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.
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.
Thanks for letting me know what’s shaking over there...
"The flow rate of the Bahr al Jabal (White Nile) at Mongalla, South Sudan is almost constant throughout the year and averages 1,048 m3/s (37,000 cu ft/s). After Mongalla, the Bahr Al Jabal enters the enormous swamps of the Sudd region of South Sudan. More than half of the Nile's water is lost in this swamp to evaporation and transpiration. The average flow rate of the White Nile at the tails of the swamps is about 510 m3/s (18,000 cu ft/s)." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nile
IRRC, the Jonglei Canal was intended to bypass much of the Sudd and increase the amount of water delivered downstream. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonglei_Canal