Question: What process is used to separate salt from sea water in australian desalination plants?

Disambiguated questions and answers:
context: Australia’s first desalination plant was constructed in 1903 to treat saline groundwater in the gold fields of Western Australia at Kalgoorlie. Several desalination plants were built in Australia between 1960 and 1980, especially following the revolution in membrane technology that made reverse osmosis economically viable, but vapor-compression desalination and multi-stage flash distillation plants were also built. By 2002, however, only two reverse osmosis desalination plants were still operating, one on Kangaroo Island and the other on Rottnest Island. Seawater reverse osmosis is the only type of desalination technology currently used for large-scale desalination plants in Australia, the most important of these plants being located in Perth and Sydney.
question: What process using a partially permeable membrane is used to separate salt from sea water in australian desalination plants?
short_answers: reverse osmosis
wikipage: Seawater desalination in Australia

context: Vapor-compression desalination (VC) refers to a distillation process where the evaporation of sea or saline water is obtained by the application of heat delivered by compressed vapor.
question: What process using evaporation is used to separate salt from sea water in australian desalination plants?
short_answers: vapor-compression desalination
wikipage: Vapor-compression desalination

context: Multi-stage flash distillation (MSF) is a water desalination process that distills sea water by flashing a portion of the water into steam in multiple stages of what are essentially countercurrent heat exchangers. Multi-stage flash distillation plants produce about 26% of all desalinated water in the world, but today virtually all new desalination plants use reverse osmosis due to much lower energy consumption.
question: What process using flashing is used to separate salt from sea water in australian desalination plants?
short_answers: multi-stage flash distillation
wikipage: Multi-stage flash distillation

Long answers:
knowledge: content: The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry has considered several desalination technologies processes in Australia. 
wikipage: Seawater desalination in Australia

content: Reverse osmosis (RO) is a water purification process that uses a partially permeable membrane to separate ions, unwanted molecules and larger particles from drinking water.
wikipage: Reverse osmosis

content: Electrodialysis (ED) is used to transport salt ions from one solution through ion-exchange membranes to another solution under the influence of an applied electric potential difference.
wikipage: Electrodialysis

content: As the system is electrically driven, it is considered a "clean" process, it is highly reliable and simple to operate and maintain.
wikipage: Vapor-compression desalination

content: The solar humidification–dehumidification method (HDH) is a thermal water desalination method. It is based on evaporation of sea water or brackish water and subsequent condensation of the generated humid air, mostly at ambient pressure. This process mimics the natural water cycle, but over a much shorter time frame.
wikipage: Solar humidification
long_answer: The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry has used several processes to separate salt from sea water in desalination plants in Australia. One of these processes is reverse osmosis. Reverse osmosis is a water purification process that uses a partially permeable membrane to separate ions, unwanted molecules and larger particles from drinking water. Another process is electrodialysis. Electrodialysis is used to transport salt ions from one solution through ion-exchange membranes to another solution under the influence of an applied electric potential difference. Australia also uses the process of multi-stage flash distillation to separate salt from sea water. Multi-stage flash distillation is a water desalination process that distills sea water by flashing a portion of the water into steam in multiple stages of what are essentially countercurrent heat exchangers. Multi-stage flash distillation plants produce about 26% of all desalinated water in the world but almost all new desalination plants currently use reverse osmosis due to much lower energy consumption. Another desalination process, vapor-compression desalination, refers to a distillation process where the evaporation of sea or saline water is obtained by the application of heat delivered by compressed vapor. As the system is electrically driven, this process is considered a clean process. This process is also highly reliable and simple to operate and maintain. Another process used to separate salt from sea water is the solar humidification–dehumidification method. This is a thermal water desalination method that is based on evaporation of sea water or brackish water and subsequent condensation of the generated humid air, mostly at ambient pressure. This process mimics the natural water cycle but over a much shorter time frame.