Posted on 01/12/2025 4:34:45 PM PST by grundle
Ten miles south of Tel Aviv, I stand on a catwalk over two concrete reservoirs the size of football fields and watch water pour into them from a massive pipe emerging from the sand. The pipe is so large I could walk through it standing upright, were it not full of Mediterranean seawater pumped from an intake a mile offshore.
“Now, that’s a pump!” Edo Bar-Zeev shouts to me over the din of the motors, grinning with undisguised awe at the scene before us. The reservoirs beneath us contain several feet of sand through which the seawater filters before making its way to a vast metal hangar, where it is transformed into enough drinking water to supply 1.5 million people.
We are standing above the new Sorek desalination plant, the largest reverse-osmosis desal facility in the world, and we are staring at Israel’s salvation. Just a few years ago, in the depths of its worst drought in at least 900 years, Israel was running out of water. Now it has a surplus. That remarkable turnaround was accomplished through national campaigns to conserve and reuse Israel’s meager water resources, but the biggest impact came from a new wave of desalination plants.
Bar-Zeev, who recently joined Israel’s Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research after completing his postdoc work at Yale University, is an expert on biofouling, which has always been an Achilles’ heel of desalination and one of the reasons it has been considered a last resort. Desal works by pushing saltwater into membranes containing microscopic pores. The water gets through, while the larger salt molecules are left behind. But microorganisms in seawater quickly colonize the membranes and block the pores, and controlling them requires periodic costly and chemical-intensive cleaning. But Bar-Zeev and colleagues developed a chemical-free system using porous lava stone to capture the microorganisms before they reach the membranes. It’s just one of many breakthroughs in membrane technology that have made desalination much more efficient. Israel now gets 55 percent of its domestic water from desalination, and that has helped to turn one of the world’s driest countries into the unlikeliest of water giants.
Yup—civilization requires intelligent and wise and competent humans.
CA is unable to meet that standard.
As a country, we should have been pursuing this a long time ago.
Nuclear power as well, in its modern variations which would be far safer, not dependent on Fifties or Sixties technology.
California Coastal Commission can taste their own hair gel.
The California Coastal Commission is a politburo, vested with vast powers, and infested with green zealots. Along with the regional air and water boards, it is one of the greatest fascist strongholds of the California ai government
bttt
“To use or not use technology is a choice. Israel made one choice. California made a very different choice.”
The ‘rationale’ for the choice was that the desalinization plant would use energy and thus contribute to Global Warming.
Anyone thinking that the Leftists running California are not CELEBRATING the Los Angeles fires have NO CLUE as to what kind of monsters our side is up against (and, sadly, quite a few here fall into that category).
I’ve seen one plant at SONGS outside San Clemente for the nuke plant. Amazing design but that was thirty years ago. Probably much more streamlined and cheaper
Such a facility in LA might solve the water problem, so it will never happen.
I’m sure California has wise, intelligent and competent humans. They just don’t get elected.
Fresh water not freshwater. Freshwater is an adjective not a noun.
The Steward of Gondor I mean California Gavin should take a flying leap off a Malbu cliff. I want him to float in the ocean and look back at the nightmare he is responsible for.
That is because the people in charge in californicate aren’t smart enough to change the batteries in a flashlight.
Karen Bass is silent.
The Sierra snows provide abundant water for CA. They choose to let it flow into the sea.
My thought too. If Ca spent the money on this instead the climate BS they would have no water problems at all.
I was stationed in GITMO in 1989-1990. The water was provided by a De-sal plant. Tasted fine and we rarely went on water hours. Ships use a similar process to provide water.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.