Green Daily

"Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink."

Samuel Taylor Coleridge's famous lines come back to me as I think about what Israel hopes to do with its brackish water. Israelis and Palestinians have long struggled with limited drinking water supplies, and several years of drought have worsened this problem significantly.

As a child I often wondered why we couldn't just drink the ocean. It was water, right? According to the National Geographic, Israel has more or less the same thought. Desalination is the process of removing salt and other minerals from water making it potable. This is similar to reverse osmosis of fresh water, but more intensive. Five large desalination plants are already built, 31 smaller plants are on the way.

National Geographic lists a number of problems with this solution. The most obvious is energy. Desalination is so energy intensive the costs may not out weigh the benefits. The plants have to be run 24 hours a day. The same amount of energy an average Israeli uses in two months would fill an Olympic-size swimming pool with fresh water.

Plain old fresh water also contains minerals and ions that support the body. Desalination is so intensive it removes those compounds from the water. That could harm public health, and officials worry it could also make the water too acidic for metal pipes.

It might be safer to try changing wine to water.


[via National Geographic]