Solar power may help alleviate California's drought problem
The severe drought issue that has plagued California for the past half-decade could be partially alleviated by a solar-powered desalination device. The Pipe, created by electrical engineer Aziz Khalili, is a floating system that makes saltwater potable and was a finalist in the Land Art Generator Initiative’s biennial design contest. The exterior of the Pipe is covered in satellite-grade solar panels, which use solar energy to drive seawater through an electromagnetic filtration system to desalinate it. The Pipe would create 10,000 MW hours of energy and convert 4.5 billion litres annually, which would cover the average daily use of nearly 40% of Santa Monica.
California’s five-year drought has become so serious that Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill earlier this month requiring water districts to start imposing penalties on consumers who use the highest quantities of the precious resource.

A new futuristic design concept aims to address the problem from a different perspective: by proposing a new way to make sea water drinkable.

The Pipe, a giant, floating desalination device, is designed to be both an artistic landmark and a way to provide California with a new source of clean water. The project is a finalist for the Land Art Generator Initiative biennial design competition, which asked teams to envision innovative site-specific public art projects that can harness clean energy and convert it into electricity or drinking water. The assigned location for this year’s competition was Santa Monica, California.

Khalili Engineers

On its exterior, the 2000-foot-long Pipe is coated in high-tech, satellite-grade solar panels, which harvest power throughout the day. The energy that the panels gather would be used to take in seawater and pump it through an electromagnetic filtration tube hidden on the underside of the floating platform.

Aziz Khalili, a Canada-based electrical engineer and the project leader for the Pipe, tells Business Insider that he’s been thinking about the electromagnetic technology that would desalinate the water for 30 years. Because the salt and other materials dissolved in the water are naturally ionized, he says, the system would take advantage of their natural charge and use an electromagnetic force to direct those ions to the edges of the tube.

Khalili Engineers

Though magnetized water sounds like science fiction, Kahili is confident he could get it to work. “This is basic electromagnetic force and movement, so they are principles of physics put together,” he says.

Khalili’s team claims the Pipe would create 10,000 megawatt hours of power annually, which it would use to desalinate 4.5 billion liters per year — that’s enough water to cover the average daily usage of approximately 36,000 people (roughly 40% of Santa Monica).

The results of the desalination process would be two different kinds of water: one type that’s safe to drink and sent straight into the city’s water network, and another with 12% salinity that would be used to fill a series of thermal baths located inside the tube.

Khalili Engineers

Visitors could take a boat out to the floating tube — which would be located 600 to 1000 meters from the coast — and spend time swimming in shallow pools of cold and hot water. Windows would allow them to look out at the ocean. The tourist aspect of the tube could allow a city to sell tickets that could help pay for the tube’s construction.

“At a time, it could hold maybe 500 or 1000 people,” Kahili says.

The concentrated saltwater used in the -baths would then slowly be emitted back out into the ocean using a smart release system.

Unlike conventional methods of desalination, which push water through a filter that has to be regularly replaced, Kahili says his process would require less electricity, generate less industrial waste and create less water pollution. Kahili has filed for a patent for the technology, which he says he first conceptualized while working as an engineer at a juice company. He was trying to figure out a way to distill juice down to concentrate without using the energy required to heat it up.

“It could have many thousands of applications — not just for water desalination but for many other processes,” he says.

Khalili Engineers

The winner of the competition will be announced in October and receive $15,000. But the top prize does not guarantee the design will actually be built. Khalili is hopeful, however, that the publicity his proposal has gained will help bring at least some of the technology included in it into existence.

“If the city says they like it and they give us a go ahead signal, we could go ahead and start working on it,” he says.