The document discusses potential solutions to California's growing water crisis over the next decade as the state's population increases substantially. It outlines customer requirements for a new water system, including that it must be environmentally friendly, economically viable, energy efficient, positively received, and produce high quality water. Engineering specifications are proposed that correspond to the customer requirements, such as the system using renewable energy for 80% of its power and producing at least 35,500 acre-feet of water per day. Key factors in selecting a design are identified as the energy source, water storage capacity, and system location based on their influence on important customer needs.

1. -523875-409575Within the next decade it’s expected that California will not be able to support its growing population in the regions around its major cities. As design engineers it’s our job to find solutions that can effectively reduce the consumption of water and/or find new methods to increase its supply. University at BuffaloMAE 415Kemper LewisFall 2010Michael Tasevski, Brian Ivancic, David Pels, Jeff Scipioni, Chris Sudek, Justin Achard 2010California Water Crisis<br />Table of Contents TOC \o \"
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\h \z \u Problem Statement PAGEREF _Toc276532511 \h 4Customer Requirements PAGEREF _Toc276532512 \h 6Environmental: PAGEREF _Toc276532513 \h 6Economical: PAGEREF _Toc276532514 \h 6Efficiency: PAGEREF _Toc276532515 \h 6Publication: PAGEREF _Toc276532516 \h 7Quality: PAGEREF _Toc276532517 \h 7Engineering Specifications PAGEREF _Toc276532518 \h 8Environmental: PAGEREF _Toc276532519 \h 8Economical: PAGEREF _Toc276532520 \h 8Efficiency: PAGEREF _Toc276532521 \h 9Publication: PAGEREF _Toc276532522 \h 9Quality: PAGEREF _Toc276532523 \h 9House of Quality PAGEREF _Toc276532524 \h 10Weight Assignments for Customer Requirements: PAGEREF _Toc276532525 \h 10Engineering Specification Difficulty Assignment: PAGEREF _Toc276532526 \h 10House of Quality Trends PAGEREF _Toc276532527 \h 11Design Alternatives Flow Chart PAGEREF _Toc276532528 \h 12Design Alternatives PAGEREF _Toc276532529 \h 13Energy Sources PAGEREF _Toc276532530 \h 14Windmill Power PAGEREF _Toc276532531 \h 14Buoys/Generation: Offshore Wave Energy Converter (OWEC Buoy) PAGEREF _Toc276532532 \h 15Ocean Current PAGEREF _Toc276532533 \h 16Solar: Parabolic: Trough Solar Concentration PAGEREF _Toc276532534 \h 17Nuclear PAGEREF _Toc276532535 \h 18Location PAGEREF _Toc276532536 \h 19Bay Area PAGEREF _Toc276532537 \h 19Open Coast PAGEREF _Toc276532538 \h 20Shallow Shelf PAGEREF _Toc276532539 \h 20Deep Shelf PAGEREF _Toc276532540 \h 21Water Storage PAGEREF _Toc276532541 \h 22Water Tower PAGEREF _Toc276532542 \h 22Underground Reservoir PAGEREF _Toc276532543 \h 23Valley Reservoir/Dam PAGEREF _Toc276532544 \h 23Lake Reservoir PAGEREF _Toc276532545 \h 24Water Collection PAGEREF _Toc276532546 \h 25Boat Ballast PAGEREF _Toc276532547 \h 25Pipe Line PAGEREF _Toc276532548 \h 26Water Wells PAGEREF _Toc276532549 \h 26Tidal Pools PAGEREF _Toc276532550 \h 27Waste Management PAGEREF _Toc276532551 \h 28Salt Disposal PAGEREF _Toc276532552 \h 28Water Balancing PAGEREF _Toc276532553 \h 29Alternative Selection PAGEREF _Toc276532554 \h 30Screening Matrix PAGEREF _Toc276532555 \h 30Decision Matrix PAGEREF _Toc276532556 \h 32Final Concept Decisions PAGEREF _Toc276532557 \h 33Appendix A: House of Quality PAGEREF _Toc276532558 \h 34Appendix B PAGEREF _Toc276532559 \h 35Appendix C PAGEREF _Toc276532560 \h 36<br />Problem Statement<br />2603500264795<br />It is estimated that the population of California will reach 50 million by the year 2020 with a majority of this population increase in the Los Angeles Basin [1]. That’s a 35% increase from the state’s current residence of 37 million people [2]. It’s a known fact that in the coming years California will exceed its water supplies. The state has already begun using reserve stock that is held for catastrophes to near depletion in order to accommodate the growing population and political problems arising from the lack of clean water. The many regions use a multitude of methods and natural water resources to accommodate their needs. All of these are at capacity and the California Water Authority goes through great lengths to maintain water levels. Its’ becoming increasingly difficult to maintain proper levels so as to not destroy natural ecosystems and cause irreversible damage to the environment.