Posted on 04/05/2015 11:09:11 AM PDT by grundle
Israel has gone through one of the driest winters in its history, but despite the lean rainy season, the government has suspended a longstanding campaign to conserve water.
The familiar public messages during recent years of drought, often showing images of parched earth, have disappeared from television despite weeks of balmy weather with record low rainfalls in some areas.
The level of the Sea of Galilee, the country’s natural water reservoir, is no longer closely tracked in news reports or the subject of anxious national discussion.
The reason: Israel has in recent years achieved a quiet water revolution through desalination.
With four plants currently in operation, all built since 2005, and a fifth slated to go into service this year, Israel is meeting much of its water needs by purifying seawater from the Mediterranean. Some 80 percent of domestic water use in Israeli cities comes from desalinated water, according to Israeli officials.
“There’s no water problem because of the desalination,” said Hila Gil, director of the desalination division in the Israel Water Authority. “The problem is no longer on the agenda.”
The struggle over scarce water resources has fueled conflict between Israel and its neighbors, but the country is now finding itself increasingly self-sufficient after years of dependency on rainfall and subterranean aquifers.
Israel’s experience might also offer some important lessons, or at least contrast, for states like California. Now gripped by drought, with the all-important snowpack averaging only 26 percent of normal, California has struggled with desalination efforts in the past.
(Excerpt) Read more at mcclatchydc.com ...
“52 cents per cubic meter - 264 gallons in 1 cubic meter.”
That’s about 0.2 cents per gallon. Probably expensive for farming, but CHEAP for me...as I pay about 5 to 10 times that amount for each gallon (and yes, I know that most of the cost is infrastructure).
Still a good deal - raise my water rate from 1.5 to 1.7 cents per gallon, about $100 per year, and I never have to listen to the government WHINE about running out of water. I’LL TAKE IT!
Texas too but it's easy to figure why Cali doesn't. Water restrictions are part of the socialist reach for control. You Californians will be told long after the drought is over that drought conditions still exist so the government can control your watering and planting. The environazis will do the Left's bidding on this one and claim the plants create environmental hazards if built that will damage the ecostructure blah blah.
Dianne Feinstein's husband won a huge contract to build the thing.
2. Because they would have to quit whining about the Global Warm caused drought.
If they want a climate changed drought they will have to wait until the icecaps start marching south again. A mile thick slab of ice over Canada takes a LOT of water.
Did you factor the fresh water coming in via rivers and rain?
Yeah, Richard Blum, the owner of CBRE. He’s a huge property holder and investment banker. DiFi and her husband are the epitome of crony capitalism. Someone should be investigating their financial portfolio.
The US should proceed with nuclear power plants, which convert heat into electricity via steam-driven turbines, to capture the steam, recondensed as salt free water. This will generate two revenue streams: the sale of electricity and the sale of the water. The bilge that is also collected can then be used to “salt away” the nuclear waste material. This competitive in cost just regarding water, not even taking the electricity into account. It is green, since no carbon dioxide is released. It also avoids the possible problem of returning chemical-like wastes into the source of the water, as the by-product of salt and whatever else is in the water is buried with the nuclear waste.
California learn something? Don’t make me laugh.
The pernicious Coastal Commission probably plays its usual role.
You’re close. The 10 year study is not finished yet. They are still stuck on the color of the buildings.
The key to cost affective desal right there.Off peak power usage for the water plant, run nuclear at a steady rate 24/7.
Er....that's a cube roughly three feet on a side, or about 27 cubic feet. Doubt you'd get more than about 60 gallons out of that.
1m³= 264US gal lqd
Or go with the Thorium type of nuclear reactor and leave no waste at all.
If Gerry Brown ran Israel, they would import arabs who hated them until there was no Israel.
They (desalination plants) are too expensive to build...but the same people are for a high speed rail system that costs twice as much. A defunct concrete plant was to be converted to desalination and was beaten down by the environmentalists. And a dam that would save the water now flowing to the sea is opposed because of possible harm to a fish not even indigent to California. These people deserve their fate, they have earned it.
That's what I get for trying to translate Euro into American ;-)
Water desalinization plants do not fit in with the climate change acolytes’ concept of “sustainability.” It consumes too much carbon emitting power. They want water conservation, reuse and austerity instead.
“The environmental group the Surfrider Foundation, which has fought the Carlsbad plant at every turn, expects the plant to be an object lesson in how not to guard against water shortages. Among other things, the foundation emphasizes the energy needs of the plant, which will consume 5,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity to produce an acre-foot of water.”
Looks just like 1000 liter cubic meter weighing in at 264.1728 lbs. to my calculator.
1 meter = 100 cmIf I calculate correctly.1mx1mx1m = 100cm x 100cm x 100cm = 1 million cc = 1 million grams
1M grams/454 (g/lb) = 2.2 k pounds
2.2 K pounds / 8 pounds per gallon comes to 275 gallons.52 cents/cubic meter divided by 275 gallons = .19 cents per gallon
Nice......... except water is 8.34 #/gal, not 8.
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