15 ms·

Water Revolution in Israel Overcomes Any Threat of Drought

47 points by davidf18 11y ago

ars 11y ago
The impact of this can not be overstated. Wars over water in the Middle East are more common there than anywhere else. By removing this casus belli peace with Israel is much more likely. Look at Jordan for example: Once they had a good treaty for water everything else fell into place.
- mschuster91 11y ago
  Peace with Israel?! Never ever. Too much money for Big Weapons relies on Israel pretending to be threatened by its surrounding countries. No country leader right in his mind, not even Kim Yong (all NK is after is more Western aid money and a bit of luxury goods for the elite, and potential nukes are a perfect way of extorting), would ever sign off a military attack against Israel, given its nuclear abilities and the support of NATO. Still, Israeli government successfully manipulates the entire world to believe they're threatened. The only threat for Israel is its corrupt, right-wing-extremist government. Israel government complains all the time about raising anti-semitic behaviour worldwide yet completely ignores that it is the fault of Israeli government.
  - TheGuyWhoCodes 11y ago
    "Pretending"... Just because you live in a place where the existence of your country isn't threatened, doesn't make it not true for other places. Israel is in a place where you have 10s of thousands of rockets aimed at your population centers, UN member countries publicly threaten to wipe you off the map while creating a nuclear program. History of your surrounding countries trying to actually wipe you off the map, many many times... The threat is real.
    - mschuster91 11y ago
      I don't believe that Iran would do as much as send a dummy conventional rocket towards Israel. Israel and the US would likely send enough nukes flying towards Teheran to vaporize the country for centuries before the Iranian missile crosses the border, and Iran leadership knows that. It's just exaggerated v-penis comparisons, imho.
      - TheGuyWhoCodes 11y ago
        Because they can't just give a dirty bomb and smuggle into into Israel? You can say but.. they will hurt the Muslim population.. but hmmmm what did Hezbollah did when they shot thousand of missiles at the norther part of Israel and hit many Arab villages or Hamas shooting and hitting Bedouin settlements in the south of Israel.. It's fine to kill "your own" as long as you take the infidels with them.. That same "I don't believe that they will do that" was said about Nazi Germany.. fool me once shame on me... fool me twice... oh nvm I'm dead... The US promised to protect Israel in the first golf war, they shoot missiles that hit Tel-Aviv. Israel wanted to respond but the US asked Israel to hold back and they did. US will not do Israels job for them.
        dragonwriter 11y ago
        > You can say but.. they will hurt the Muslim population.. Well, I'd actually say that Iran would have no benefit from that. Really, the main threat to Israel from Iran -- or any of Israel's other regional foes -- getting nukes is that Israel's own nuclear arsenal would no longer provide it as free a hand in its own policies towards it neighbors as it has heretofore had, since it wouldn't be holding an unequaled trump in any runaway escalation provoked by Israel's policy choices.
        bsaul 11y ago
        I don't even understand what types of escalation you're talking about. Israel has peace aggreements with all its neighbourhood countries, and Israel being a nuclear power hasn't changed a thing for terrorist organisation which have attacked israel for the last 30 years. All the trouble in the region comes from non-national entities, or state-sponsored terrorist organisations ( with daesh being a weird hybrid of the two). Letting iran have the nuclear bomb will only push conflicts toward even more terrorism, especially between shiite and sunnites.
  - grevutsky 11y ago
    Israel is a stable democracy which has been responsible with its nuclear weaponry for the past 30 years. Meanwhile, surrounding countries are unstable dictatorships which have routinely experienced coup d'etat, murder, and genocide against their own people and their neighbors. Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, are all dictatorial entities with significant portions of the population espousing verious messianic callings to wipe Israel off the map, kill all Jews, kill all Shia, kill all Sunni, bring order to Islam (ISIS), wipe out Kurds, etc. These types of unstable countries can not be allowed to obtain Nuclear weapons.
frandroid 11y ago
The Israeli 'watergate' scandal: The facts about Palestinian water http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/1.574554 http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/1.574554 Not enough water in the West Bank? (Press the + in the top-right corner) http://visualizingpalestine.org/visuals/west-bank-water?v=large http://visualizingpalestine.org/visuals/west-bank-water?v=la... Water supply and sanitation in the Palestinian territories http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in_the_Palestinian_territories http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in_...
