In sci.skeptic Martin Brown wrote:
[...]
Desalination is a relatively expensive energy intensive process unless
you can harness the sun to do it for nothing.
How much does your desalinated water cost?

The estimate for running cost is between .50 and .80 dollars per kilolitre.
What that will turn into before it hits households is another matter.

My water bill (I still get a few kL pa from the mains because it's
mandatory) is 1.25 to 1.53 dollars per kL. And that's for "cheap" water
from the catchments. So what the market asks is maybe not a small
multiple of the running cost.

My bill, BTW, is 93% "handling charges". The actual water and drainage
is only 7% of the annual cost. Before the water was privatised I paid
nothing for mains water. My usage was so low it cost the govt more
to read the meter and send a bill out every quarter than it was worth.
But water companies are apparenrtly a bit like banks.

In Melbourne we have yet to see a desal plant finished and in production.
The market is bound to change it's "mind" between now and then.

--
R Kym Horsell

If your ideas are any good you'll have to ram them down people's throats.
-- Howard Aiken