Water Revolution in Israel Overcomes Any Threat of Drought
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
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/megasca...
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.
[1] http://carlsbaddesal.com/carlsbad-final-schedule-taking-shap...
[1]http://www.platts.com/latest-news/natural-gas/jerusalem/isra... [2]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)
Everyone keeps looking into batteries and they are not yet sufficient.
Why not store the massive amounts of Solar that Southern California receives during the day as clean drinking water?
When you compare it with the real price of fossil fuel (i.e. add the negative externality of carbon dioxide emission to the notional price), solar wins by a country mile.
Making natural gas cheaper should not be one of our priorities. It's non-renewable and contributes to carbon emissions.
Your attitude is WHY there is so much CO2 emission.
If everyone switched to natural gas no one would worry about global warming. You would not be happy if CO2 emission was slashed in half in one go? Because that's what switching to natural gas would do.
Instead people bash it because it's not perfect.
Quite the opposite: If you actually cared about climate change cheaper natural gas would be your top priority.
Not enough water in the West Bank? (Press the + in the top-right corner) 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_...
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.
I wonder how long people will tolerate this kind of verbal abuse ( since you're unfortunately not the only one to draw those kind of hateful comparisons).
So there is such a thing as justified abuse? Jews in Europe were abused without just cause, unlike Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories?
> I wonder how long people will tolerate this kind of verbal abuse
What verbal abuse are you talking about?
> since you're unfortunately not the only one to draw those kind of hateful comparisons
Take a moment and think why that happens. Are we all haters who want nothing but to tarnish Israel's good name, or is there some real parallel between horrible political decisions? What will historians say 100 years from now? Will they sound more like me, or more like you?
Let's assume for the sake of argument that there is apartheid (it's clear there isn't, but let's assume it anyway). They are in Gaza! Gaza is not Israel, the entire concept of apartheid doesn't even make any sense in that concept.
> ethnic cleansing
Oh definitely. Most effective ethnic cleansing in history.
> implements the final solution for this evil minority?
Your antisemitism is showing.
You do know your github and other public data is linked from your profile? Most people at least try to be anonymous before being antisemitic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_and_the_apartheid_analog...
> Your antisemitism is showing.
In my criticism of Israel?
> You do know your github and other public data is linked from your profile?
Fear is the mind-killer.
Gaza. Does the word mean nothing to you? Apartheid is about two types of citizens, Gaza is not in Israel, the concept make no sense there at all. (And did you actually read the article you linked? I suspect you didn't.)
> In my criticism of Israel?
You didn't criticize Israel, you suggested they solve their problems by massacring millions of people.
> Fear is the mind-killer.
And mindlessly hating other people is the civilization killer.
Ah, the Guantanamo defense. I know that maneuver.
Just compare the victims of the junkyard Hamas missiles and the countless, often innocent victims of Israeli air strikes. Not to count any of the violations of international law Israel has committed against the Palestine people (border violations, the illegal settlements encouraged by Israeli government, illegaly withholding Palestine tax income, ...).
Israel is able to get away with more illegal stuff than the US.
edit: oh, just btw, a single Hellfire missile costs $100k. Imagine if that money spent on a single missile was instead spent on improving the lives of Palestine citizens. Hate and religious extremism is far too often fueled by poverty.
Sure let's get rid of all that and play the number game...
There is not correct statistics of the number of innocent victims from air strikes. The one coming out of a terrorist organization? They count every dead as a civilian.
The Israeli Air Force tries to minimize the number of casualties, there have been numerous occasion where they canceled an operation while it's in the air because innocent civilian will get hurt, even if it means the terrorist will fire at Israeli target or get away.
If Israel really wanted to kill as many as they can, the would, they would just carpet bomb that place, they don't so your argument is invalid....
Israeli isn't an angel but it's not the devil you try to make it be.
Bulldozing the houses of families of terrorists (punishment of the family is these days only heard of in North Korean prison camps)? Illegal settlements?
If the Israeli government wanted peace, they could immediately stop these measures and gain a lot of political credit in peace negotiations without losing anything (except votes from the illegal settlers of course). But the way things are running now, it becomes harder every day to defend Israel.
And that, honestly, is unacceptable.
Peace needs two sides, the Palestinians don't want peace, if they did there would have been one decades ago... Just look at what the previous prime ministers before the current one offered them, but it's too lucrative to just maintain a stats of war (All their leaders are basically millionaires who steal aid money).
You do realize that they did freeze building of settlements for 7 months as a show of good faith and told the Palestinians to come back to the negation table and they refused?
