“Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink.” When Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote these words in his epic poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, he was considering the plight of a sailor in the north Atlantic surrounded by vast stretches of salt water but dying of thirst. The countries of the Gulf region are currently suffering a similarly ironic fate. Fortunately, however, industrial desalination has come to save the day. The desalination industry has been around for over a century, but it has really taken off in the last thirty years. As natural water resources dry up and the world’s population burgeons, the industry is only going to expand. It is estimated that there are already over 100,000 desalination plants on-line in more than 120 countries. Over half of that capacity is in the Gulf, where at least 60% of water available for consumption comes from desalination plants. A