<br />The State Water Project [2] provides nearly two-thirds of the current population in California. The project moves water from the northern Sierra Nevada Mountains down to the highly populated areas of California such as San Francisco and the LA Basin. It also ties into the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the backbone of California’s water systems. This delta is the convergence of 5 major rivers into the San Francisco bay region and provides nearly 20 million people with clean water. Due to recent actions to protect the deltas and its species it has seen dramatic declines in its water output and put severe strain on the remaining water systems. The remaining water supplies include other lakes such as the Mono Basin and Owens Valley, underground basins, and as far away as the Colorado river, all supplied through a series of aqueducts.<br />016510There are many reoccurring issues with these systems [1]. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to control the supply without running it out in dry seasons. The water flow needs to be maintained in order for there to be proper replenishments and no new diversions in new directions. Increasing environmental awareness is mandating the control of wildlife area and restricting the amount of water that can be supplied. Along with these problems, the multitude of aqueducts creates their own. The water systems are California’s largest energy consumers, using most of its power to carry water over elevations. <br />Though the systems helps to create power through hydro plants, it’s mostly used on itself and this doesn’t even include its large consumption of natural gas and diesel fuel used in wastewater treatment plants to pump wastewater, run treatment procedures, and process solids.<br />36385507620 With the future population increase, the California water crisis will cause a catastrophe if clean water production is not improved. To compensate for the 13 million person expansion, California must look to other sources of potable water. California happens to have one of the longest coastlines in the United States and will have an abundance of water to supply the state if it can be properly tapped through desalination. It can be a major turnaround if methods can be developed to mass produce large volumes of water for consumer use. There is no resource larger than the oceans, but can prove its own difficulties. Much of the same environmental impacts that affect the current system would need to be addressed in order to improve the process. It’s our job as engineers to prove an economical and functional system to cover California’s growing needs. We need to create a new system that can quickly be adopted into the current projects and provide answers for the population.<br />The California water crisis is of utmost importance to the nation because of what the state means to us. Its entire economy is based off the need of water, and none is greater than its agriculture. One out of every six jobs in California can be tied back to farming and produces over 400 different commodities. The state is the nation’s leading agricultural and dairy producer and supplies a large amount of the nation overseas economy. It’s important to be able to resolve the water shortage for millions of people to keep the economy alive and not create a massive problem that would affect the entire nation. The urban population is also a huge need that can’t function without this necessity. California runs off its few major hubs for commerce. All of these locations are near the coastline and can benefit tremendously if there was a system that took advantage of their proximity to the shore.<br />Customer Requirements<br />Consumers create a set of requirements and expectations for a new product to follow. Our new water system has to accomplish these by addressing each customer group. It needs to be able to answer technical, environmental, economic, and social concerns that a group may have.<br />Environmental:<br />Low Visibility of Process: Our customers do not want to see the process of desalination in their “backyard”; a low visibility process will be more attractive to them.

2. Wild Life Protection: The process can not have an adverse affect of the local Wild Life. The citizens and government have strict rules where they do not want fatalities or destruction of the habitat of the local Wild Life.

3. Green Power Usage: To lessen the environmental impact of the process a green source of power should be used for the process of desalination.

