| Yes, but out past the kelp beds and sea otters it's all flat sand until it hits the Monterey Bay canyon. The Bay is a marine sanctuary so we'd probably put the desal plant up the Coast on open ocean to serve mostly San Francisco, which now gets it's water from the Sierras. That may not last. Also interesting to me is that they turned the local fossil fuel electric plant that I grew up with into a giant battery: Moss Landing Battery Storage Project https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/projects/moss-landing/ A few decades ago we lost power for a few days when the ELF (Earth Liberation Front) cut a main power line from Moss Landing to Santa Cruz. edit: I can't find the story and it wasn't the ELF so it must have been a sister group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Earth_Liberation_F... Edit: The first link you shared says it's historically been a concern but seems to dismiss the concern by saying it's all in where you put the plant and how you do the discharge, which is obvious: Environmental impacts associated with concentrated discharge have historically been considered as a major environmental concern to marine life with desalination plants. The environmental impact of desalination plants will vary depending on several factors: i. The location of desalination plant. ii. The location of the inlet and outlet. iii. The method used in the desalination facility and the outlet (water channel and pipeline). The second link says nothing was harmed but regulation limits were exceeded, so they need to be considerate of that concern: The bad news in the study is that the salinity level in the discharge zone exceeded the permitted level, and the salinity plume extended much farther offshore than permitted under the California Ocean Plan. Senior author Adina Paytan, a research professor in the Institute of Marine Sciences at UC Santa Cruz, said the study provides valuable information for planners considering where to locate future desalination plants and what discharge technologies to use. |