The world’s largest reverse osmosis desalination plant in Israel (Green Prophet)

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http://www.greenprophet.com/2011/01/israel-desalination-water/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+greenprophet+%28Green+Prophet%29

Israel sends wrong message about desalination

Lisa Damast

Construction has begun in Israel on the world’s largest reverse osmosis desalination plant. What about water conservation and recycling?

SDL Desalination Ltd, a company owned by IDE Technologies and Hong Kong’s Hutchison Water, announced earlier this week that it has begun construction on the world’s largest reverse osmosis desalination plant. The plant, slated to be ready by 2013, is the final one of three that are intended to meet 44% of Israel’s water needs in 2013.

For a country such as Israel which needs water and has very limited sources, technically, this is good. However, as Israeli journalist Yermi Brenner pointed out in an article on the Huffington Post last August, it’s more complicated than that. Apparently, over the summer, the Israel Water Authority sponsored a television commercial campaign featuring Israeli actress Renna Raz and having a message that Israelis need to conserve water only until the plants open in 2013. Talk about a bad message. Conservation and reduction will still be needed.

Plus, desalination isn’t a perfect solution. It comes with a slew of pros and cons. While the big pro is having drinkable water, some cons include a high maintenance cost of building and running these plants and possible harm to the  nearby ecosystem by  the waste from the plant. Bremmer investigates the pros and cons of desalination in the following video:

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