It is the world’s largest modern seawater desalination
plant, providing 20 percent of the water consumed by the country’s households.
Built for the Israeli government by Israel Desalination Enterprises, or IDE
Technologies, at a cost of around $500 million, it uses a conventional
desalination technology called reverse osmosis (RO). Thanks to a series of
engineering and materials advances, however, it produces clean water from the
sea cheaply and at a scale never before achieved.
Worldwide, some 700 million people don’t have access to
enough clean water. In 10 years the number is expected to explode to 1.8
billion. In many places, squeezing fresh water from the ocean might be the only
viable way to increase the supply.
The new plant in Israel, called Sorek, was finished in late
2013 but is just now ramping up to its full capacity; it will produce 627,000
cubic meters of water daily, providing evidence that such large desalination
facilities are practical. Indeed, desalinated seawater is now a mainstay of the
Israeli water supply.
With news breaking daily on the severity of the California
super drought proven technology has emerged that can solve the worlds water
problems. Coastal population centers now have the ability to rely on themselves
for water, making the crisis in California much less scary.
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