Thanks LL for bringing up that point. Thanks BL for the topic!.
Posted on 07/18/2025 7:51:42 AM PDT by BenLurkin
Morocco’s OCP Group reached today a significant milestone in water sovereignty with the commissioning of the country’s longest water pipeline.
The 203-kilometer engineering feat transports desalinated water from the Atlantic coast to the heart of the country’s phosphate mining region.
The Jorf Lasfar-Khouribga (J2K) pipeline, operated by OCP Green Water (OGW), marks a decisive step toward Morocco’s water independence while simultaneously addressing the country’s ongoing water stress challenges that have persisted since 2018.
The ambitious project emerged from Morocco’s urgent need to combat water scarcity. In 2022, the Moroccan government called upon OCP Group to contribute to national water security efforts, prompting the launch of an extensive non-conventional water program.
The pipeline’s technical specifications point up the complexity of the undertaking. Stretching 203 kilometers with an elevation difference of 800 meters, the infrastructure required sophisticated engineering solutions to transport up to 80 million cubic meters of desalinated water annually.
The pipeline infrastructure includes 187 kilometers of 1,300-millimeter diameter pipes and 16 kilometers of 600-millimeter sections, supported by pumping stations with a capacity of 25,000 cubic meters per hour. This makes it the first infrastructure of its kind in Morocco capable of transporting desalinated water over such an extensive distance.
(Excerpt) Read more at moroccoworldnews.com ...
“...the infrastructure required sophisticated engineering solutions to transport up to 80 million cubic meters of desalinated water annually.”
A mere 2300 years after the Romans figured it out.
California could do this as well. But, they won’t.
Something I’ve always wondered was how the Romans got water to flow uphill in their aqueducts. Siphon effect, maybe?
Thanks LL for bringing up that point. Thanks BL for the topic!.
Possibly. From AI overview:
Using siphons for valleys:
.
When an aqueduct needed to cross a valley, they sometimes used siphons. These involved a steep plunge down one side of the valley and a steep climb up the other, utilizing water pressure to bring it back up to the original height.
Yup, they sometimes built a siphon in their aqueducts.
However, no, they didn’t run water uphill in their aqueducts. AFAIK.
https://search.brave.com/videos?q=roman+aqueduct+siphons
The Chantays - Pipeline | 2:29
45RPMbyMikeEvans | 111K subscribers | 1,746,995 views | December 6, 2008
Imagine if all the money that went into the high-speed rail to nowhere went instead to desalination plants.
there’s just GOT to be Chinese fingerprints on this great engineering accomplishment, both financing and engineering, but i can’t find it ...
The Romans never desalinated a single milliliter.
They did not. Thus the purpose of the aqueduct bridges to take the water across valleys. Everything was downhill. They were excellent engineers.
The cheapest desalination is done by Israel and Singapore at about $500@acre foot.
Lower that cost to $200@acre foot and it become profitable to farm any desert on earth with everything but field crops.
A reduction in desalination costs of roughly $ 300 per acre-foot is all it takes to double the size of habitable Earth.
Will that happen?
The best minds on the planet are currently laboring elsewhere. This years grok 4 is smarter than all phds in all fields. Musk said the models coming out next year will be good enough to create new physics.
So they’ll likely be able to produce cheaper desalination plants if some nimble minds take up the problem of how to make desalination cheaper.
The ticket would probably to make sure the new desalination plant could work independently or in concert, fit on the back of either a flatbed truck or a spaceship, and work on both earth and mars.
A brilliant skit. It should be shown to every high school student in the country. I’d be curious to see if they could figure it out.
Hired the firm to come up with the solution and build it. All in three years. Of course they didn’t have to deal with endless environmental rules or idiot judges.
Sidebar: during the Italian occupation, in the Western Sahara, which is a disputed region that has spent most of its postwar existence either under Moroccan control, or being babysat by UN forces while Algeria's puppet the Polisario Front tries to take over. The UN probably supports the artificial population Algeria established, along with the terrorists.
Mussolini's engineers built the world's longest conveyor belt to move the mined phosphates out to the port for shipping.
Wow, editing in shifts doesn’t work. [blush]
California would rather spend billions on trains to nowhere.
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