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The Desalination Revolution: How Israel Beat the Drought

(Times of Israel) David Horovitz - For the foreseeable future, Israel's water crisis is over, says Alexander Kushnir, who heads Israel's Water Authority. Kushnir identifies a refusal to "rely on fate" as the key to a genuine strategic achievement in a desert region desperately short of natural water. The solution was desalination, on a major scale. The first large desalination plant came on line in Ashkelon in 2005, followed by Palmahim and Hadera. By the end of 2013, when the Soreq and Ashdod plants are working, there'll be five plants - built privately at a cost of $2 billion. Of the 2 billion cubic meters of water Israel uses per year, half will be "artificially" manufactured by year's end - 600 million cubic meters from desalination and 400 from purified sewage and brackish water for use in agriculture. Kushnir adds that Israel also supplies 30 million cubic meters annually to the Palestinian Authority and 70 million to Jordan, in line with formal agreements.
2013-03-01 00:00:00
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