Summary

• Objects (1 modified, 1 added, 0 removed)
  • Caselist.RoundClass[11]
  • Caselist.CitesClass[9]

Details

Caselist.RoundClass[11]

EntryDate

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1		-2016-09-16 20:58:42.427
	1	+2016-09-16 20:58:42.0

Caselist.CitesClass[9]

Cites

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	1	+Nuclear power is key to stable desalinization – demand is high and rising
	2	+IAEA 15 ~-~- widely known as the world's "Atoms for Peace" organization within the United Nations family. Set up in 1957 as the world's centre for cooperation in the nuclear field, the Agency works with its Member States and multiple partners worldwide to promote the safe, secure and peaceful use of nuclear technologies, “New Technologies for Seawater Desalination Using Nuclear Energy,” IEAE TecDoc Series, 2015
	3	+ It is anticipated that by 2025, 33 of the world population, or more than 1.8 billion people, will live in countries or regions without adequate supplies of water unless new desalination plants become operational. In many areas, the rate of water usage already exceeds the rate of replenishment. Nuclear reactors have already been used for desalination on relatively small-scale projects. In total, more than 150 reactor-years of operating experience with nuclear desalination has been accumulated worldwide. Eight nuclear reactors coupled to desalination projects are currently in operation in Japan. India commissioned the ND demonstration project in the year 2008 and the plant has been in continuous operation supplying demineralised (DM) quality water to the nuclear power plant and potable quality to the reservoir. Pakistan has launched a similar project in 2010. However, the great majority of the more than 7500 desalination plants in operation worldwide today use fossil fuels with the attendant emission of carbon dioxide and other GHG. Increasing the use of fossil fuels for energy-intensive processes such as large-scale desalination plants is not a sustainable long-term option in view of the associated environmental impacts. Thus, the main energy sources for future desalination are nuclear power reactors and renewable energy sources such as solar, hydro, or wind, but only nuclear reactors are capable of delivering the copious quantities of energy required for large-scale desalination projects. Algeria is participating in an IAEA’s CRP in the subject related to “New technologies for seawater desalination using nuclear energy’’ with a project entitled “Optimization of coupling nuclear reactors and desalination systems for an Algerian site Skikda”. This project is a contribution to the IAEA CRP to enrich the economic data corresponding to the choice of technical and economical options for coupling nuclear reactors and desalination systems for specific sites in the Mediterranean region
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	5	+Desalination is k2 provide for the world’s growing water demands
	6	+Johnston ’15 (Chris, mAY 27TH, staffwriter the guardian on global issues, “Desalination: the quest to quench the world's thirst for water”, Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/may/27/desalination-quest-quench-worlds-thirst-water~-~-ghs//sk)
	7	+The average Briton uses 150 litres of water a day; the average American gets through 570 litres of the stuff. The world is getting thirstier and the global demand for fresh water is rising by 640bn litres a year.¶ Population growth is one factor, not only the need for drinking water and sanitation but also the need to produce more food. Agriculture accounts for 70 of water use.¶ Even the push for biofuels to reduce consumption of fossil fuels has an unexpected consequence: between 1,000 and 4,000 litres of water are needed to produce just one litre of biofuel.¶ While reducing consumption is one way of helping to address the water crisis on an individual level, it is far from the complete solution. Something on a larger scale is also needed: desalination.¶ As climate change makes rainfall less predictable and droughts more common, a growing number of countries are turning to desalination. The term is used to refer to removing salt from both seawater and subterranean “brackish” water, as well as the treatment of waste water (aka sewerage) to make it drinkable.¶ Some environmentalists have long opposed desalination because of the energy the process demands, as well as other considerations such as the impact of sucking in large quantities of seawater from the ocean.¶ But technological advances in recent years have altered the equation. The most common form of desalination is reverse osmosis; it involves forcing water through cartridges that contain thin-film composite polyamide membranes, which trap salt and other impurities but allow the fresh water through.¶ Randy Truby, comptroller of the International Desalination Association, says that advances in manufacturing processes have allowed 450 sq ft of membrane to be crammed into each cartridge, compared with 300 sq ft when they first came on the market. But treating seawater still requires pressure of about 80 bar, 40 times more than car tyres. That is why treating seawater is more energy-intensive than brackish or waste water, which require less force.¶ The location of a seawater desalination plant also makes a difference, Truby adds: while the salt content of water off the coast of California is about 34,000 parts per million, the figure in the Middle East is more like 40,000.¶ No alternative¶ Saudi Arabia is the country that relies most on desalination – mostly of seawater. The US is in second place. It uses mainly brackish and waste water although later this year it will open one of the world’s largest seawater desalination plants in Carlsbad, San Diego.