Environmental Footprints, Economics, and Sustainability of Solar Thermal Desalination Systems
摘要
Solar energy is freely available in nature. However, in order to utilize it for desalination or wastewater treatment proper systems needs to be designed, fabricated and installed which requires significant cash investment. They can be accepted by the general public only if they are economical in comparison to the currently available commercial conventional fossil fuel based systems. Environmental footprints refer to the impacts caused by an activity on the environment. During development, deployment and operation of solar thermal desalination/wastewater treatment systems there may be certain positive impacts and adverse impacts on the environment which decides the sustainability of the developed systems. Step by step by procedure to assess the economics, environmental impacts and sustainability of solar thermal desalination systems have been presented. In addition, comparison of various solar thermal desalination systems based on economics, and sustainability has also been carried out.