Oil and water
Last week two major announcements were made in Israel, the discovery of oil deposits at Rosh Ha'ayin and the opening of the taps at the largest water desalination plant in the world at Hadera.
Rosh Ha'ayin means "head of the spring" because this place has water bubbling out of the earth thru a fault between the coastal plain and the Samarian hills. So this is the kind of place where prospectors also search for oil, and lo and behold they found some. It is not clear at the time of writing that the amount is sufficiently large to make a big difference, but the announcement certainly has caused a sharp rise in the value of the shares of the company, they shot up 220% in a day.
Due to the lack of sufficient water, especially fresh water, due to the continuing drought conditions in Israel over the past 5 years, Israel is in dire need of a source of fresh water. There are processes for treating used water to be applied to farming and gardening. But, a plan has been implemented to build three large desalination plants near the coast, and this week the first one started functioning. The first drops of fresh water was fed into the national water carrier purely from desalination. The plant near Hadera is the largest desalination plant in the world, and two more are under construction.
What is desalination? It is the process of removing salt, generally sodium chloride, from water in order to make it potable. To do this, saline is passed thru what are called ion-exchangers, large columns of material that is negatively charged. The ions of sodium are stripped from the water and become attached to the column and are bound there while the water itself flows through. Of course, this process takes energy, for the pumps that must be used to pass the water through the columns, as well as the process of regenerating the columns after they have absorbed their quota of sodium. This is an expensive process, and so the cost of desalinated water is higher than that of water that wells spontaneously from the ground or falls as rain, and the consumers of course have to pay for this. But, when you have too little water, the cost is not too high.
Although oil and water don't mix, Israel needs both of them separately.
Rosh Ha'ayin means "head of the spring" because this place has water bubbling out of the earth thru a fault between the coastal plain and the Samarian hills. So this is the kind of place where prospectors also search for oil, and lo and behold they found some. It is not clear at the time of writing that the amount is sufficiently large to make a big difference, but the announcement certainly has caused a sharp rise in the value of the shares of the company, they shot up 220% in a day.
Due to the lack of sufficient water, especially fresh water, due to the continuing drought conditions in Israel over the past 5 years, Israel is in dire need of a source of fresh water. There are processes for treating used water to be applied to farming and gardening. But, a plan has been implemented to build three large desalination plants near the coast, and this week the first one started functioning. The first drops of fresh water was fed into the national water carrier purely from desalination. The plant near Hadera is the largest desalination plant in the world, and two more are under construction.
What is desalination? It is the process of removing salt, generally sodium chloride, from water in order to make it potable. To do this, saline is passed thru what are called ion-exchangers, large columns of material that is negatively charged. The ions of sodium are stripped from the water and become attached to the column and are bound there while the water itself flows through. Of course, this process takes energy, for the pumps that must be used to pass the water through the columns, as well as the process of regenerating the columns after they have absorbed their quota of sodium. This is an expensive process, and so the cost of desalinated water is higher than that of water that wells spontaneously from the ground or falls as rain, and the consumers of course have to pay for this. But, when you have too little water, the cost is not too high.
Although oil and water don't mix, Israel needs both of them separately.
posted by Jack Cohen at 7:02 PM
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