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Filters

Poseidon Water employees stand between rows of reverse osmosis filters at the Western Hemisphere's largest seawater desalination plant, currently under construction in Carlsbad, California.

Desalination is an expensive energy hog, but improvements are on the way

Environment

Desalination — taking the salt out of seawater so humans can drink it — is becoming more important as the Earth warms and drinking water gets more scarce, but it’s not a cheap or simple process. Here are some ways it might get more affordable and environmentally friendly.

A group of people gather at a coffee shop in Shanghai to learn how to put together simple air filters with a fan and velcro.

If you can’t afford an expensive air filter to deal with the smog in China, you can build a DIY model

Business, Economics and Jobs
The World

Low Salt Water with Low Energy Technology

The World

Low Salt Water with Low Energy Technology

The World

Filtering Seawater

The World

Health Note/Fashionable Filters

Living on Earth’s Diane Toomey reports on a cheap and simple method to filter out cholera bacteria from contaminated water.

The World

Filtering Seawater

Shrinking supplies of fresh water combined with new advances in technology are making California officials take another look at seawater desalination. Erik Anderson reports from KPBS in San Diego.

The World

Desalinization Plant Proposed in Florida

The area around Tampa, Florida is running out of water. So authorities are turning to an unconventional solution: they want to build a seawater desalination plant on the edge of Tampa Bay. As Tanya Ott reports, critics of the plan say it substitutes one environmental problem for another.