- bsaul 11y ago
  So even when palestinian have a written agreement with israelis on something as crucial as water in a semi desertic land, and someone posts about a peacefull technology used heavily in israel to the benefit of everyone in the region and probably everywhere in the world soon, there will people that come here to spread hateful propaganda... That's really depressing.
- davidf18 11y ago
  Sadly, the Palestinians elected for their government, Hamas, which has as part of its charter the destruction of Israel when they could have elected the Palestinian Authority to lead them which does recognize Israel. Hamas has spent much of its money on missiles that it shoots at Israeli civilian population centers. Consider, would the US be obligated to give water to Mexico or Canada if these countries had as part of their charter the destruction of the US and shot missiles at US civilian population centers? I can assure you, that the Palestinian standard of living, esp. in Gaza, will markedly improve once they elect a government which signs a peace agreement with Israel.
  - stefantalpalaru 11y ago
    So the Israeli apartheid and ethnic cleansing is actually the Palestinians fault? For electing the wrong political party? How long until Israel implements the final solution for this evil minority?
    - 11y ago
guelo 11y ago
Imagine if the US used the $3 billion/year it sends Israel to instead build desalinization plants in the south west.
- killface 11y ago
  I like how you're downvoted for pointing out something very obvious, but not 100% pro-israel.
  - ars 11y ago
    He edited it. His original message was blatantly antisemetic.
    - guelo 11y ago
      It was anti-Israel which is not the same thing as antisemetic, no matter how much zionists keep saying it is.
pbreit 11y ago
I have trouble getting behind desalination for California. Surely we have not exhausted all our options in collection and storage?
- ars 11y ago
  California could also copy the very low water waste, and the greywater recycling for agriculture.
- OrwellianChild 11y ago
  It will likely take efforts on many fronts to resolve SoCal's water issues. Charging for agricultural water use, enforcing drip-irrigation, improving reclamation/recycling, etc. What are your objections to desalination?
- killface 11y ago
  You exhausted those a decade ago. Now other states are shipping water to Cali, and those states are starting to have their own issues.
  - PhantomGremlin 11y ago
    Reasonable options haven't been exhausted until California stops producing crops like rice.[1] Our ideal climate, ample water supply and innovative farming techniques result in some of the highest rice yields in the world, while at the same time providing rice of the highest quality. That was written a few years ago. Growing rice in a desert is hardly an "ideal climate", and the recent drought has certainly changed the perception of an "ample water supply". Same thing with other water intensive crops like almonds. TV was recently reiterating the trope that a single almond takes 1 gallon of water. That seems way high, but I haven't searched further. [1] http://web.archive.org/web/20060210141916/http://calrice.org/e7b_cas_rice_growing_region.htm http://web.archive.org/web/20060210141916/http://calrice.org...
  - pbreit 11y ago
    Well, my understanding is that more fresh water runs into the ocean than what we entirely consume already.
OrwellianChild 11y ago
What's interesting about this is the desalination costs... The Sorek plant mentioned (largest of it's kind, 40 billion gallons/year) cost just $500 million to build. [1] They sell it back to Israel for $0.58/m^3 or $0.0022/gallon profitably. That's way cheaper than, for example, Glendale, California, whose residential rates run anywhere between $0.0030 and $0.0052/gallon depending on consumption levels. [2] What will it take to bring this kind of technology to Southern California? [1] http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/534996/megascale-desalination/ http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/534996/megasca... [2] http://www.glendaleca.gov/water-rates http://www.glendaleca.gov/water-rates
- jallmann 11y ago
  >What will it take to bring this kind of technology to Southern California? San Diego county is already getting a desalination plant in Carlsbad, although it's projected to cost more, for much less water: $530 million for ~18 billion gallons a year. No idea why it's so expensive. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlsbad_desalination_plant http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlsbad_desalination_plant
  - woah 11y ago
    Why did the bay bridge cost such an exorbitant amount, for a very simple structure that is now falling apart? Same reason probably.
  - OrwellianChild 11y ago
    Great benchmark for California... Actually, it looks like the project is closer to $780 million for the plant (not sure why the Wikipedia summary is off). [1] Central question is, can the Sorek method/scale be implemented in SoCal to get better results? Can it be run on integrated solar or other renewables? [1] http://carlsbaddesal.com/carlsbad-final-schedule-taking-shape http://carlsbaddesal.com/carlsbad-final-schedule-taking-shap...
