California to Turn Pacific Ocean Into Drinking Water

Tests are now complete, so dozens of subsea desalination pods are to be installed along the sea floor off the coast of California.

Santa Monica, California

The project will see roughly 60 of OceanWell's modular water-harvesting pods submerged to a depth of about 1,300 ft (400 m) and mounted to the ocean floor in Santa Monica Bay, off the coast of Malibu. The tremendous pressure at this depth forces water through the filters in each pod through reverse osmosis.

The filters are fine enough to not only block salt particles but also micro-plastics, bacteria, viruses, and ghastly PFAS, also known as "forever chemicals." The result is a million gallons of super-clean drinking water per pod per day - all without mechanical action or disruption to marine life, and cuts energy usage by 40 percent compared to a traditional land-based desalination plant, says OceanWell. The project aims to have the underwater facility pumping out 60 million gallons of clean water per day by 2030. After that, more pods can be added as required.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, Norway is experimenting with a similar subsea desalination pod system - with an energy saving of 30 to 50 percent compared to traditional land-based facilities. Oslo-based Flocean, already has a pilot facility off Norway that produces ultra-pure water and will shortly produce approximately 1 million liters of water per day from a 40-ton unit.

Flocean's facility at Mongstad is expected to come online during the second half of 2026 and will be the world's first large-scale deep-sea desalination plant. The technology is not based on new scientific discoveries but on deep-sea robots and underwater cables - originally developed by the oil industry.