§ Mr. Eldon Griffithsasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government (1) what proposals have been made to him by the Council for the Preservation of Rural England on the subject of planning and building a joint power station and experimental water production plant; and what reply he has made to it;
(2) what estimates he has made of the cost of producing water by desalination at the present time, in 1975, and in 1985, respectively, and on the basis of the latest figures of the relative costs in terms of both land and money of desalination plants and the surface reservoirs at present being planned;
(3) if he will commission a further study of the advantages of desalination as a source of future water supplies, bringing up to date previous studies by the Water Resources Board in the light of new information provided by Professor Silver of Glasgow University, details of which have been sent to him.
§ Mr. Denis HowellMy reply to the council referred to the recent report on desalination in England and Wales by the Water Resources Board. In it the board concludes that the present estimated cost of a multi-stage flash distillation plant combined with electricity generation is unacceptably high in comparison with the cost of water from conventional schemes.
I am advised that the cost of water from desalination plant is likely to fall as research and development continue. At present the cost is at least twice as much as the cost of water from conventional 261W schemes. It is not yet possible to forecast when the gap between the two prices, after making allowance for savings of land and with due regard to amenity, will become sufficiently small to be acceptable. The Water Resources Board, the Atomic Energy Authority, and I myself are keeping the whole subject under continual review.