- GauntletWizard 11y ago
  These plants are running on cheap natural gas; Israeli price controls are looking at about $6 per million BTU [1] whereas US prices are around $8-10 [2]. The US could have cheap natural gas, too; Even cheaper than Israel could get it. But we can't move it around without pipelines, which is limiting both our production and consumption. What's blocking the pipelines? Nimbyism, to be short. [1]http://www.platts.com/latest-news/natural-gas/jerusalem/israel-mulls-maximum-natural-gas-price-instead-26006790 http://www.platts.com/latest-news/natural-gas/jerusalem/isra... [2]http://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/ng_pri_sum_dcu_nus_m.htm http://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/ng_pri_sum_dcu_nus_m.htm (I'm fudging the BTU->Cubic Foot conversion here, but it's darn close to 1000:1)
oldmanjay 11y ago
I'd love to have a conversation with the author of the piece and ask them what sort of mental conception of the universe leads to calling desalinated water "artificially produced."
- civilian 11y ago
  "artificially produced water" just seems like a shortening of "artificially produced freshwater", and that seems like a correct statement. It's just semantics, man.
darklajid 11y ago
So, let's state my affiliation first: I lived in Tel Aviv for a year, I still work for a company that was founded in Israel. I have friends there and would love to go back. Now .. water? That's insane. You'll see lots of places that offer a 'lawn'. Which doesn't work without a lot of water. People seem to be rather wasteful. We (my wife and me) had discussions with Israelis about how to do the dishes (the 'German way', if that is really special, is filling your sink with water and washing your dishes. The 'Israeli way' - anecdotally, among friends - was running tap water) and about reusing glass bottles ("What? You have people that prefer to buy Coke in a glass bottle, because that bottle will be washed and reused? Isn't that totally baaah?"). We tried to discuss that topic a couple of times, but nobody local (in our circles) cared One. Little. Bit. (Ironically we were in a hotel before we found our final apartment for our time in Israel and the management stole the bathtub plug from each and every room, citing water shortage as a reason. That was before we had all the conversations that are summarized above) I'm glad that desalination works and helps. But the attitude might need adjustment as well, based on my non-scientific observations.
- ars 11y ago
  Keep in mind that because they recycle so much wastewater, "wasting" water by running the tap is not as bad as it sounds. Washing and reusing glass bottles is really stupid in a desert. You have unlimited amounts of sand to make glass, but water is less plentiful. Plus kosher issues make washing bottles problematic (doable, but more complicated).
  - darklajid 11y ago
    Hmm. Now, water in Europe is recycled as well. Maybe I'm missing the context, but .. so far I'm unconvinced. And even IFF that would be true, not using a running tap would save more water. Reusing bottles is stupid? Really? You want to create those from scratch, because .. you have sand? What happens to the old/used bottles? I cannot even begin to understand this point, tbh. Kosher: I'm no expert on kosher regulations, but a bottle of coke (in a specific form) will stay a bottle of coke. Washing it, refilling it should (??) be irrelevant for people that want kosher stuff. If you consider Coke kosher (which - ignoring Coke - is arguably something that you have to decide for yourself. People often seemed to eat seafood but reject pork for example) then this bottle is just going to be cleaned and .. refilled with the same stuff. I don't see how kosher comes into play here?
rokhayakebe 11y ago
From the article: Mr. Shezaf, who also grows olives, prefers older agricultural methods and says desalination is essentially a privatization of Israel's water supply that benefits a few tycoons.
ChuckMcM 11y ago
Basically pointing out, once again, that it really is a question of price, not of availability. Cheaper energy would make this more doable. And water has been proposed as a transfer medium for value from photovoltaic arrays (they desalinate water by cracking it into hydrogen and oxygen, which then gets recombined to produce local energy and exportable potable water. Only makes sense if you are willing to pay more for the water. That said, the ability of graphene to desalinate water is something I think should get more investigation than it does. See (http://cleantechnica.com/2015/04/03/methane-rescue-new-energy-efficient-graphene-desalination-membrane-99/ http://cleantechnica.com/2015/04/03/methane-rescue-new-energ...) for example.
dharma1 11y ago
What's the state of the art of water desalination? I remember some interesting research on graphene filters a year or two back. Is this doable on a micro level for off grid living on coastlines?
DanBC 11y ago
Flagged because of the fucking awful comments in this thread. And those comments were very predictable.

