Water Revolution in Israel Overcomes Any Threat of Drought

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/30/world/middleeast/water-revolution-in-israel-overcomes-any-threat-of-drought.html

by davidf18 • 11 years ago

47 79 11 years ago

nytimes.com

ars13• 11 years ago

The impact of this can not be overstated. Wars over water in the Middle East are more common there than anywhere else.

By removing this casus belli peace with Israel is much more likely.

Look at Jordan for example: Once they had a good treaty for water everything else fell into place.

mschuster914• 11 years ago

Peace with Israel?! Never ever. Too much money for Big Weapons relies on Israel pretending to be threatened by its surrounding countries.

No country leader right in his mind, not even Kim Yong (all NK is after is more Western aid money and a bit of luxury goods for the elite, and potential nukes are a perfect way of extorting), would ever sign off a military attack against Israel, given its nuclear abilities and the support of NATO. Still, Israeli government successfully manipulates the entire world to believe they're threatened.

The only threat for Israel is its corrupt, right-wing-extremist government. Israel government complains all the time about raising anti-semitic behaviour worldwide yet completely ignores that it is the fault of Israeli government.

TheGuyWhoCodes5• 11 years ago

"Pretending"... Just because you live in a place where the existence of your country isn't threatened, doesn't make it not true for other places. Israel is in a place where you have 10s of thousands of rockets aimed at your population centers, UN member countries publicly threaten to wipe you off the map while creating a nuclear program. History of your surrounding countries trying to actually wipe you off the map, many many times...

The threat is real.

grevutsky• 11 years ago

Israel is a stable democracy which has been responsible with its nuclear weaponry for the past 30 years. Meanwhile, surrounding countries are unstable dictatorships which have routinely experienced coup d'etat, murder, and genocide against their own people and their neighbors. Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, are all dictatorial entities with significant portions of the population espousing verious messianic callings to wipe Israel off the map, kill all Jews, kill all Shia, kill all Sunni, bring order to Islam (ISIS), wipe out Kurds, etc. These types of unstable countries can not be allowed to obtain Nuclear weapons.

frandroid• 11 years ago

The Israeli 'watergate' scandal: The facts about Palestinian water http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/1.574554

Not enough water in the West Bank? (Press the + in the top-right corner) http://visualizingpalestine.org/visuals/west-bank-water?v=la...

Water supply and sanitation in the Palestinian territories http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in_...

bsaul4• 11 years ago

So even when palestinian have a written agreement with israelis on something as crucial as water in a semi desertic land, and someone posts about a peacefull technology used heavily in israel to the benefit of everyone in the region and probably everywhere in the world soon, there will people that come here to spread hateful propaganda... That's really depressing.

davidf18• 11 years ago

Sadly, the Palestinians elected for their government, Hamas, which has as part of its charter the destruction of Israel when they could have elected the Palestinian Authority to lead them which does recognize Israel. Hamas has spent much of its money on missiles that it shoots at Israeli civilian population centers. Consider, would the US be obligated to give water to Mexico or Canada if these countries had as part of their charter the destruction of the US and shot missiles at US civilian population centers?

I can assure you, that the Palestinian standard of living, esp. in Gaza, will markedly improve once they elect a government which signs a peace agreement with Israel.

stefantalpalaru3• 11 years ago

So the Israeli apartheid and ethnic cleansing is actually the Palestinians fault? For electing the wrong political party? How long until Israel implements the final solution for this evil minority?

mschuster914• 11 years ago

Hamas has spent much of its money on missiles that it shoots at Israeli civilian population centers.

Just compare the victims of the junkyard Hamas missiles and the countless, often innocent victims of Israeli air strikes. Not to count any of the violations of international law Israel has committed against the Palestine people (border violations, the illegal settlements encouraged by Israeli government, illegaly withholding Palestine tax income, ...).

Israel is able to get away with more illegal stuff than the US.

edit: oh, just btw, a single Hellfire missile costs $100k. Imagine if that money spent on a single missile was instead spent on improving the lives of Palestine citizens. Hate and religious extremism is far too often fueled by poverty.

dragonwriter3• 11 years ago

Sadly, the Palestinians elected for their government, Hamas, which has as part of its charter the destruction of Israel when they could have elected the Palestinian Authority to lead them which does recognize Israel.

This is a bit confused -- they elected the Hamas-led Change and Reform group, which then led the government of the Palestinian Authority, until the Hamas/Fatah civil war occurred, causing the Hamas-led government to be dismissed (the PA Chairman -- chief of state, effectively, rather than head of government -- was Fatah), and a new Fatah-led government to be installed (with debated legality) which only effectively had any control in the West Bank.

The PA was the institution for which they were electing leadership, not one of the parties.

