40 PERSPECTIVES ON BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS | VOL 42 | 2024 semiporous membranes at extreme pressures that immobilize dissolved salt particles and grit as water molecules continue to flow and eliminate the need to control water phase changes. However, depending on plant location and size, the chosen desalination method may still vary (El-Ghzizel et al., 2021). Morocco’s approach Desalination processes have been used to treat seawater in Morocco since 1995, with the construction of a plant in Laayoune. That technology, however, was introduced to Morocco in 1975, when a small 75-m3/day plant was built in Tarfaya to treat brackish groundwater. Within the past decade, Morocco’s application of seawater desalination has grown and advanced, driven by reductions in annual dam water supply yields and the membrane technology improvements (El-Ghzizel et al., 2021). Morocco’s investment in desalination solutions to address the country’s water scarcity crisis is cultivated under the National Priority Program for Drinking Water and Irrigation that calls for the construction of at least 20 seawater desalination plants across the country by 2030. As of 2023, the country has implemented nine of these desalination plants (Magoum, 2023). The capacity of each plant ranges, with the largest producing 75M m3 annually in Agadir (Meerganz von Medeazza, 2004). Combined, operating desalination plants supply up to 147M m3 of treated water annually. Over the course of 2023, an additional three plants broke ground for construction along the coasts of El Jadida, Safi, and the Oriental region to increase annual production volumes by at least another 150M m3. Ultimately, Morocco aims to add a total of 1B m3 to the national water supply annually through desalination plants (Magoum, 2023). Such an increase in volume will add around 27 m3/capita/ year to the water supply. Beyond the apparent increase in volume of treated water Morocco’s growing number of desalination plants will produce, their implementation introduces a steadier supply of water to the country’s remote regions. In the southern region of Laayoune, Moroccans have followed centuries-old practices to collect and store infrequent rainwater, one of the limited sources of water in the area. Local homes have underground storage tanks, collect water from inconsistent stream flows, and rely on trucked water to supplement fluctuations. Because these homes are connected to the consistent stream of new desalination plants, the pressure to rely on storage methods has dissipated (Meerganz von Medeazza, 2004). Foreseen drawbacks The large-scale implementation of desalination plants presents great promise in addressing Morocco’s water scarcity crisis. Alongside that potential lie concerns about resultant challenges. Unfortunately, increasing the supply and consistency of water in Morocco results in deterioration of surrounding marine ecosystems, heightened water prices, and expanded consumption of nonrenewable resources. In addition to the treated water, desalination processes produce a concentrated stream of salts and contaminants removed during treatment. These streams of waste, referred to as brine, are diluted and discharged into surrounding coastal waters. Brine’s high concentration of salt and raised temperature increase the ambient temperature and salinity within a few hundred meters of the discharge point. The alterations in the surrounding ecosystems’ ambient conditions have been found to affect the local marine environments and the smaller resident organisms. For example, several monitoring studies determined that seagrass, an important plant in providing habitats, food, and sediment stabilization, undergoes reductions in growth, photosynthetic, and survival rates from salinity-induced osmotic stress. Because brine disturbs the development of smaller organisms, the overall ecosystem will undergo significant changes, resulting in damaged biodiversity, leading to additional challenges (Petersen et al., 2018). Beyond the negative environmental impacts, desalination solutions have raised concerns regarding their large consumption of energy, hence, economic costs. Membrane technologies are categorized as highly intensive energy processes. The theoretical energy consumption for reverse osmosis treatment is 0.7 kWh/m3. However, actual consumption is dependent on plant specifications, and the average desalination plant utilizes up to 5 kWh/m3 (Meerganz von Medeazza, 2004). This level is approximately five times the 2014 determined energy intensity required to carry out public water services in the United States and, upon completion of Morocco’s desalination plants, will amount to almost 17% of the country’s annual energy consumption (World Data, 2024; Jones & Sowby, 2014). Such high energy usage for desalination processes connects to a broader issue: limiting fossil fuel usage. Thus, Morocco has focused on coupling the desalination plant implementation with renewable energy infrastructure installation. While renewable energy is seemingly a promising solution to reducing fossil fuels and reaping desired environmental benefits, renewable energy options hold lower return-on-energy input values
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