47 points by davidf18 11y ago

ars 11y ago

The impact of this can not be overstated. Wars over water in the Middle East are more common there than anywhere else. By removing this casus belli peace with Israel is much more likely. Look at Jordan for example: Once they had a good treaty for water everything else fell into place.

mschuster91 11y ago
Peace with Israel?! Never ever. Too much money for Big Weapons relies on Israel pretending to be threatened by its surrounding countries. No country leader right in his mind, not even Kim Yong (all NK is after is more Western aid money and a bit of luxury goods for the elite, and potential nukes are a perfect way of extorting), would ever sign off a military attack against Israel, given its nuclear abilities and the support of NATO. Still, Israeli government successfully manipulates the entire world to believe they're threatened. The only threat for Israel is its corrupt, right-wing-extremist government. Israel government complains all the time about raising anti-semitic behaviour worldwide yet completely ignores that it is the fault of Israeli government.
- TheGuyWhoCodes 11y ago
  "Pretending"... Just because you live in a place where the existence of your country isn't threatened, doesn't make it not true for other places. Israel is in a place where you have 10s of thousands of rockets aimed at your population centers, UN member countries publicly threaten to wipe you off the map while creating a nuclear program. History of your surrounding countries trying to actually wipe you off the map, many many times... The threat is real.
  - mschuster91 11y ago
    I don't believe that Iran would do as much as send a dummy conventional rocket towards Israel. Israel and the US would likely send enough nukes flying towards Teheran to vaporize the country for centuries before the Iranian missile crosses the border, and Iran leadership knows that. It's just exaggerated v-penis comparisons, imho.
    - TheGuyWhoCodes 11y ago
      Because they can't just give a dirty bomb and smuggle into into Israel? You can say but.. they will hurt the Muslim population.. but hmmmm what did Hezbollah did when they shot thousand of missiles at the norther part of Israel and hit many Arab villages or Hamas shooting and hitting Bedouin settlements in the south of Israel.. It's fine to kill "your own" as long as you take the infidels with them.. That same "I don't believe that they will do that" was said about Nazi Germany.. fool me once shame on me... fool me twice... oh nvm I'm dead... The US promised to protect Israel in the first golf war, they shoot missiles that hit Tel-Aviv. Israel wanted to respond but the US asked Israel to hold back and they did. US will not do Israels job for them.
      - dragonwriter 11y ago
        > You can say but.. they will hurt the Muslim population.. Well, I'd actually say that Iran would have no benefit from that. Really, the main threat to Israel from Iran -- or any of Israel's other regional foes -- getting nukes is that Israel's own nuclear arsenal would no longer provide it as free a hand in its own policies towards it neighbors as it has heretofore had, since it wouldn't be holding an unequaled trump in any runaway escalation provoked by Israel's policy choices.
        bsaul 11y ago
        I don't even understand what types of escalation you're talking about. Israel has peace aggreements with all its neighbourhood countries, and Israel being a nuclear power hasn't changed a thing for terrorist organisation which have attacked israel for the last 30 years. All the trouble in the region comes from non-national entities, or state-sponsored terrorist organisations ( with daesh being a weird hybrid of the two). Letting iran have the nuclear bomb will only push conflicts toward even more terrorism, especially between shiite and sunnites.
- grevutsky 11y ago
  Israel is a stable democracy which has been responsible with its nuclear weaponry for the past 30 years. Meanwhile, surrounding countries are unstable dictatorships which have routinely experienced coup d'etat, murder, and genocide against their own people and their neighbors. Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, are all dictatorial entities with significant portions of the population espousing verious messianic callings to wipe Israel off the map, kill all Jews, kill all Shia, kill all Sunni, bring order to Islam (ISIS), wipe out Kurds, etc. These types of unstable countries can not be allowed to obtain Nuclear weapons.

frandroid 11y ago

The Israeli 'watergate' scandal: The facts about Palestinian water http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/1.574554 http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/1.574554 Not enough water in the West Bank? (Press the + in the top-right corner) http://visualizingpalestine.org/visuals/west-bank-water?v=large http://visualizingpalestine.org/visuals/west-bank-water?v=la... Water supply and sanitation in the Palestinian territories http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in_the_Palestinian_territories http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in_...