(Incidentally, since the existing government of the now-named State of Palestine -- effectively, the government of the West Bank -- is Fatah-led as a result of the Fatah/Hamas civil war and subsequent dismissal of the Hamas government, even to the extent it might be reasonable to use Hamas as an excuse for Israel obstructing water to Hamas-led Gaza, its pretty ludicrous to try to extend that justification to Israeli treatment of Palestinians generally, or the area under the effective control of the Fatah-led State of Palestine specifically.)

readymade• 11 years ago

Israel is considered an occupying power within Gaza and the West Bank according to international law. Comparisons with Mexico and Canada are not particularly relevant, in that regard.

selimthegrim3• 11 years ago

Israel is a occupying power in the West Bank and effectively is a occupier in Gaza. Israel collects taxes on Palestinian goods (as do the PA and Hamas). Regardless of how you _feel_ about their government, Israel has mandatory obligations as such it has to meet. This means things like not turning off power to Gaza from the power plant at Ashkelon, as some were suggesting offhandedly a couple of years ago.

TheGuyWhoCodes5• 11 years ago

They probably don't even pay for what they agreed to buy anyway... just like with electricity where they owe about 2 billion shekels (500 million $)

But they still get water regardless on the amount they are allow to pump, clean safe water coming from the same sources used for the rest of Israel, including the one in the article. They will have water without concerns for drought or whatever happens with the aquifer.

The thing is that this aquifer is under both Israeli and Palestinian land and therefor one affect the other. Just look at what they did in Gaza (From the article): "Overpumping in Gaza, which causes seawater and sewage to penetrate into the aquifer, has made 90 percent of the potable water undrinkable."

It's probably best that they have a limit on drilling and pumping. Otherwise it could be really bad...

guelo2• 11 years ago

Imagine if the US used the $3 billion/year it sends Israel to instead build desalinization plants in the south west.

killface2• 11 years ago

I like how you're downvoted for pointing out something very obvious, but not 100% pro-israel.

ars13• 11 years ago

He edited it. His original message was blatantly antisemetic.

pbreit2• 11 years ago

I have trouble getting behind desalination for California. Surely we have not exhausted all our options in collection and storage?

ars13• 11 years ago

California could also copy the very low water waste, and the greywater recycling for agriculture.

OrwellianChild3• 11 years ago

It will likely take efforts on many fronts to resolve SoCal's water issues. Charging for agricultural water use, enforcing drip-irrigation, improving reclamation/recycling, etc.

What are your objections to desalination?

killface2• 11 years ago

You exhausted those a decade ago. Now other states are shipping water to Cali, and those states are starting to have their own issues.

PhantomGremlin• 11 years ago

Reasonable options haven't been exhausted until California stops producing crops like rice.[1]

   Our ideal climate, ample water supply and
   innovative farming techniques result in some
   of the highest rice yields in the world,
   while at the same time providing rice of the
   highest quality.

That was written a few years ago. Growing rice in a desert is hardly an "ideal climate", and the recent drought has certainly changed the perception of an "ample water supply".

Same thing with other water intensive crops like almonds. TV was recently reiterating the trope that a single almond takes 1 gallon of water. That seems way high, but I haven't searched further.

[1] http://web.archive.org/web/20060210141916/http://calrice.org...

pbreit2• 11 years ago

Well, my understanding is that more fresh water runs into the ocean than what we entirely consume already.

revelation• 11 years ago

I had the same reaction. Water access for Israel is a question of security, while a drought in California is just the ugly underbelly of needless excess and unsustainable policy rearing its head.

bsder• 11 years ago

This biggest issue in California is getting agricultural uses down and splitting off consumer use.

Desalinization works pretty well in California for getting water to people. Not so much for agriculture.

We need to start letting the agricultural water price rise to where it needs to be in order to get the agribusinesses to start growing less water intensive crops.

Note that one of the things that Israel did was digging up water-using orchards.

OrwellianChild3• 11 years ago

What's interesting about this is the desalination costs... The Sorek plant mentioned (largest of it's kind, 40 billion gallons/year) cost just $500 million to build. [1] They sell it back to Israel for $0.58/m^3 or $0.0022/gallon profitably.

That's way cheaper than, for example, Glendale, California, whose residential rates run anywhere between $0.0030 and $0.0052/gallon depending on consumption levels. [2]

What will it take to bring this kind of technology to Southern California?

[1] http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/534996/megasca...

[2] http://www.glendaleca.gov/water-rates

jallmann• 11 years ago

What will it take to bring this kind of technology to Southern California?

San Diego county is already getting a desalination plant in Carlsbad, although it's projected to cost more, for much less water: $530 million for ~18 billion gallons a year. No idea why it's so expensive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlsbad_desalination_plant

woah• 11 years ago

Why did the bay bridge cost such an exorbitant amount, for a very simple structure that is now falling apart? Same reason probably.

OrwellianChild3• 11 years ago

Great benchmark for California... Actually, it looks like the project is closer to $780 million for the plant (not sure why the Wikipedia summary is off). [1] Central question is, can the Sorek method/scale be implemented in SoCal to get better results? Can it be run on integrated solar or other renewables?