This is a bit confused -- they elected the Hamas-led Change and Reform group, which then led the government of the Palestinian Authority, until the Hamas/Fatah civil war occurred, causing the Hamas-led government to be dismissed (the PA Chairman -- chief of state, effectively, rather than head of government -- was Fatah), and a new Fatah-led government to be installed (with debated legality) which only effectively had any control in the West Bank.
The PA was the institution for which they were electing leadership, not one of the parties.
(Incidentally, since the existing government of the now-named State of Palestine -- effectively, the government of the West Bank -- is Fatah-led as a result of the Fatah/Hamas civil war and subsequent dismissal of the Hamas government, even to the extent it might be reasonable to use Hamas as an excuse for Israel obstructing water to Hamas-led Gaza, its pretty ludicrous to try to extend that justification to Israeli treatment of Palestinians generally, or the area under the effective control of the Fatah-led State of Palestine specifically.)
well, technically you're right. Since the withdrawal, Israel is the occupying power _around_ Gaza as it controls all access to the Gaza - by land, sea and air.
While i'm completely pro-Israel, in the sense that i fully support right of Jewish people for their state (where it is now, whatever way it happened, it has already happened), i can't understand while the same standard - the right for their own state - isn't applied to Palestinians, nor by Israel (themselves being huge beneficiary of such a right) nor by the rest of the world. Palestinians' hate toward Israel can't be a valid reason to deny their own state to Palestinians as for example nobody denies the right of statehood to Iran who officially hates Israel, nor such right was denied to Egypt back when Egypt waged a war against Israel.
It probably seems a bit abstract for americans or europeans, but it's fundamental to the people risking their lives on it.
But they still get water regardless on the amount they are allow to pump, clean safe water coming from the same sources used for the rest of Israel, including the one in the article. They will have water without concerns for drought or whatever happens with the aquifer.
The thing is that this aquifer is under both Israeli and Palestinian land and therefor one affect the other. Just look at what they did in Gaza (From the article): "Overpumping in Gaza, which causes seawater and sewage to penetrate into the aquifer, has made 90 percent of the potable water undrinkable."
It's probably best that they have a limit on drilling and pumping. Otherwise it could be really bad...
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.
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).
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?
But that didn't apply in my social circles. My selection of citizens (say .. more than one, less than two dozen people) were not observant. Some were gay. Some recently immigrated and had more or less about as much idea about Jewish laws as I did.
So while you might present a point for refusing recycling (?), people around me were really mostly complaining about the 'Ewww' part of using a bottle that someone else used. Maybe downed, and used as an ashtray afterwards. Etc. etc..
Do they not eat at a restaurant that washes dishes?
I doubt they actually thought about what they were saying.
There was no way to proceed. Obviously these guys did it that way at home. Stating that this is wasteful (and even worse for a restaurant!) didn't help. The 'sink full of water in which you dip all the dishes of the night and whatever you need to clean' was considered 'ewww'.
I'm still baffled today (we returned about 2.5 years ago). I still have exchanges about water usage (i.e. "It is our right to use as much water as we want to grow our garden") with my coworkers to this day.
They are both right and wrong. Restaurants use the tap to wash food off of plates (no soap). Then they sanitize (not wash) the dishes with bleach, and minimal water.
> I'm still baffled ... with my coworkers to this day.
I hope you do not consider them representative of Israel. Israel has lots of people, with lots of opinions and ways of doing things. I get that they were who you knew there, but I hope you'll categorize them as "that's how they do it", not "that's how Israel does it".
Not to the degree that they do in Israel.
> And even IFF that would be true, not using a running tap would save more water.
Agreed.
> What happens to the old/used bottles?
Crush them and put them back in the ground. Energy is more plentiful than water in Israel, it makes little sense to spend precious water to make glass. Are you worried about waste? Of all things glass is hardly a problem, it's impossible for us to run out of it, and it causes no harm if buried.
> Kosher ... will stay a bottle of coke ... If you consider Coke kosher .. refilled with the same stuff. I don't see how kosher comes into play here?
Coke is kosher, it's actually one of the very first commercial products that was certified kosher. They had to tell the Rabbi all the secret ingredients. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/Kasheri...
Anyway the problem is that you don't know what they did with the bottle while they had it. Did they put other products inside it, and now the bottle is not kosher? Probably not, but it's a concern.
You can make the bottle kosher again by boiling it in water, but that costs you more energy.
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.
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.
The threat is real.
It's just exaggerated v-penis comparisons, imho.
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.
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.
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.
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-energ...) for example.
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.
What are your objections to desalination?
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.
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...
Desalinization works pretty well in California for getting water to people. Not so much for agriculture.
We need to start letting the agricultural water price rise to where it needs to be in order to get the agribusinesses to start growing less water intensive crops.
Note that one of the things that Israel did was digging up water-using orchards.
And those comments were very predictable.