Part 2 of 2 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
    Kyle Hopkins is the Chief Administrative Officer of Oisann Engineering. He said, “[The technology] was never commercialized because you still need subsea pumps to facilitate taking the water to the surface. We removed the pump.” He has declined to elaborate how the OE system works except for saying that their system takes advantage of the higher pressures on the seafloor to move water around which requires much less energy.  He also mentioned that the pipeline from the vessel to shore could be raised so that gravity can assist the flow of water saving even more energy. Mr. Hopkins estimates that the technology could be roughly thirty percent more energy efficient than a conventional onshore desalination facility. OE is currently building a small prototype and hopes to install a commercial version in the Philippines in 2023.
     The desalination systems of Core Power and Oisann Engineering are promising says Raya Al-Dadah who is the head of the Sustainable Energy Technology Laboratory at the University of Birmingham. However, floating desalination has both advantages and disadvantages. There are still challenges with respect to pumping the desalinated water ashore. There is also the problem of finding a workforce that has experience in offshore work and desalination.
     Ultimately, Dr. Al-Dadah says that humanity needs more water resources. Climate change will be a major problem if the world temperature rises more than four and a half degrees Fahrenheit. “This will have a catastrophic impact on water.”
      Amy Childress is on the faculty of the University of Southern California. She says that smaller, floating desalination systems could assist in reducing the environmental impact of the technology. The highly salty brine left after desalination is toxic to marine life. Today’s desalination facilities generate huge amounts of brine. As a matter of fact, they put out more brine than fresh water. Mr. Hopkins states that the byproduct expected from the Waterfountain system will not contain enough salt to be classified as brine.
     Greg Pierce is the co-director of the University of California Los Angeles’ Luskin Center for Innovation. He said, with respect to current disaster relief, “we’re flying and trucking-in bottled water… it’s the most inefficient thing possible. If floating desalination can address that, I’m all for that.”
     However, Dr. Pierce raises the question of whether desalinization can be made cost-effective enough in other contexts. He notes that there are many other ways of securing clean water supplies. In California, Dr. Pierce estimates better water conservation measures could result in the conservation of thirty to forty percent of the water that is currently consumed in California.
     Communities will likely also adopt measures such as water recycling or treatment of rainwater. However, if this is still not sufficient to make up the shortfall in fresh water, desalination begins to look like a high probability in some parts of the world even at a high cost.
     For now, Core Power’s design is just a design. However, Mr. Bøe has hopes that, inside of a decade, the company could have a commercial system in operation. The need will still be there.