¶ Truby says: “In many places there is no alternative – certainly the Middle East and places like Singapore, the Canary Islands and the Caribbean have to look to the sea. Those that have a choice, like Europe and the US, China, Japan, will try conservation and re-use and brackish treatment and use seawater desalination as a way to top-up and provide some drought-proofing.”¶ The desalination plant in Carlsbad will use the reverse osmosis process to produce fresh water. Photograph: Gregory Bull/AP¶ Desalination remains about twice as expensive as treating rainwater or waste water, at about $3 (£1.95) per cubic metre, but the economics depend on a number of variables, explains Professor Raphael Semiat of Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology, in Haifa.¶ He says 3.5 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity are needed to desalinate 1 cubic metre of seawater – 1.3kWh to pump seawater to the plant and 2.2kWh for the reverse osmosis process.¶ Pumping a cubic metre of fresh water distances of more than 200km requires more energy than desalinating the same amount of seawater, according to Semiat. In addition, many plants produce the bulk of their water at night when there is less demand for electricity, and thus utilise power that would otherwise go to waste.¶ Philip Davies, reader in mechanical engineering and design at Aston University in Birmingham, argues that desalination is not an expensive way of producing drinking water.¶ He adds: “The trouble is most distribution systems don’t allow us to distinguish between drinking water or water used for sanitation. It’s also very difficult to put differential costing on water to reflect merits of its use, because at the end of the day you’ve got to make water affordable to everybody. There are much cheaper ways to economise on water than desalination … we should be re-using water for sanitation or irrigation.”¶ Davies points out that reverse osmosis is not ideal for developing countries because the maintenance of the membranes required to keep them running effectively is more problematic in a country like India.¶ Most desalination on the subcontinent is of brackish water that contains high levels of impurities, meaning the membranes can easily become clogged: “They are just filters and they get blocked up like anything else unless you have the right sort of pre-treatment.”¶ The expense of operating a desalination plant is another issue in developing countries. While NGOs can provide seed funding, they are less able to cover running costs.¶ One solution could be a micro-enterprise project Davies has been involved with near Jodhpur in India. As well as producing desalinated water, it generates incomes from farmers who pay to have their seeds pressed to produce castor oil, and provides refrigeration for ripening bananas.¶ There is also a growing effort to reduce the environmental impact of desalinating brackish water. The salt recovery rate is typically about 50, meaning that the waste salty brine is often injected back into the ground in places such as India and Pakistan.¶ Saltwater greenhouses¶ Such a strategy is not sustainable because it increases the salinity of soil or rivers further downstream. Davies says increasing the amount of salt being removed to between 70 and 90 solves that problem, but requires more energy – although he has devised a system of solar power to keep usage to a minimum.¶ The academic is also involved in a project in Somaliland, which faces the twin challenges of rapid population growth and limited water resources. It is one area using seawater greenhouses, which produce water for irrigation by pumping seawater into the greenhouse and piping it over honeycomb cardboard pads that provide a large area for evaporative cooling.¶ According to Charlie Paton, who founded Seawater Greenhouse Ltd two decades ago, a seawater greenhouse cools the air by up to 15 degrees and increases humidity to as much as 90 even in some of the world’s most arid places. Davies says they can reduce the amount of water needed to produce a kilogram of produce from hundreds to tens of litres.¶ Researchers continue to seek to improve the technology behind reverse osmosis. Adel Sharif, professor of water engineering and process innovation at the University of Surrey, co-developed a new form of desalination called manipulated osmosis in 2003.¶ Thames Water’s desalination plant at Beckton in east London can produce 150m litres of water a day. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images¶ He says the technique helps to remove impurities such as limescale before the reverse osmosis process, which reduces the amount of energy needed by as much as 30, as well as increasing the lifespan of the membranes and reducing maintenance costs.¶ The first plant using manipulated osmosis began operating in Gibraltar in March 2009. A second opened in Oman later that year, and another opened in 2010. The company founded by Sharif to commercialise the technology, Modern Water, is listed on the AIM stock market in London, but he admits it has struggled to win contracts and may end up being bought by a larger desalination player.¶ Many desalination companies are eyeing China, which has just 7 of the world’s freshwater but a fifth of its population. About 400 cities face serious water shortages and Beijing aims to quadruple its seawater desalination capacity to 3.6bn litres a day by 2020.¶ Even London now has a seawater desalination plant. The city and the southeast of England is a “water-stressed area”, says Simon Earl, head of water production for Thames Water. However, the plant is not routinely used and is there “in case of severe drought”, like the one that occurred in 2011 and 2012 after two dry winters.¶ Surprisingly, there is no wastewater recycling in London, although Earl says building that capacity – or a new reservoir or pumping water from other parts of Britain – are options for coping with rising demand.¶ As the world’s population continues to rise, the pressure on water resources are only going to increase. It is yet to be seen whether technological advances will be able to meet the demand.
