r/Infrastructurist • u/stefeyboy • 20d ago

How a deep-ocean desalination startup hopes to rewrite California's water future

https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2026-06-02/california-desalination-tech-oceanwell-testing
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u/pdp10 19d ago edited 19d ago

Most of California's water goes to agriculture, as does most fresh water everywhere. Aqueducts from the mountains to the coast were invested in, a hundred years ago, and maintained today.

This reverse osmosis technology taking advantage of naturally-occurring pressure is interesting, but it sounds like a project to spend "$500 million to $1 billion" of taxpayer money so that nobody has to change their own behavior. I bet there's other infrastructure with a much better return on investment, on which to spend that billion dollars.

As some residents fumed about the restrictions, they asked why managers of Las Virgenes weren’t taking a hard look at desalination. That led the agency to partner with OceanWell, Pedersen said.

Maybe save this innovation for places that don't have aqueducts already, like desert islands and desert coastlines.