bsaul 11y ago
So even when palestinian have a written agreement with israelis on something as crucial as water in a semi desertic land, and someone posts about a peacefull technology used heavily in israel to the benefit of everyone in the region and probably everywhere in the world soon, there will people that come here to spread hateful propaganda... That's really depressing.
davidf18 11y ago
Sadly, the Palestinians elected for their government, Hamas, which has as part of its charter the destruction of Israel when they could have elected the Palestinian Authority to lead them which does recognize Israel. Hamas has spent much of its money on missiles that it shoots at Israeli civilian population centers. Consider, would the US be obligated to give water to Mexico or Canada if these countries had as part of their charter the destruction of the US and shot missiles at US civilian population centers? I can assure you, that the Palestinian standard of living, esp. in Gaza, will markedly improve once they elect a government which signs a peace agreement with Israel.
- stefantalpalaru 11y ago
  So the Israeli apartheid and ethnic cleansing is actually the Palestinians fault? For electing the wrong political party? How long until Israel implements the final solution for this evil minority?
  - 11y ago

guelo 11y ago

Imagine if the US used the $3 billion/year it sends Israel to instead build desalinization plants in the south west.

killface 11y ago
I like how you're downvoted for pointing out something very obvious, but not 100% pro-israel.
- ars 11y ago
  He edited it. His original message was blatantly antisemetic.
  - guelo 11y ago
    It was anti-Israel which is not the same thing as antisemetic, no matter how much zionists keep saying it is.

pbreit 11y ago

I have trouble getting behind desalination for California. Surely we have not exhausted all our options in collection and storage?

ars 11y ago
California could also copy the very low water waste, and the greywater recycling for agriculture.
OrwellianChild 11y ago
It will likely take efforts on many fronts to resolve SoCal's water issues. Charging for agricultural water use, enforcing drip-irrigation, improving reclamation/recycling, etc. What are your objections to desalination?
killface 11y ago
You exhausted those a decade ago. Now other states are shipping water to Cali, and those states are starting to have their own issues.
- PhantomGremlin 11y ago
  Reasonable options haven't been exhausted until California stops producing crops like rice.[1] Our ideal climate, ample water supply and innovative farming techniques result in some of the highest rice yields in the world, while at the same time providing rice of the highest quality. That was written a few years ago. Growing rice in a desert is hardly an "ideal climate", and the recent drought has certainly changed the perception of an "ample water supply". Same thing with other water intensive crops like almonds. TV was recently reiterating the trope that a single almond takes 1 gallon of water. That seems way high, but I haven't searched further. [1] http://web.archive.org/web/20060210141916/http://calrice.org/e7b_cas_rice_growing_region.htm http://web.archive.org/web/20060210141916/http://calrice.org...
- pbreit 11y ago
  Well, my understanding is that more fresh water runs into the ocean than what we entirely consume already.

OrwellianChild 11y ago

What's interesting about this is the desalination costs... The Sorek plant mentioned (largest of it's kind, 40 billion gallons/year) cost just $500 million to build. [1] They sell it back to Israel for $0.58/m^3 or $0.0022/gallon profitably. That's way cheaper than, for example, Glendale, California, whose residential rates run anywhere between $0.0030 and $0.0052/gallon depending on consumption levels. [2] What will it take to bring this kind of technology to Southern California? [1] http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/534996/megascale-desalination/ http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/534996/megasca... [2] http://www.glendaleca.gov/water-rates http://www.glendaleca.gov/water-rates

jallmann 11y ago
>What will it take to bring this kind of technology to Southern California? San Diego county is already getting a desalination plant in Carlsbad, although it's projected to cost more, for much less water: $530 million for ~18 billion gallons a year. No idea why it's so expensive. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlsbad_desalination_plant http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlsbad_desalination_plant
- woah 11y ago
  Why did the bay bridge cost such an exorbitant amount, for a very simple structure that is now falling apart? Same reason probably.
- OrwellianChild 11y ago
  Great benchmark for California... Actually, it looks like the project is closer to $780 million for the plant (not sure why the Wikipedia summary is off). [1] Central question is, can the Sorek method/scale be implemented in SoCal to get better results? Can it be run on integrated solar or other renewables? [1] http://carlsbaddesal.com/carlsbad-final-schedule-taking-shape http://carlsbaddesal.com/carlsbad-final-schedule-taking-shap...
GauntletWizard 11y ago
These plants are running on cheap natural gas; Israeli price controls are looking at about $6 per million BTU [1] whereas US prices are around $8-10 [2]. The US could have cheap natural gas, too; Even cheaper than Israel could get it. But we can't move it around without pipelines, which is limiting both our production and consumption. What's blocking the pipelines? Nimbyism, to be short. [1]http://www.platts.com/latest-news/natural-gas/jerusalem/israel-mulls-maximum-natural-gas-price-instead-26006790 http://www.platts.com/latest-news/natural-gas/jerusalem/isra... [2]http://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/ng_pri_sum_dcu_nus_m.htm http://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/ng_pri_sum_dcu_nus_m.htm (I'm fudging the BTU->Cubic Foot conversion here, but it's darn close to 1000:1)

