Posted on 11/20/2017 3:48:09 AM PST by SunkenCiv
Egypt is in the process of constructing the largest seawater desalination plant in the world, in the Suez Governorate's coastal city of Ain Sokhna, revealed the head of the Egyptian Armed Forces Engineering Authority, Kamal El-Wazeir.
In a telephone interview with the privately-owned ON TV, El-Wazeir stated that, once complete, the plant is expected to have the capacity to purify 164,000 cubic meters of seawater each day.
Currently under-construction, the desalination station will "benefit the economic zone located northwest of Suez Gulf, as well as supporting other three giant desalination stations located inside El Galala, east of Port Said Governorate and the New El Alamein city" El-Wazeir said.
El-Wazeir went added that the Egyptian government has built numerous seawater desalination plants in the coastal Governorate of Marsa Matrouh, with the capacity to purify up to 100,000 cubic meters of seawater daily.
(Excerpt) Read more at egyptindependent.com ...
Aswan High Dam.
I’m no expert. Not even particularly knowledgeable about desalination.
It seems to me that you build a dam, get a very fine screen and let gravity provide the energy.
"The annual mean, representative of the current state of the Nile, is 1.4 × 103 m3 s−1" [1,400 cubic meters per second] River Discharge into the Mediterranean Sea
"the plant is expected to have the capacity to purify 164,000 cubic meters of seawater each day. "
IOW, a water plant utilizing Nile water and yielding 164,000 m3 water per day would consume the entire flow of the Nile for two whole minutes each day. About 0.14%
Will this help the legendary Aswan High Dam with power creation?
This is so true. I work in GTMO quite frequently, and they have a very old salt water plant from 1964. It supplies all the water they need and then some.
It is very old and looks creaky as anything, but still running.
The Dutch are pretty successful at it...the entire island of Aruba gets all of its water from a desalination plant- the water is amazingly fresh, clean, and pure.
Since Ethiopa is constructing a huge dam upstream on the Blue Nile which will impact Egypt, this makes sense.
Egypt is very much opposed to the Ethiopan Project.
no. different animals
How much water from the Nile flows into the Mediterranean?
Yeah, but it ain't just this one plant that draws (or could potentially draw) from the Nile. The Nile has to have a certain minimum (and large) flow to remain a viable means of transportation. So the actual amount that can be tapped is much smaller than the figure you are quoting.
Wow, thanks all, had no idea that would cause so much discussion!
CivilWarguy: Australia tried this years ago. It’s been an expensive boondoggle.
Desalination is cheap when it's a choice between no water and desalination. Ten years ago or so the one-city/one-island nation of Singapore had developed pretty cheap desalination technology, because like Israel, they really had no alternative. Strides have been made since then (see ckilmer's long informative post, #18).
PapaBear3625: Technology has been improving, and the Israelis have been seeing good success with desalinization. Of course, just because the Israelis are able to figure out how to make it work for them, doesn't mean the Egyptians will. My big question is, wouldn't it be easier to grab already-fresh water from the Nile?
Getting the Nile water across the eastern desert and mountains might be the tricky part. Also, demand on the Nile has grown as the population has grown, and the area where this is to be built is a booming tourist destination. Tourists don't like to be handed a bucket and pointed in the direction of the pump or oasis. :^)
MSF BU: Sadly they don’t have any rule of law, otherwise it might turn out to be something worth investing in.
Rule of law? We don't neeeed no steeenkeeng rule of law! Egypt's non-islamofascist gov't has been resorting to ruthless means to wipe out the terrorist paramilitaries which were operating throughtout the country (here and there) even when Mubarek was still in charge. By paying attention to ways of bringing tourists back to Egypt, while also making it possible for the general population to move out of the Nile valley (the country is really just a few miles wide in spots), they've got a future. Mubarek's two large projects were the West Valley (using water pumped from Lake Nasser into an open-air canal, IOW, huge evaporative losses) and the Peace Canal (which dips down under the Suez Canal, then skirts the shoreline, and heads toward el-Arish, ditto on the evaporatiive losses), both were expensive and didn't attract the flocks of new residents as had been hoped.
iowamark: No mention of what method is used, costs, etc.
I'm not too sure that this isn't going to turn out to be a non-starter. Egypt will need someone else to finance it, and ideally to build it, since using local labor means crap craftsmanship, budget overruns (graft and corruption), and ever-receding start/completion dates.
Wonder Warthog: Power provided by an on-site combined cycle gas turbine plant running on natural gas.
Thanks Wonder Warthog.
ckilmer: . . .
Wow, thanks ckilmer! Great post. Israelis didn't invent trickle irrigation, but they are the best at it. Some years back I read about a peach farmer in Israel who used some kind of clip-on sensor that relied on the water content of the leaves to turn the water supply on and off, IOW, the peach trees watered themselves. He cut his irrigation water in half and increased his yield 40 percent at the same time (if memory serves).
gymbeau: Wow, they’ll never have to worry about running out of salt!
They measure the salt in lots -- except in Israel, where it's measured in Lot's wife. /rimshot!
sockmonkey: Since Ethiopia is constructing a huge dam upstream on the Blue Nile which will impact Egypt, this makes sense.
The water of the Blue Nile is most of the water of the lower Nile, but the only impediment to the water supply will be during the period of time when the dam first goes into service and the reservoir has to fill. That probably won't take long, not sure how they'll deal with the countries downstream, but I don't imagine they'll be able to do anything about it other than complain. Sudan threatened Egypt years ago, when the Peace Canal was announced, because they didn't want Israel to get the Nile waters. Sudan actually threatened to shut down the entire Nile supply. No one bothered to explain where the water was going to go instead, probably up Sudan's ass, to keep its head company.
Savage Beast: How much water from the Nile flows into the Mediterranean?
BwanaNdege notes above (#23) that the Nile kicks 1,400 cubic meters per second into the Mediterranean. It's a wild guess, but due to Lake Nasser's surface area and the length of the river, and based on some old rules of thumb (I've got a big thumb collection), evaporative losses are probably about twice that.
pictures of Ain Sokhna:
http://www.google.com/search?q=Ain+Sokhna&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&tbm=isch
In 2009 there was a report released from Israel on its water system. A consortium built a reverse osmosis plant and it was selling water to the government waterworks for $0.55 per cubic metre.
AFAIK, it’s still running, has paid itself off, and now it’s turning a profit!
The fresh water could be pumped to the rest of Egypt using electricity generated by turbines powered by the water flow in the pipes as it flowed by gravity in the depression.
A small village could be established (every home air-conditioned by cold seawater) where minimally skilled workers could maintain the plastic of the evaporation ponds and in return get water for their crops. No money needed. The amount of water could be allocated by number of hours worked and quality of work.
I don’t know how much trash Cairo produces but it’s a good bet that a Swedish trash-to-energy system would produce a great deal of the power requirement of that system.
My guess is somehow the Egyptians would figure out a way to screw up the process. Were the country populated by Israeli’s, Koreans or Swedes it would be a different story.
This is part of a major development in Egypt, reported here:
https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3606377/posts
Sokhna is planned to become a big free trade zone (like Dubai), right on the Suez Canal, and just an hour’s drive from Cairo.
Not only does the Geography offer great potential, the Egyptians have partnered with Dubai Ports World to develop the area, and agreed to let Dubai Ports World administer the area, using Dubai-like rules.
There was once a natural channel connecting the Nile with the Red Sea. It silted in. Its bed is still there. Could it be unsilted?
Not surprised.
A reflection on this being a quiet holiday week.
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