A SeaWell desalination buoy is depicted in operation in this artist's rendering supplied by the company.
A diagram provided by SeaWell shows the potential layout of Ocean Portal Water Co.'s desalination project for Vandenberg Space Force Base using unmanned buoys offshore.
An artist's rendering provided by SeaWell depicts one of the company's desalination buoys from below.
A diagram from SeaWell shows how an buoy desalination project might be set up offshore from Vandenberg Space Force Base.
The onshore water station that would receive desalinated water from offshore buoys and would then add minerals is depicted in this artist's rendering from SeaWell.
A SeaWell desalination buoy is depicted in operation in this artist's rendering supplied by the company.
A diagram provided by SeaWell shows the potential layout of Ocean Portal Water Co.'s desalination project for Vandenberg Space Force Base using unmanned buoys offshore.
An artist's rendering provided by SeaWell depicts one of the company's desalination buoys from below.
A diagram from SeaWell shows how an buoy desalination project might be set up offshore from Vandenberg Space Force Base.
The onshore water station that would receive desalinated water from offshore buoys and would then add minerals is depicted in this artist's rendering from SeaWell.
A Santa Barbara company is working with Vandenberg Space Force Base to place high-tech buoys offshore that would process seawater into fresh water and pipe it ashore as a dependable water supply amid the ongoing drought.
SeaWell LLC is hoping to place its unmanned ocean desalination buoys offshore from Space Launch Complex-1, the base’s first launching facility which is no longer used. It will be the site of the onshore water station because of its close proximity to the shore.
SeaWell’s subsidiary, Ocean Portal Water Co., is putting the project together.
It’s not clear how many SeaWell buoys Ocean Portal intends to install, although a diagram of the project shows three buoys.
Each buoy is capable of delivering 1,468 gallons per minute, or 950 acre-feet of fresh water per year. That’s about one-third the output of Santa Barbara’s desalination plant.
An acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons, enough water to meet the average yearly needs of about six people in most urban settings.
So a single buoy will provide enough potable water for an estimated 5,200 households, said Devon Ford, a spokesperson for SeaWell.
Power will be supplied to the buoys from the base’s own solar energy grid.
The federal Government Accounting Office has identified Vandenberg Space Force Base as one of the most drought-impacted bases in the country.
“Water is essential for mission-critical and support activities, and reliability of this new water supply has the potential to substantially backstop our current drought-prone sources,” said Ken Domako, chief of portfolio optimization at Vandenberg.
The SeaWell floating desalination buoys will pull in seawater at low velocity, then pretreat it by pushing it through a series of filters to remove sediment, bacteria, viruses and minerals.
The water will then be pushed at high pressure through state-of-the-art commercial reverse osmosis membranes to remove salt and other dissolved minerals.
“As with wind turbines, SeaWell is based on modular, assembly-line-built systems, designed for water affordability and to be a benign presence in the ocean that can be quickly put into operation,” said Jim Dehlsen, a pioneer in wind and renewable marine energy in the United States, who started developing the SeaWell technology in 2018.
After the desalination process is complete, the resulting fresh water is pumped via a pipe on the ocean floor to the onshore water station, where a final treatment will disinfect it and add minerals to bring it up to drinking water standards.
The buoys transport only fresh water to shore at about half the volume of seawater required for onshore desalination plants, Ford said.
Because the brine is discharged offshore near the surface and drifts downward to be mixed with regular seawater, and because the onshore water station has a small footprint, the system has less environmental impacts than a conventional onshore desalination plant, Ford added.
Although SeaWell didn’t provide an estimated cost per unit for the desalinated water, a company fact sheet said it’s comparable to the cost of state water, which currently is estimated at $1,500 to $2,000 an acre-foot.
The company sees the Vandenberg project as the first step toward a system that could provide fresh water to many of California’s coastal communities.
“Ocean Portal sees this project as an opportunity for different stakeholders to come together to solve such a life-changing problem as water scarcity,” said Peter Stricker, Ocean Portal’s president.
“The project is an important demonstration of an approach to water supply that can benefit Santa Barbara County as well as greater coastal California,” he said.
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