Desalination has long been the domain of arid, energy-rich states like those in the Persian Gulf thanks to its high-energy footprint. But as populations have boomed, as climate change makes water supplies more uncertain, and as clean water regulations are tightening on industry, more governments and businesses have been looking to desalination.

Efficiency and reallocation are much cheaper and sustainable options for obtaining new water supplies for municipalities. Water reuse in cities is also up and coming, as I will discuss in a future column. But the market to clean industrial wastewater of all kinds is booming.

For all these reasons, innovation in desalination has been continuing apace. At the Blue Tech Forum in San Francisco yesterday, Tyler Algeo, a research analyst at BlueTech Research, said that patents for desalination technologies in 2010 were double the number filed in 2005. Desalination energy inputs have been reduced more than 50 percent in the past decade.

via Desalination: Energy Hog No More? – Forbes.