Soil Profile. There are different types of soil, each with its own set of characteristics. Dig down deep into any soil, and youâll see that it is made of layers, or horizons (O, A, E, B, C, R). Put the horizons together, and they form a soil profile. Like a biography, each profile tells a story about the life of a soil. Most soils have three major horizons (A, B, C) and some have an organic horizon (O).
At a pilot facility in Singapore, Siemens has cut the energy needed to desalinate seawater by more than 50 percent. The plant processes 50 cubic meters of water per day, consuming only 1.5 kilowatt-hours of electricity per cubic meter.
That desalinated water, however, won't be cheap. When you want to desalinate, it's incredibly energy-intensive, and therefore cost-intensive, said Michael Webber, deputy director of the Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin. And that's the rub of it. It's drought-resistant, it's abundant, it's never going to go away, but it's costly to do.. There are two main desalination processes. Thermal, as the name implies, involves heating salt water and then distilling pure, drinkable water from the steam. And there's reverse osmosis, the process Carlsbad will use -- where sea water or brackish water is forced through filter membranes that remove the salts.