Desalination gets a boost in Texas

The governor of Texas has announced funding for a new research center for desalination technology in the state, with the University of Texas at El Paso to lead the program that could lead to commercial ventures in the industry.

The $6 million Center for Inland Desalination Systems is expected to open in 2010 and use existing research produced at the university and at El Paso's existing desalination plant, one of the world's largest inland desalination facilities.

"It is entirely fitting for a school with such a strong emphasis on science, technology and engineering to be an incubator for exciting new technologies like those we’re discussing today," said Gov. Rick Perry in a speech announcing the funding.

"In a city that only gets a little more than eight inches of rain a year, it is also appropriate that the technologies in question are related to the production of water."

The state's Emerging Technology Fund is putting up $2 million for the new center, with the grant to be matched with $2 million from the University of Texas at El Paso, or UTEP, and the University of Texas System. UTEP plans to raise another $2 million in sponsored research from industry partners.

The university will team up on the research with El Paso Water Utilities and the U.S. Army, joint owners of the El Paso desalination plant.

The reverse osmosis facility, which produces 27.5 million galllons of potable water per day, serves El Paso and the adjacent Ft. Bliss, a 1.2 million acre Army base. The utility says the plant uses a previously unusable brackish groundwater supply from the Hueco Bolson aquifer.

"Some have estimated that our state's population will double over the next 60 years," said the governor. "According to the Texas Water Development Board, that growth will cause a 27 percent increase in water demand."

"Unfortunately, unless we pursue options other than our existing sources, we will have a 40 percent shortfall in supply by the year 2060." Perry said in 2002, he directed the Water Development Board to get the state moving on seawater desalination.

Before the markets tumbled, San Leandro, Calif.-based Energy Recovery (Nasdaq: ERII), which makes energy recovery products and technology for desalination, had one of the few successful cleantech initial public offerings earlier this year.

The company made its debut on the public markets at the beginning of July, pricing its initial public offering of 14 million shares at $8.50 per share (see Energy Recovery prices IPO near top of range). In August, Energy Recovery announced its third desalination contract since it started trading on the Nasdaq (see Energy Recovery scores another desal contract).

The new desalination research center in Texas will be housed in UTEP's planned 85,000 square foot engineering and science building. Heading up the research center will be Tom Davis, who's coming over from the University of South Carolina where he's a research professor of chemical engineering at USC's College of Engineering and Computing.

Davis has already had a hand in the technology commercialization game. He's the founder of South Carolina-based ZDD, which licensed its zero discharge desalination technology to Midland, Mich.'s Dow Chemical (NYSE: DOW) in 2006.

The ZDD process was designed to enable water treatment facilities to recover potentially saleable salts and greater amounts of pure filtered water. The technology could also minimizes or eliminate the production of concentrated brine, which Dow said represents a substantial cost associated with water treatment, particularly in inland locations.

"As our economy works through this rough patch, I believe that companies will continue to seek their fortune in Texas, taking advantage of our favorable taxes, our sensible legal system and reasonable regulatory climate, to continue to pursue their dreams," said Gov. Perry.

"When they get here, they will need the water that is being purified in this town, the spin-off technologies created by this collaboration, and the collective brainpower of our state that is enhanced every time we do one of these deals."