Friday September 16, 2005

Singapore opens first desalination plant

channelnewsasia.com :

Singapore opened its first seawater purifying plant on Tuesday in a drive to increase its domestic water supply. The S$200 million (US$119.76 million) facility in the suburb of Tuas will produce 30 million gallons (114 million litres) of potable water a day, or 10 percent of current daily consumption. The desalination plant was built by a wholly-owned subsidiary of Singapore water treatment specialist Hyflux.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, who formally opened the project on Tuesday, described the facility as the largest of its kind in the world to use "reverse osmosis" technology to rid seawater of salt and other impurities. "For Singapore, an island in the sea, desalination is a natural solution. Desalination provides a steady source of water, unaffected by variations in rainfall," Lee said. He added that for Singapore, water "will always be a strategic resource, and not just an economic commodity".

The government will invest another S$1.5 billion in water-related projects over the next two years after spending S$4.5 billion in the last four years, he said. Singapore's daily water consumption of around 1.14 billion litres (300 million gallons) is expected to grow by a third in 10 years. Singapore has drawn up a plan to source supplies from four "national taps," namely imports, reservoirs, recycling waste water, and desalination to meet its long-term water needs.

(2005-09-16 13:00:24 SGT) [Env] Permalink

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