PRIVATE HIGH TECH SOLVES A RESOURCE SHORTAGE

An Israeli-led consortium is completing the world’s largest, most technologically advanced and economical water desalination plant, a project that backers say could influence prospects for Mideast peace and development of arid regions worldwide. The $250 million plant will produce 100 million cubic meters of water a year in two identical, adjacent facilities from water drawn from the Mediterranean Sea, sufficient to provide 5 percent of the water consumed in Israel. One desalination unit here is complete, and a second unit is expected to be finished by the end of the year.

Lance Johnson, manager of large desalination projects at Dow Chemical Co. — which makes the membranes at the center of the process — said output will equal “500 million half-liter size bottles of water a day — a lot of water.” Israeli officials have quietly begun talks with the Palestinian Authority about the possibility of increasing the plant’s production to 120 million cubic meters a year, with 20 million cubic meters to be shipped to Gaza, 5 miles away. “After this plant is in operation, people will realize it’s much cheaper to build this kind of plant than fight for water in the Middle East,” said Gustavo Kronenberg, general manager of the VID Desalination Co. and the man in charge of the plant’s construction.

The project is being developed by VID, a joint venture made up of IDE Technologies and Elran Infrastructures, both of Israel, and Veolia Water of France. The Israeli government will take ownership of the facility after 25 years. Aiman Jarrar, head of the Palestinian Water Authority’s regulatory directorate, said Gaza residents need affordable water. “The Palestinians realize that one of the solutions of water shortage in Gaza strip is desalination,” Jarrar said in an e-mail.....

Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, Israel’s infrastructure minister, said the country has embarked on a five-year plan to develop desalination plants capable of creating 300 million cubic meters of water. Israel uses 600 million cubic meters of water annually for human consumption and another 1.3 billion or so for agriculture and industry. The Ashkelon plant is coming on line just as Israel has begun to focus on developing its vast Negev desert region. The bulk of the water produced in Ashkelon will be shipped to the Negev, and some will go to Jerusalem, Kronenberg said.

The plant will be the world’s largest facility producing water through reverse osmosis, a type of filtering process. Currently, only about 20 percent of worldwide desalination involves reverse osmosis, but membranes developed in recent years have made the process more economical. In fact, as the technology improved, the Israelis doubled the Ashkelon plant’s planned capacity. In 1999, when planning for the project began, the estimated cost of producing water had fallen from $1 per cubic meter to 70 cents. Kronenberg said the Ashkelon plant will produce water at 53 cents per cubic meter, which he called “the lowest price ever seen for desalinated water.”

Three pipes extending more than a half-mile into the sea take in water about 45 feet below the surface, where it’s clearest. The incoming water is routed to two desalination units located just north of a huge, coal-fired power plant whose smokestacks loom over Israel’s southern Mediterranean coast. Pulled by gravity, the seawater is filtered through layers of sand. Additives and cartridge filters remove suspended particles larger than 10 microns. The seawater then is routed to a pumping chamber, where its pressure is elevated. Half of that water flows through special membranes and becomes potable. The remaining brine, under high pressure, is used to help boost the pressure of incoming seawater — helping to dramatically reduce the energy needed for the process.....

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DAVID KING, THE FAILED TINPOT HITLER

(Post lifted from the Adam Smith blog)

Dr Alister McFarquhar asks whatever happened to our Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir David King? Jonathan Leake tells us in the Times. Sir David is one of two senior government figures calling for a green tax system to force individuals and firms to cut energy consumption. The other, worryingly, is Elliot Morley, an environment minister. In Montreal in November a successor to the Kyoto treaty on climate change will be sought if possible for when it expires in 2012.

The hope must be that they fail. Firm leadership from the US fortunately put an end to the Kyoto madness of spending billions to cut our growth. The US-led proposal of effective technological solutions will achieve far better results, and since Blair effectively signed off from Kyoto last month, looks like the way forward in future.

What the illustrious Sir David wants is personal energy quotas for all of us, rather like ration books. If we drive a lot or take airplane flights, we'll have to buy unused quota points from others. The aim is to control emissions by forcing people to use less energy. King doesn't go into detail for fear of "angering the Treasury," but Morley spells out a 'growing interest' in imposing carbon quotas on people.

Neither of them says how much of global warming is part of a natural geophysical and solar cycle, and how much is man-made. Nor do they tell us what proportion of the latter element is caused by energy use, as opposed to activities like farming. Both assume that humankind has to use less energy, and think energy or carbon taxes are the only way forward. Both overlook the very real possibility that emissions might be controlled not by using less energy, but by using cleaner energy, and developing technologies which address the problems.

You might drive people with sticks such as carbon taxes and energy ration books, but carrots are usually more successful. The carrots might include incentives to develop cleaner energy use, and perhaps lower taxes on the forms which pollute less. That is what worked for unleaded fuel. The kind of restrictive, authoritarian thinking which produced Kyoto and ideas like personal energy quotas is fortunately looking well past its sell-by date; and the same is true of Sir David King and Elliot Morley.




Chewing Up Enviro-myths

(Post lifted from Cheat-Seeking Missiles)

I've laughed with frustration when, on the one hand, environmentalists say grazing is extremely damaging to the environment and must be banned on federal lands, and on the other, they call some century-old cattle ranch pegged for development a pristine ecosystem that must be saved.

Now the publication Conservation Biology has a study that's probably quite close to the truth: cattle are good for the environment.

Before the greenies amoung you actually turn green, take a moment to consider biological history. Before ranchers came to the west, there were large grazing animals all over the place -- buffalo, elk, and so forth. They interfaced with the land just as cows do.

They are no longer with us, and with their departure, an important aspect of natural ecosystem balancing disappeared. Cows replace this function quite efficiently:

Cattle grazing could help endangered species

There may be a surprise in store for environmentalists - removing cattle grazing could actually be damaging to the environment

There may be a surprise in store for environmentalits - removing cattle grazing could actually be damaging to the environment. An article published in the latest issue of Conservation Biology finds that cattle grazing plays an important role in maintaining wetland habitat necessary for some endangered species. Removing cattle from grazing lands in the Central Valley of California could, inadvertently, degrade the vernal pool habitat of fairy shrimp and tiger salamanders.

Cattle grazing influences the rates of evaporation which work together with climate to determine the depth and duration of wetland flooding. Cattle have been grazing in the land for roughly 150 years and have become a naturalized part of the ecosystem. "In practical terms, this means that grazing may help sustain the kinds of aquatic environments endangered fairy shrimps need to survive," author Christopher R. Pyke states.

The authors looked at 36 vernal pools on two different geologic formations on a 5000-ha ranch in eastern Sacramento County, California. Their experiments found that removal of grazing reduced the duration of wetland flooding by an average of 50 days per year.

Their simulations show that climate change could compound these impacts, potentially, leaving endangered fairy shrimp and tiger salamanders without enough time to mature before their temporary aquatic environments disappear.

"Consequently, land managers can play an important role in climate change impacts, i.e. they can exacerbate or ameliorate, the local impacts of global change," Pyke adds. Conservationists may find that grazing is not always a negative factor, and it presents real opportunities to adapt to climate variability and climate change..

The study is published in the October issue of Conservation Biology

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

Comments? Email me here. My Home Page is here or here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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