oldmanjay 11y ago

I'd love to have a conversation with the author of the piece and ask them what sort of mental conception of the universe leads to calling desalinated water "artificially produced."

civilian 11y ago
"artificially produced water" just seems like a shortening of "artificially produced freshwater", and that seems like a correct statement. It's just semantics, man.

darklajid 11y ago

So, let's state my affiliation first: I lived in Tel Aviv for a year, I still work for a company that was founded in Israel. I have friends there and would love to go back. Now .. water? That's insane. You'll see lots of places that offer a 'lawn'. Which doesn't work without a lot of water. People seem to be rather wasteful. We (my wife and me) had discussions with Israelis about how to do the dishes (the 'German way', if that is really special, is filling your sink with water and washing your dishes. The 'Israeli way' - anecdotally, among friends - was running tap water) and about reusing glass bottles ("What? You have people that prefer to buy Coke in a glass bottle, because that bottle will be washed and reused? Isn't that totally baaah?"). We tried to discuss that topic a couple of times, but nobody local (in our circles) cared One. Little. Bit. (Ironically we were in a hotel before we found our final apartment for our time in Israel and the management stole the bathtub plug from each and every room, citing water shortage as a reason. That was before we had all the conversations that are summarized above) I'm glad that desalination works and helps. But the attitude might need adjustment as well, based on my non-scientific observations.

ars 11y ago
Keep in mind that because they recycle so much wastewater, "wasting" water by running the tap is not as bad as it sounds. Washing and reusing glass bottles is really stupid in a desert. You have unlimited amounts of sand to make glass, but water is less plentiful. Plus kosher issues make washing bottles problematic (doable, but more complicated).
- darklajid 11y ago
  Hmm. Now, water in Europe is recycled as well. Maybe I'm missing the context, but .. so far I'm unconvinced. And even IFF that would be true, not using a running tap would save more water. Reusing bottles is stupid? Really? You want to create those from scratch, because .. you have sand? What happens to the old/used bottles? I cannot even begin to understand this point, tbh. Kosher: I'm no expert on kosher regulations, but a bottle of coke (in a specific form) will stay a bottle of coke. Washing it, refilling it should (??) be irrelevant for people that want kosher stuff. If you consider Coke kosher (which - ignoring Coke - is arguably something that you have to decide for yourself. People often seemed to eat seafood but reject pork for example) then this bottle is just going to be cleaned and .. refilled with the same stuff. I don't see how kosher comes into play here?

rokhayakebe 11y ago

From the article: Mr. Shezaf, who also grows olives, prefers older agricultural methods and says desalination is essentially a privatization of Israel's water supply that benefits a few tycoons.

ChuckMcM 11y ago

Basically pointing out, once again, that it really is a question of price, not of availability. Cheaper energy would make this more doable. And water has been proposed as a transfer medium for value from photovoltaic arrays (they desalinate water by cracking it into hydrogen and oxygen, which then gets recombined to produce local energy and exportable potable water. Only makes sense if you are willing to pay more for the water. That said, the ability of graphene to desalinate water is something I think should get more investigation than it does. See (http://cleantechnica.com/2015/04/03/methane-rescue-new-energy-efficient-graphene-desalination-membrane-99/ http://cleantechnica.com/2015/04/03/methane-rescue-new-energ...) for example.

dharma1 11y ago

What's the state of the art of water desalination? I remember some interesting research on graphene filters a year or two back. Is this doable on a micro level for off grid living on coastlines?

DanBC 11y ago

Flagged because of the fucking awful comments in this thread. And those comments were very predictable.