Sustainability Analysis: Adelaide Plant & UN Development Goal

This report examines the Adelaide Desalination Plant project and its contribution to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 6, which focuses on clean water and sanitation. Using Robert Gilman's definition of sustainability, the report identifies the systems and resources involved in the project, highlighting factors that contribute to its sustainability, such as the use of solar power, high operation frequency, recycling of process wastewater, and energy-efficient operations. The plant's design, which includes pre-treatment, reverse osmosis, and post-treatment stages, enables the removal of salts from seawater to produce clean drinking water. Although the plant currently operates at a fraction of its full capacity, it still significantly contributes to meeting the drinking water needs of Adelaide residents. The report concludes that the Adelaide Desalination Plant project is a viable initiative that should be encouraged to ensure the needs of current and future generations are met without overburdening the ecosystem.

ENGINEERING COMMUNICATION & CRITICAL THINKING
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Sustainability and sustainable development have gained a lot of interest in the recent past with
scholars, environmentalists, economists as well as the political class all drawn into the cycle of
taking part in ensuring sustainability in the various premises. In his words, Robert Gilman gives
sustainability a very broad scope as the capability of the society, ecosystem or any such system
that is ongoing to proceed to function even into the indefinite future without a force of decline
being introduced into such a system through overburdening or overloading of the critical
resources which the system depends. With reference to the society, such resource may include
fuels or topsoil, and could as well be social for example levels of education. They can also be
natural systems which could be absorbing waste Roberts, D. A., Johnston, E. L., & Knott, N. A.
(2010).
Borrowing from such a definition, it is not news that there are serious concerns with regards to
the sustainability of the human societies of today. This has been illustrated through numerous
examples but of greatest interests in the industrial sector. The industries rely massively on the
fossil fuels and the rate of industrialization remains on a sharp increase as if the developers are
making an assumption that the fossil fuel resources will remain to forever be cheaply available.
The very industries are associated with acid rains and increased levels of production of carbon
dioxide which significantly contributes to an increase in the levels of greenhouse effects
Ghaffour, N., Missimer, T. M., & Amy, G. L. (2013).
Such concerns have led to various developments that are aimed at achieving an ecosystem r
society that is supportive of the human health and can thrive even for the indefinite generations
to come. Sustainability is foster and guided by the sustainable development goals that are
outlined by the United Nations. One of such goals is clean water and sanitation which is
sustainable development goal number 6.

This project aims at delving into a project to establish how its design facilitates or comes with
challenges of sustainability and which aspects of the sustainable development goal number 6 that
the project achieves. Water is life; every human being needs water that is used for various
purposes ranging from domestic to industrial uses. The demand for water has been on the
increase in the recent past following the upsurge in the human population, threatening to put
even more burden on the available water resources.
Adelaide Desalination Plant Project, which is a project that involved the design, construction,
and operation besides maintenance of a 100GL per year reverse osmosis desalination plant, is
one such project that was established to facilitate the achievement of clean water and sanitation
as one of the sustainable development goals.
The design system of the plant works by removing desalinates or slats from the seawater through
the process of reverse osmosis. There are three distinct stages involved in the operation of the
plant:
Stage 1 is the pre-treatment stage in which the elimination of the particle or the non-dissolved
materials that come from the sea water occurs. There are three steps involved in the achievement
of the pre-treatment at the plant: removal of coarse solids which are larger than 3 mm through
the use of band screens after which the water is pumped into the plant, further filtration using
disc filters to eliminate materials that are larger than 0.1mm and then lastly the use of
ultrafiltration membranes which eliminate materials which are greater than 0.4 micros which
include bacteria and most of the viruses Cotruvo, J. (2010).
Stage 2 is the reverse osmosis stage that aids in the elimination of salts from the water. This is
achieved through pumping the water through a reverse osmosis system of a full two pass. The

water is passed through two distinct reverse osmosis membranes in which progressive removal
of dissolved salts occurs. At this stage, about 48.5% of the water that is fed into the pump comes
out with low concentrations of salts which is called permeate and the remaining water is
redirected to the sea as a saline concentrate Latteman, S. (2010).
The last stage which is stage 3 is the post-treatment stage that makes the water ready for
distribution. Permeate that is obtained from the reverse osmosis system is made stable and
chlorine and fluorine are added to make it ready for the process of distribution. The water is then
stored in 50 megaliter tanks which are on the site before it is taken to the Happy Valley Water
Treatment plant via a transfer pump station.
Among the factors that contribute to the sustainability of the project include the use of solar
power, high operation frequency, recycling of process wastewater and energy efficient
operations Paton, F. (2014). Among the critical criteria that has an impact on the energy efficient
operation include the recovery of energy from other streams of waste, the use of renewable
energy in the operation of the plant, the design of the process is done in such a way that it attains
optimal energy efficiency as well as the inclusion of energy efficient principles in the operation
of the plant such as solar passive design as well as natural ventilation Busch, M., Chu, R., &
Rosenberg, S. (2010). With regard to recycling wastewater, the captured particulate matter is
removed by the disc filters and the UF membranes through regular backwashing. The dirty water
is taken to the adjacent facility in which removal of the solids occurs a d the clarified seawater is
then recycled back to the UF system which reduces the requirements of uptake.
Adelaide Desalination Plant Project has a significant contribution to the achievement of the
sustainable development goals especially gal number 6 of clean water and sanitation. On full

operational capacity, the plant is capable of generating to the tune of 50% of the drinking water
for use in meeting the drinking water needs of the resident of Adelaide city. This is despite the
fact that the plant has remained to be operating under just about 10% of its capacity in order to
ensure it keeps functioning since 2012 Nair, S. (2014).
The project managed to generate 2% of the waster that was supplied in the state in 2017. From
thee statistics, it can be observed that Adelaide Desalination Plant Project takes part in meeting
the goals of clean water and sanitation, specifically the clean water aspect of it. This makes it a
viable project whose development and progress should be encouraged to ensure that the needs of
the current and the generation to come are fully catered for without depletion or overburdening
of the ecosystem Zhang, M. (2011). With the challenge of the plant operating at just about 10%
of the capacity, measures can be put in place so as to improve the capacity of the system to the
maximum as this would see an increased production of clean water and hence meet more
demand.

References
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