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Texas: From Shale Boom to Water Revolution

by James Stafford of






A Water Revolution Takes Root

Texas barely survived a seven-year drought in the 1950s, when 100,000 farms and ranches were lost, and a recent study by a NASA scientist says there is a good chance Texas may see something much worse than this as global warming leads to long-term drying in the west. This time it could be a mega-drought—the worst in 1000 years—that could last for decades.




Salttech’s DyVaR:
Dynamic Vapor Recovery
DyVaR is a modular system comprising small vessels designated “Dynamic Vapor Recovery units” or “DyVaR Units”. These devices consist of non-metallic components that are highly modular in design. Any user-desired capacity and rate of desalination is possible with DyVaR, according to Salttech. Individual DyVaR units will treat 50 liters/hour (or 7.5 bbl/day), reaching capacities of up to 10s of m3/hr (or 1,000s of bbl/day).
The 3D vapor recovery process combines tangential forces exceeding 100G with moderate temperature and pressures, thus enabling desalination with very efficient operating statistics. The DyVaR 3D design concept is optimized to allow for maximum crystallization without scaling or fouling.
The DyVaR ZLD process combines all of the features and benefits of DyVaR’s standard technology and adds solids separation. The integrated SDU (Solids Discharge Unit) equipment is a part of the DyVaR ZLD process facilitating the separation of solid salts from the system.
The DyVaR ZLD technology can recover up to 97% clean water from any high chloride water containing dissolved salts and other solids and contaminants of up to and over 300,000 parts per million including frack flowback, oilfield produced water, and ocean water and its reverse osmosis concentrated brine reject. The remaining 3+% is discharged in the form of solid salts and minerals.
Most ocean water desalination systems produce 35% fresh water and 65% waste stream of highly concentrated brine liquid that ends up being discharged into the local waterways and oceans potentially creating harmful effects on the ecosystems.





For municipalities and local governments—particularly in Texas during this time of unprecedented drought—it means future water security by accessing new sources that were previously unusable just below the Earth’s surface.

For the ecosystem, it means creative conservation.



Additionally, whereas your typical desalination plant returns only about 35% of the water, Saltech technology can return 97%—and this is a key factor in the economics and environmentally positive attributes of the technology.







That came from left field!

Amongst umpteen other implications, it throws a new light on fracking.


Good technology. Makes me wonder what Victoria,Australia recently bought and then mothballed because they found conservation was cheaper than desalination.

"exclude the need to dispose of the concentrated brine reject into local waterways and oceans": What do they do with the solids if not dump in the ocean?


Priority should be given to supply lower cost potable-fresh water for humans, animals, plants and agriculture.

Fracking needs should be far lower in the essential list.



Conservation is cheaper than desalination, but you can't get Texans to conserve squat so they HAVE to desalinate.

Nick Lyons

Conservation is cheaper than desal, but you do reach a point of diminishing returns. Here in our little coastal CA town, we have cut back household water usage by 35-40%. This means essentially no landscape watering, limited toilet flushing, abbreviated showers, re-use of dishwater, etc. etc. Our town has recently installed and commissioned a small desal/water purification plant that sources its water from a brackish water aquifer.

Recycling of wastewater is also cheaper than desal, since it is less salty--the problem is that toilet-to-faucet systems are not legal in California unless the treated water is put back into an aquifer before you pump it out again downstream. This silliness needs to change, since you just end up having to treat the water yet again once you pump it out.


DaveJ, Actually $2/barrel is about 10 times more expensive than water from Yarra Valley water which supplies Melbourne. We pay around $2/kilolitre and 1 barrel = 0.119 kilolitres. I guess our desalination plant produces water at a cost of <$3 kilolitre, since our water has the cost of repaying the desal plant built in.

So my guess is that this technology is not cost effective at large scale.


When recycling is 30 to 50 cents per barrel this technology can hardly be considered economical. The throughput is no where near the requirement for 25 to 50 thousands of barrels per day needed.





Texas isn't the only state in desperate need of water. Thanks to global warming/climate change the whole southwest has been hit by a multi-year drought. California has about one year of water left. Now if we could get a certain Senator from Oklahoma to stop going out of state to throw snowballs...


The article states "...but the Dutch version comes in at around $1.50-$2.00 per barrel, or approximately $1,100-$1,350 per acre-foot of water." If it's the low estimate of $1.50/bbl (42 gal), then that's $0.0357142/gal. An acre foot is 325,841.429 gal, so that would be $11,637.52/acre foot, or roughly 10x what is stated above. Am I missing something here?


Wouldn't it be cheaper to capture fresh water from rivers, below it flows out at sea, and distribute it to dry areas with low cost long lasting re-enforced plastic large diameter pipelines?



It depends on the distance, and on whether or not the pipe has to cross State lines. If it does a new level of politics are involved and that always ups the cost.


Considering the huge volume of fresh water flowing out of the Mississippi river, one dozen large East-West pipelines could bring badly needed fresh water to the South, South-Mid West and Western States.

A few solar energy stations could supply enough clean energy for the pumping stations.

A tailor-made project for the Army Eng. Corp (between Oil Wars)


No, providing cheap water to people would just encourage people to waste it. It must be priced at a level at which people aren't willing to let it run down the drain while they answer the phone or check their email.

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