+443308187254Muhammad Mobin Siddiqi, Muhammad Nihal Naseer
Due to increasing demand of fresh water; water resource management is undergoing a major paradigm shift because of limited resources of water. In 2015, water scarcity was mentioned as largest global risk by World Economic Forum. If water resources are not managed properly, about 30% to 40% of world population will be affected from shortage of water by 2020. In recent years certain cities/states of Spain, Australia, Israel, Cape town, even USA had faced scarcity of water. The same problem is expected to be faced by Pakistan by 2025. An Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) approach is required to resolves this serious issue. IWRM focuses on protection of available water resources and exploration & development of alternative water resources. This paper describes Reverse Osmosis of sea water as an alternative water resource. One of major issues in introducing Reverse osmosis plant in Pakistan is cost overruns. Financial analysis of power consumption for plant along with membrane construction and maintenance make its installation very difficult even impossible for developing countries like Pakistan. A method for installation of reverse osmosis plant by economizing power factor to reduce process cost has been developed. For this purpose, electricity is generated by introducing wind turbines and solar panels along the coastal belt of Pakistan. This reduced fresh water production cost to 0.069 rupees per gallon along with electricity supply to Karachi at a production cost of 0.28 rupees per watt (1 PKR=0.0081 USD).
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