Self-reliance in water, the way to go

Chua Lee Hoong, The Straits Times, Asia News Network, Singapore

Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong's suggestion last Friday that the Republic should explore "a different approach" to its water supply sounded radical but, in reality, it was not.

Hints to that effect have been around for many years.

Back in 1985, the Public Utilities Board (PUB) was already studying the merits of desalination. Prohibitive costs kept the issue on the back burner for much of the next decade, but the flame never burnt really low.

"If we have to spend our reserves to create water for ourselves, we will do it," the then-National Development Minister Lim Hng Kiang declared in 1995.

By 1998, two sites at Tuas had been identified. Full-fledged desalination plants could be built here, with the assurance of protection from the Maritime and Port Authority against accidental oil spills.

Building of the plants was, however, put on hold as fast- evolving technology promised to bring newer and cheaper means of extracting drinking water from the sea soon.

In addition, the Government also decided to involve the private sector. Tenders were called this year to supply 136,000 cubic metres a day from 2005.

Together with the recovery of usable water from wastewater, alternative sources can account for as much as 25 percent of Singapore's water supply by 2010, the PUB has said.

Another measure the PUB is pursuing is increasing water catchment. Untapped potential remains, for instance, in new residential towns in the north east.

At present, storm-water ponds, reservoirs and catchment areas can collect about 680,000 cubic metres of rainwater daily, which is 57 percent of daily consumption needs of about 1.2 million cubic metres. Once catchment is increased, Singapore will need to buy less from Malaysia.

Two reasons underpin Singapore's push for self-reliance in water. One is that it is the logical way to go, for both strategic and diplomatic reasons.

It is not healthy, as Goh said, to "always have Damocles' sword hanging over our heads", or to be "always locked in dispute" with Malaysia. "It prevents us from cooperating in strategic areas of mutual benefit," he noted.

To give an additional spin to the argument, it could even be said that Johor pushed first for self-reliance, when it decided to build its own water-treatment plant at Kota Tinggi.

That plant will be ready next year and, already, Johor authorities have said they intend to stop buying treated water from Singapore.

The bigger reason for Singapore's move towards self-reliance, however, is the simple fact that it is an increasingly viable option, as the cost of alternative water sources has plummeted in recent years.

From Florida to Egypt to Australia, governments are turning to technology to extract water from non-conventional sources. In some countries, they are already the norm rather than the exception.

There are an estimated 15,000 desalination plants in the Gulf states, producing seven billion gallons of water daily. Saudi Arabia alone expects to spend US$50 billion (S$92 billion) on new plants in the next 20 years, its Saline Water Conversion Corporation said last year.

Israel is planning to produce 200 million cubic metres of desalinated water a day from 2004. A plant is today being built at the port city of Ashkelon that will have a capacity of 100 million cubic metres a day. The contractor is the French-Israeli VID desalination group, comprising Vivendi, Israel Chemicals, Elran Investments and the Dankner group.

Today's desalination technology relies less on expensive steam turbines to boil and distil seawater, and more on synthetic membranes in a pressure-driven reverse osmosis process that uses half as much power.

The addition of nano-filtration is the latest trend in improving desalination and is being pioneered by Saline Water Conversion Corporation and Egypt's Leading Edge Technologies, the Membrane and Separation Technology News magazine reported in its February issue this year.

The greatest interest at the moment is, however, being focused on hybrid desalting systems that combine power generation with the best features of seawater distillation and reverse osmosis.

San Diego County in California is looking into such a hybrid plant to add 50 million gallons per day to its water supply -- enough to meet the needs of 100,000 households.

Many communities in Florida, which has been experiencing severe droughts, are also looking to desalination as an alternative, and more reliable, source of water.

Tampa Bay is building the world's largest membrane-based desalination plant, to be ready by the end of this year. It promises water costing just US$1.75 per thousand gallons, or 39 U.S. cents per cubic metre.

Officials from both Singapore and Australia are watching the plant's progress with interest because of its low cost, made possible partly by its estuarine waters.

Tampa Bay's cost is higher than PUB's current water costs, but still a third lower than the latter's selling price.

According to the PUB's annual report for 2000, the cost of water sold here was 54 cents per cubic metre that year. This is sold at $1.17 per cubic metre, not including a 30-percent conservation tax.

Spurred by market demand, and leveraging on economies of scale, desalination promises to be the wave of the future.

The New York Times said on June 23 last year: "It is beginning to look like an ideal growth industry: The raw material is abundant, and demand for the finished product is almost unquenchable."

Set against such a backdrop, PM Goh's announcement last Friday that Singapore plans to rely less on Malaysia for water is simply a reflection of a worldwide trend towards alternative sources of water supply.

Once this thorn in bilateral relations is removed, who knows -- perhaps the two countries might work together on more mutually-beneficial projects. Desalination, perhaps? After all, Malaysia, too, suffers from water shortages now and then.