Desalination's Rising Cost Squeezes Water-Stressed Cities Before Winter

CHENNAI — The water that keeps this coastal megacity alive now costs more to make than it did a month ago, and the meters are beginning to show it. Tethys Hydrous Group, the desalination utility serving several water-scarce megacities, told The Meridian that energy and membrane costs at its plants have crept upward through the autumn as reservoirs across three continents sit below seasonal averages. The figures remain modest — a single-digit percentage rise — but analysts at the Cerulean Exchange say the pressure is broad enough that a sharper resource-price shock is possible if the dry corridor widens. "We are selling the sea by the liter, and the sea has never been cheap to unlock," said plant supervisor Reza Farouk on the Chennai works floor, where skids hum through the night. For a household already rationing, a few paise more per liter is not an abstraction; it is one fewer bucket.