Can solar-powered art save Calif. from drought?

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California’s Santa Monica is home to more than three miles of beaches and fresh breeze from the Pacific, and is one of National Geographic’s top 10 beach cities in the world. Santa Monica Beachboasts more than 300 days of sunshine a year, but it has a striking shortage of a critical resource: drinking water.

Now in its fifth year of drought, California has made water conservation a state policy and priority, and its governor is issuing executive orders to continue saving water, with droughts expected to be more frequent and persistent due to climate change.

This drought-stricken area is hosting this year the biennial Land Art Generator Initiative, where engineers and designers submit projects for large-scale art installation projects for the Santa Monica Pier that would generate clean energy and/or drinking water. Winning submissions will be announced in October, with the first-place submission getting US$15,000 and the second-placed project receiving US$4,000.

Winning the contest does not necessarily mean the awarded installation will be built, and the project would require more than just the prize money to complete and implement. It would likely require years of designing, construction, permits, and state and local county collaboration and regulation.

Nevertheless, this year’s entries include several ambitious artwork/power plant projects for desalinating water using solar and/or tidal wave power.

One short-listed submission aims to make sea water drinkable, called The Pipe. The Pipe is a 2,000-foot-long floating tube covered with solar panels that would have annual capacity of 10,000 MWh that would generate 4.5 billion liters of drinking water. That’s some 40% of the average daily usage of Santa Monica residents, according to Business Insider.

That’s also more than the amount of water that Santa Monica is importing to meet demand.

The Pipe proposes to use solar-generated energy to pump seawater and filtrate it via an electromagnetic field that removes the salt. The floating device is also planned to welcome tourists on board, and ticket sales could be used to pay for the construction.

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