[1] http://carlsbaddesal.com/carlsbad-final-schedule-taking-shap...

GauntletWizard• 11 years ago

These plants are running on cheap natural gas; Israeli price controls are looking at about $6 per million BTU [1] whereas US prices are around $8-10 [2]. The US could have cheap natural gas, too; Even cheaper than Israel could get it. But we can't move it around without pipelines, which is limiting both our production and consumption. What's blocking the pipelines? Nimbyism, to be short.

[1]http://www.platts.com/latest-news/natural-gas/jerusalem/isra... [2]http://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/ng_pri_sum_dcu_nus_m.htm (I'm fudging the BTU->Cubic Foot conversion here, but it's darn close to 1000:1)

yazaddaruvala• 11 years ago

Everyone seems to want chemical storage of Solar Energy.

Everyone keeps looking into batteries and they are not yet sufficient.

Why not store the massive amounts of Solar that Southern California receives during the day as clean drinking water?

omegaworks• 11 years ago

You call it nimbyism. I call it climate change.

Making natural gas cheaper should not be one of our priorities. It's non-renewable and contributes to carbon emissions.

bjourne• 11 years ago

Another data point: In Sweden water costs 15-25 kr/m^3 or 1.5-3 dollars/m^3 and we get it untreated directly from lakes. So $0.58 is very cheap even if it is the bulk price and it quadruples before it arrives at the end customer.

oldmanjay• 11 years ago

I'd love to have a conversation with the author of the piece and ask them what sort of mental conception of the universe leads to calling desalinated water "artificially produced."

civilian• 11 years ago

"artificially produced water" just seems like a shortening of "artificially produced freshwater", and that seems like a correct statement. It's just semantics, man.

darklajid4• 11 years ago

So, let's state my affiliation first: I lived in Tel Aviv for a year, I still work for a company that was founded in Israel. I have friends there and would love to go back.

Now .. water? That's insane. You'll see lots of places that offer a 'lawn'. Which doesn't work without a lot of water. People seem to be rather wasteful. We (my wife and me) had discussions with Israelis about how to do the dishes (the 'German way', if that is really special, is filling your sink with water and washing your dishes. The 'Israeli way' - anecdotally, among friends - was running tap water) and about reusing glass bottles ("What? You have people that prefer to buy Coke in a glass bottle, because that bottle will be washed and reused? Isn't that totally baaah?").

We tried to discuss that topic a couple of times, but nobody local (in our circles) cared One. Little. Bit.

(Ironically we were in a hotel before we found our final apartment for our time in Israel and the management stole the bathtub plug from each and every room, citing water shortage as a reason. That was before we had all the conversations that are summarized above)

I'm glad that desalination works and helps. But the attitude might need adjustment as well, based on my non-scientific observations.

ars13• 11 years ago

Keep in mind that because they recycle so much wastewater, "wasting" water by running the tap is not as bad as it sounds.

Washing and reusing glass bottles is really stupid in a desert. You have unlimited amounts of sand to make glass, but water is less plentiful. Plus kosher issues make washing bottles problematic (doable, but more complicated).

darklajid4• 11 years ago

Hmm.

Now, water in Europe is recycled as well. Maybe I'm missing the context, but .. so far I'm unconvinced. And even IFF that would be true, not using a running tap would save more water.

Reusing bottles is stupid? Really? You want to create those from scratch, because .. you have sand? What happens to the old/used bottles? I cannot even begin to understand this point, tbh.

Kosher: I'm no expert on kosher regulations, but a bottle of coke (in a specific form) will stay a bottle of coke. Washing it, refilling it should (??) be irrelevant for people that want kosher stuff. If you consider Coke kosher (which - ignoring Coke - is arguably something that you have to decide for yourself. People often seemed to eat seafood but reject pork for example) then this bottle is just going to be cleaned and .. refilled with the same stuff. I don't see how kosher comes into play here?

rokhayakebe• 11 years ago

From the article:

Mr. Shezaf, who also grows olives, prefers older agricultural methods and says desalination is essentially a privatization of Israel's water supply that benefits a few tycoons.

ChuckMcM• 11 years ago

Basically pointing out, once again, that it really is a question of price, not of availability. Cheaper energy would make this more doable. And water has been proposed as a transfer medium for value from photovoltaic arrays (they desalinate water by cracking it into hydrogen and oxygen, which then gets recombined to produce local energy and exportable potable water. Only makes sense if you are willing to pay more for the water.

That said, the ability of graphene to desalinate water is something I think should get more investigation than it does. See (http://cleantechnica.com/2015/04/03/methane-rescue-new-energ...) for example.

dharma1• 11 years ago

What's the state of the art of water desalination? I remember some interesting research on graphene filters a year or two back. Is this doable on a micro level for off grid living on coastlines?

DanBC• 11 years ago

Flagged because of the fucking awful comments in this thread.

And those comments were very predictable.

Water Revolution in Israel Overcomes Any Threat of Drought

Related Stories