyzed by several factors: climate change, demographic growth, degradation of ecosystems, water pollution and overconsumption of resources. The desalination of seawater appears to be one solution among others to curb this phenomenon. Using the sun’s energy to enable this is already under study; Oneka Technologies, for its part, plans to use the movement of waves to produce fresh water.
A sustainable and effective solution?
Susan Hunt is Director of Innovation at Oneka Technologies. She explains that “ Conventional plants used to desalinate seawater are powered by fossil fuels, but we have reached a tipping point. We want to move away from traditional desalination and fossil fuels “. Oneka therefore manufactures floating desalination units that only the waves power. A strong contrast when compared to traditional, very energy-intensive solutions.
Currently, more than 300 million people depend on desalinated water to survive. Furthermore, this demand is only growing, put under pressure by demographic dynamics and climate change. The alternative thought by Oneka could well be a game changer compared to traditional methods, which rely on thermal or reverse osmosis.
A technology based on kinetic energy
The principle of Oneka desalination buoys is simple, but extremely well thought out. While floating on the surface, they convert the energy of the waves to activate a system of membranes, which filter the seawater. All this, without the slightest consumption of electricity. A 100% mechanical system. They can even operate in low swell, with waves of only one meter. Three sizes of buoys exist. The largest measures eight meters wide by five meters long and can provide up to 49,000 liters of drinking water per day.
Another problem inherent to desalination is the release of brine, which seriously disrupts ecosystems. Oreka’s solution was designed in full awareness of this problem. Susan Hunt explains that “ the brine produced in the process is mixed again with the three-quarters of the water that has not been treated by the membrane. This mixture is then discharged into the sea, but is just 25% saltier than natural seawater “. The environmental impact of the device is therefore considerably reduced.
In a context where the scarcity of our essential resource is increasingly pressing, solutions like those of Oneka revive a glimmer of hope. On the other hand, they remain measures to mitigate the main problem which remains the overconsumption of drinking water. The ideal would therefore be to combine the global adoption of these devices with more responsible water management.
Source : BBC
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