Desalination is answer to water shortages

THERE is a lamentable disregard about a solution to our water problem. Operation Hydrate is a commendable effort to bring the crisis to the attention of all citizens (“Public-private partnership provides water” and leader, Cape Argus, February 23) but it can never be the solution.

Ninety-seven percent of the water on earth is salted. The greatest repository is the ocean, a ready and natural source

Fifty-five percent of our potable water is used for agriculture, which, together with 6 percent for industry, makes a hefty 61 percent of clean, sweet water that is not absorbed by humans and animals, but eventually mostly finds it way into the ground and out to sea, polluted.

Getting fresh water to the right place and in the right quantities is critical for life on earth.

Roughly 80 percent of people around the world live within 100km of a coast. Using seawater is an obvious solution to the lack of fresh water.

What is needed are facilities that reliably and consistently do the job.

Israel has developed and provides unique technologies for desalination.

The process is highly reliable, simple to operate and has low maintenance costs. It is energy-efficient and tolerates variations in the quality of the seawater.

With the growing demand for fresh water, coupled with droughts and rising costs from traditional sources, desalination is becoming increasingly practical and economical.

An Israeli company this month brought onstream the largest desalination plant in the Western hemisphere which will produce some 190 million litres of water from the sea daily for the residents of drought-stricken southern California.

The plant is able to generate potable water of the highest quality while creating some 2 500 jobs and generating about $350 million (R5.37bn) for the local economy, providing San Diego County with a drought-proof water supply and the ability to meet the water needs of future generations.

This is not theory but practical and working technology with 10 similar plants in the US and also in other parts of the world, including Africa.

Job creation, economic enhancement, drought solutions – what is South Africa waiting for?