Is Desalination Everywhere Realistic?

Earlier this week, I made the case that desalination will be able to fulfill most of our freshwater needs. But is this realistic? Has it been done before? Won’t it cause pollution? Can the economics be as good—or even better—than I described? This is what we’re going to explore today. And we’ll start with the country that’s the most advanced in this field.

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Israel’s Desalination

Israel has 9.5 million people and five big seawater desalination plants in operation.

They produce enough freshwater to provide over half the country’s supply, including nearly all its tap water!

Israel has a handful of desalination plants on the coast that provide it with most of its freshwater. Source for the 55% here. About 85% of all the water distributed by municipal and regional governments is desalinated. This likely includes industrial uses. I’m having a hard time finding the actual share of drinking water from desalination, but most authoritative sources mention it’s nearly all of it.

When I quoted a cost of $0.40/ton of water in my previous article, the figure comes from a new desalination plant in Israel that is about to open, Soreq 2.

Today, Israeli households pay ~$30/month for their water. This is about half of what Angelenos pay.

More than half of Israel’s water—including that for industrial and even agricultural uses—comes from desalinated water! This is a country that is poorer than the US but in the same wealth ballpark as countries like France, South Korea, or Japan. If Israel can do it, so can they.

But the extent of Israel’s desalination plans are even more monumental.

This is the Dead Sea between Israel, the West Bank, and Jordan:

The Dead Sea is so named because its salt concentration is 33%, which is 10x higher than normal seawater’s! This salinity makes for a harsh environment for plants and animals, hence the perception of it as “dead”.

The sea is actually much smaller than the seabed, and about half of the remaining seabed is dedicated to salts extraction. The rest of the sea has been shrinking, as you can see in this video:

If you don’t feel like clicking on it, here’s a before and after of the last 40 years:

It’s been drying up for decades.

This is happening because the main source of water for the Dead Sea is the Jordan River, and Israel has been using that water for irrigation.

Notice how green the Jordan Valley is. Also, note how green Israel and Palestine (left of the Jordan Valley) are vs Jordan to the right.

So much so that the Sea of Galilee started drying up. This was a national emergency, as it provided 25% of the country’s freshwater at the time. Now saltwater is heavier than freshwater, so the bottom of the sea is much saltier than the top, and if the freshwater at the top disappears, the lake’s surface water can become very salty very fast, in an irreversibly damaging process.

That’s why the Israelis decided to reverse the flow of freshwater: In times of drought, when the Sea of Galilee runs low on freshwater, Israel desalinates water from the Mediterranean and sends it to the Sea of Galilee to refill it!

This started only recently, and most of the time Israel doesn’t need to do it because rainwater is sufficient to refill the lake—especially now that the population consumes so much desalinated water. But during droughts, Israel refills the lake.

Refilling a lake with desalinated water!

And the surplus of water is so high that Israel is becoming a freshwater exporter!

Israel’s exported water, in millions of tons (cubic meters). In 2021, Israel exported 191 million tons of water. Notice the y axis starts at 100M tons. Source.

Israel, therefore, exports the equivalent of about a third of its freshwater production. 

So yes, desalination can water a country.

Can We Make It Even Cheaper?

It’s going to be hard.