Thursday, June 21, 2007

What're We Supposed To Drink? Coconut Milk?


World Wildlife Fund Criticises Construction of Desalination Plants in Spain


The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has criticised the ‘frenetic construction’ of desalination plants in Spain and their negative impact on the environment and climate change. According to the study Spain has one of the largest capacities for desalination but it has warned that this is not the best way of guaranteeing the supply of fresh water. The director of the World Fresh Water Programme for the WWF, Jamie Pittock highlighted this week that desalination is a very expensive form of obtaining fresh water and uses a high amount of energy to do so therefore contributing to the greenhouse effect. Furthermore he claims it is destroying the coastline. The WWF has warned that many countries with water shortages are looking to desalination as a solution to their problems. Among those countries are Australia, the Middle East, the US, Spain and the UK as well as India and China. In all of these countries there are densely populated areas with little or no natural fresh water supplies.The present Spanish government proposed the construction of desalination plants as a way of tackling the country's water shortage when it cancelled the contraversial Ebro project planned by the previous government and intended to divert fresh water from northern river supplies to other parts of the country.

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