4. Low Air Pollution: The process should have little or no air pollution. The state of California may have good air pollution policy, but they still deal with some of the worst air quality issues in the U.S. They do not want another air polluting process.

5. Low Water Pollution: The process should have little or no pollution affects of the water. Desalination has a brine waste that has high salinity. This waste can harm the environment. The impact of this waste needs to be as minimal as possible.

6. Green facility: The facility(s) of the process need to be constructed with “green” in mind. The facility(s) construction its self needs to have as low as an environmental impact as possible.Economical:<br />Cheap Source: The new water source needs to be competitively priced against the current water sources. A cheap water source will be very appealing to our customers.

7. Beneficial: The source needs to provide for agricultural development as it’s the most rapid in the nation and leading food supply.

8. Implementation: The new system has to be incorporated to the current process to keep cost low and minimize its impact on energy needs.Efficiency:<br />Consistent Water: Customers want a consistent water source where they will never have to worry about being cut off from their water source. They need a source which is consistently ready to be used.

9. Low Energy Use: The customers will want the process to have as low of an energy use as possible. The state of California current has issues with energy usage too.Publication:<br />Positive Publication: The people of California are usually seen to be “ahead of the curve,” and they will want to have their new water source to show this. They will not have anything that will provide bad publication for their state.

10. Contingency Plan: In the case of a failure, the public needs to be reinsured that there will still be a supply to go off of and a way to temporarily increase other methods. A stoppage would have huge economical effects on the state. Quality:<br />Water Taste: We are trying to create a potable water source for our customer. Customers need to have trust in a new water source. If the new water source doesn’t taste like clean water there will be issues with the customers trust.

11. Clean Clear Look: We are trying to create a potable water source for our customers. Customers need to have trust in a new water source. If the water is not as clear as the current water sources (water bottle/tap water) they will not like the product and not trust it.

12. Good Water Smell: Our product needs to smell clean also. Customers will not trust water that smells different from the current sources.

13. Safe Water: Our customers need to be sure that they will be able to drink our product with no concern about the safety of the potable water. Engineering Specifications<br />Engineering Specifications are phrases engineers use to describe our desalination system and its characteristics that include applications that are based on the customer requirements. Below is a list of the Engineering Specs that we used along with their corresponding customer requirements.<br />Environmental:<br />Low Visibility of Process:

14. Facility Visibility: Any type of facility should not be visible from more than 2 miles away.

15. System Location: Piping and/or other water movement methods should be kept within low population density areas outside of communities.

16. Process Can’t Harm Wild Life:

17. Water Intake Fatality: Water intakes can’t cause losses to more than 5% of local marine life in the intake area.

18. Water Intake Location: Water intakes are to be place at least 50 miles or farther from already impaired water ecosystems.

19. Green Power Usage:

20. Energy Source: A renewable energy resource should power at least 80% of all facility operations.

21. Low Air Pollution:

22. Air Quality: Operations must rate within 0-50 on the Air Quality Index at all times.

23. Low Water Pollution:

24. Waste Water Quality: The waste water must contain a salinity of +/- 5% of the body of water where it is dumped.

25. Green facility:

26. Facility Construction: The facility needs to be constructed of 50% recycled materials.

27. Facility Impact: The facility and process needs to be carbon neutral.Economical:<br />Cheap Source:

28. Desalination Cost: The cost to desalinate an acre-foot of salt water to potable water to be below $700.

29. Consumer Cost: The cost to purchase desalinated water needs to be around $900 per acre-foot to be profitable.

30. Beneficial:

31. Delta Use: Reduce the farmlands dependence on the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta by 50%.

32. Implementation:

33. Current System: It needs to be built into and incorporate 23.5% of the current state projects.Efficiency:<br />Consistent Water :

34. Facility Production: The desalination process needs to produce at least 35.5 thousand acre-feet of water per day to supply 30% of the water consumption of the state.

35. Low Energy Use:

36. Facility Power: No more than 30% of the energy used by the plant can be used to get the water into aqueducts and the current system.Publication:<br />Positive Publication :

37. DNA: Effected by all other engineering specifications.