What measures do you think can be taken to solve the water shortage problem in Saudi Arabia? What are the limitations of these measures?

Most of Saudi Arabia (see attached photo) is covered by desert, but since 1980s, the country has been short of water resources. Agriculture has developed rapidly, with more than 3 million hectares of cultivated land and self-sufficiency in food. As early as 199 1, wheat exports ranked sixth in the world. The reason for this miracle is: ask the sea for fresh water.

In terms of seawater desalination, Saudi Arabia has always been at the forefront of Middle East countries, even the forefront of the world. As early as 1928, Saudi Arabia built two sets of distillation equipment in Jeddah for seawater desalination. Although the equipment is simple and the production capacity is limited, a solution to the water problem has been found.

The technology used for seawater desalination in Saudi Arabia is flash evaporation. This method is as follows: firstly, seawater is sent to a heating device, heated to 150 degrees Celsius, and then sent to an expansion evaporator for depressurization and evaporation, so that seawater becomes steam, and the steam is sent to a condenser for condensation into fresh water. Then some minerals beneficial to human body are added into the obtained water to obtain fresh water for people to drink. This method is expensive, but it can kill two birds with one stone, that is, while obtaining fresh water, steam can be used to drive the steam turbine to generate electricity.

Large-scale seawater desalination in Saudi Arabia began in the 1960s. With the development of Saudi oil industry and the implementation of economic diversification development plan, the problem of water shortage is becoming more and more serious. For this reason, in the early 1960s, Saudi Arabia formulated a "short-term plan to solve the problem of drinking water supply for residents in areas with severe water shortage" and a "long-term plan to build a large-scale seawater desalination plant in China according to the long-term goal of national emergency development", and established a seawater desalination company on 1965 to be fully responsible for the construction of seawater desalination projects. The desalination plants in Saudi Arabia are basically built along the Persian Gulf and the Red Coast, close to the key areas of industrial and agricultural development, and the plants are connected by pipelines to form a water supply network. In the early 1980s, Saudi Arabia's first large-scale seawater desalination joint venture was completed and put into operation in Jeddah in the west, which not only solved the problem of water shortage in the west, but also solved the problem of one third of the country's electricity consumption. Then, the world's largest seawater desalination plant was established in the eastern district of Jubail, with a daily output of fresh water131800 million liters and a power generation of1650,000 kilowatts. At the same time, the world's longest desalination pipeline with a diameter of 1.5m and a length of 466Km was built to transport fresh water from the east to the capital Riyadh and its nearby areas.

After decades of construction, the desalination project in Saudi Arabia has made great progress. At present, Saudi Arabia has 23 large-scale modern desalination plants, with a daily output of 2.364 billion liters of fresh water and a power generation capacity of 3.6 million kilowatts. With the rapid development of seawater desalination, Saudi Arabia has ascended the throne of "Kingdom of Seawater Desalination", and the freshwater problem that has long plagued Saudis has been basically solved.

Note: the cost of seawater desalination is very high, and it costs $65,438+$0.05 ~ $65,438+$0.60 per 65,438+0.000 liter of seawater. Therefore, only countries or regions that lack natural fresh water resources and can afford high costs can apply seawater desalination technology. Tianjin is one of the largest desalination cities in China. In the mid-1980s, two sets of multipolar flash desalination units were put into use in Dagang Power Plant, with a daily output of 6,000 tons of fresh water and an annual output of about 2 1.9 million tons, which is about half of the national seawater desalination output. Seawater desalination is also used in Xisha, Nansha, Zhoushan and Changshan Island in China.