	8	+Water shortages in developing countries reinforces poverty, famine, and structural violence – also independently the worse impact because it prevents any further progress
	9	+Cribb 10 (Julian Cribb is a Fellow of the Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering. He is former Director, National Awareness for CSIRO and Science Editor of The Australian newspaper. He was national foundation president of the Australian Science Communicators (ASC), president of the National Rural and Resources Press Club, a member of CSIRO advisory committees for agriculture, fisheries and entomology. He has served as a Director of the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), the Crawford Fund, the Secretariat for International Landcare, CSIRO Publishing, the Australian Minerals and Energy Environment Foundation and the National Science and Technology Centre, Questacon. He was the creator of “Future Harvest” the global public awareness campaign for the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). Cribb, Julian. “Coming Famine : The Global Food Crisis and What We Can Do to Avoid It.” Berkeley, CA, USA: University of California Press, 2010. 15-6. ebrary collections. Ghs-kw)
	10	+Some observers also claim a link between food insecurity and terrorism, pointing out that hungry countries are among those most likely to furnish terrorism recruits. In 2002, heads of state from fifty countries met at a development summit in Mexico where they discussed the role of poverty and hunger as a breeding ground for terrorism. “No-one in this world can feel comfortable or safe while so many are suffering and deprived,” UN secretary general Kofi Annan told them. The president of the UN General Assembly, Han Seung-Soo, added that the world’s poorest countries were a breeding ground for violence and despair. The Peruvian president Alejandro Toledo added, “To speak of development is to speak also of a strong and determined fight against terrorism.” 10 Around the world many guerrilla and insurgent causes—such as Shining Path, the Tamil Tigers, and Abu Sayyaf—have claimed injustice in land ownership and use as one of their motivating causes. A lack of water is a key factor in encouraging terrorism. Mona El Kody, the chair of the National Water Research Unit in Egypt told the Third World Water Forum that living without an adequate level of access to water created a “non-human environment” that led to frustration, and from there to terrorism. “A non-human environment is the worst experience people can live with, with no clean water, no sanitation,” she said, adding that this problem was at its most acute in the Middle East, where 1 percent of the world’s freshwater is shared by 5 percent of the world’s population. Ms. El Kody added that inadequate water resources had the additive effect of reducing farming and food production, thereby increasing poverty—another factor that can lead to terrorism. 11 Most of the “new” conflicts are to be found in Africa, the Middle East, and parts of Asia—the result of a cycle of constant famine, deprivation, and periodic violence, leading in inevitable sequence to worse hunger, greater deprivation, and more vicious fighting. Food and economic insecurity and natural resource scarcities . . . can be major sources of conflict. When politically dominant groups seize land and food resources, deny access to other culturally or economically marginalized groups, and cause hunger and scarcities, violence often flares. In Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Sudan, food crises resulting from drought and mismanagement of agriculture and relief and development aid led to rebellion and government collapse, followed by even greater food shortfalls in ensuing years of conflict. Denial of the right to food has been linked to uprisings and civil war in Central America and Mexico. Food insecurity is also integral to civil conflicts in Asia. Competition for resources has generated cycles of hunger and hopelessness that have bred violence in Sri Lanka as well as Rwanda. 12 These afflicted regions are generally places disconnected from the global economic mainstream, where strong-man governments arise and just as quickly crumble, having only political quicksand on which to build a foundation for stability and progress. This is vital to an understanding of what is going wrong with global food production: in nearly all these countries, food is of the first importance, and only after you have enough food can you form a government stable enough to deliver water, health care, education, opportunity for women, justice, and economic development. By neglecting or reducing support for basic food production— as many have during the past twenty-five years—in order to spread aid across these equally deserving causes, the world’s aid donors may unintentionally have laid the foundation for future government failure and conflict.

EntryDate

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	1	+2016-09-16 20:58:43.702

Judge

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	1	+Panel

Opponent

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	1	+Kinkaid JY

ParentRound

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	1	+11

Round

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	1	+6

Team

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	1	+Harvard Westlake Engel Neg

Title

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	1	+SEPT-OCT - DA - Desalinization

Tournament

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	1	+Greenhill Round Robin