Since its inception, Israeli scientists have always put great efforts into developing solutions to help alleviate their country’s chronic water problems.
Beginning with innovated “drip” irrigation systems (companies Plastro and Netafim) for arid regions, and continuing with desalination of seawater in the early 1960’s and recycling of sewage waste water in the 1970’s and ’80s, projects developed to conserve Israelis’ scarce water supplies have been leaders in their field, and much of this technology has been exported to other countries that also have serious water problems.
More recently, these conservation and recycling projects has resulted in the creation of a new program known as Novel Efficient Water Technologies or Israeli NEWTech for short. Going far beyond the original projects for providing more water resources for agricultural use, as well as for combating “desertification” of the country’s Negev arid region, Israel NEWTech water projects are also involved in treatment and recycling of sewage and other waste water, new advanced methods of desalination, as well as water security and management programs.
Israel has one of world’s highest percentages of waste water reclamation, second only to the American state of California. This program is designed to reclaim as high a percentage of waste water as possible, and redistribute it back into the national water system.
Although most of this reclaimed water is earmarked for agricultural and industrial use, a portion of it is purified by method of special chemicals and filtration devices that make the water pure enough for human consumption.
One of these water purification plants, the Dan Region Treat and Reclamation Plant, located 15 kilometers south of Tel Aviv and purifies 130 million cubic meters of waste water annually.
This plant, which entails a system of special treatment pools, oxidation and anaerobic systems to remove impurities such as nitrates and phosphorous from the water, treats enough to re-supply approximately 8% of the entire country’s water needs. Another large reclamation project is located at Haifa to reclaim industrial waste water from the city’s many factories and refineries, as well as from the heavily polluted Kishon River. Israel’s two main water purification challenges come from sewage from the country’s urban ears as well as from the industrial sector.
A very important part of NEWTech’s water innovation programs is the water security programs to make sure that the population has adequate reserve water supplies for use during a national emergency or humanitarian crises to help minimize deaths and illness from inadequate or unsafe drinking water supplies. This includes systems for re-purifying water supplies and re-distributing it as needed.
Israel NEWTech projects were exhibited in a recent water purification exhibition in Beijing China in November, 2008. NEWTech participation in events scheduled for 2009 include the Waste-Tech water recycling exhibition in Russia, on May 26-29, as well as forums and exhibitions in the USA, UK, Taiwan, and France. As far as we know Oded Distel, who Green Prophet wrote about here in regards to the upcoming WATEC water convention, is the person to contact should you or your country be looking for Israeli water tech solutions.
Author: Maurice Picow
Maurice Picow grew up in Oklahoma City, U.S.A., where he received a B.S. Degree in Business Administration. Following graduation, Maurice embarked on a career as a real estate broker before making the decision to move to Israel. After arriving in Israel, he came involved in the insurance agency business and later in the moving and international relocation fields. Maurice became interested in writing news and commentary articles in the late 1990’s, and now writes feature articles for the The Jerusalem Post as well as being a regular contributor to Green Prophet. He has also written a non-fiction study on Islam, a two volume adventure novel, and is completing a romance novel about a forbidden love affair. Writing topics of particular interest for Green Prophet are those dealing with global warming and climate change, as well as clean technology - particularly electric cars.
Gerhard Laschober, Austria, Europe, [email protected]
Acquiring drinking water from icebergs
and its transport to parts of the world that sustain lack of water
Drinking water can be acquired from the snow and ice of icebergs floating freely in the ocean which, due to the climate changes, literally reached the “civilization gate”. The main goal of this invention is to supply vast parts of the world suffering from lack of drinking water with enormous supplies of good quality drinking water. Enough water can be supplied to animals and parts of agriculture, industry as well as handicraft industries for their own needs.
The principle of this innovative way of acquiring drinking water is carving freely floating icebergs by using a chain saw into big sized ice blocks, so called self-buoyant “ice ships”, which would be then get dragged behind a towing ship to the shore directly to the consumer. Consequently, these ice blocks will get melted into drinking water by using the surrounding warm air.
The first step in this process of acquiring drinking water is the towing ship traveling to the floating iceberg. The towing ship is filled with a predefined amount of sea water to act as ballasting water which will warm up during the travel to the iceberg for free by using the waste heat of the ship engines, systems heat and the heat from the ship operating equipment. The ship is navigated via satellite to the via satellite selected iceberg.
On the ship reaching the target iceberg, the innovative hot air balloons brought on the ship (and so far unassembled) will get activated and will start acting as carrier balloon able to carry heavy loads. These carrier balloons will be filled with surrounding air (from around the towing ship) which has been heated before and by using the heat created by the ballasting water brought in the ship (by using a heat exchanger) and this heated air will be fed through textile piping right to the hot air balloon (fixed to the towing ship) in which it will act as a carrier gas representing the buoyancy force of the balloon.
This mechanism will be used to fill all the other freely floating balloons anchored to the towing ship; they will rise up and by using their own buoyancy force will then position the carving equipment together with the cutting chain directly onto the iceberg.
One end of the cutting chain will be positioned by using the imported submersible robot directly under the iceberg where it will be positioned and connected to the opposite end of the cutting chain. The new connected chain will now run vertically around the whole iceberg. Next, the connected cutting chain starts carving smaller icebergs off the main iceberg while the chain is driven by its own chain source. The dividing cut in the iceberg is directed from the bottom up.
The above described process will cause the separated iceberg to float up on its own; there will be no freezing of the cut as well as minimizing local breaking off the ice masses from the iceberg.
The drive of the cutting chain will come from the towing ship from where it is carried to the iceberg by using the wind force and buoyant force of the balloons. The desired enormous cutting force is achieved by increasing the buoyant force of the balloons and water buoyant force in the location of the hollow bodies. These arisen forces then transfer onto the iceberg resulting into the cutting process of the iceberg (carving off big pieces) creating “ice ships”. To transport the “ice ships” onto the shore, existing water routes and harbors, which are utilized by similarly sized and shaped tankers, can be used.
Packing the dissevered “ice ships” in plastic materials will prevent the ice from melting during its transport onto the shore. After carving several “ice ships” off the iceberg, they can be dragged together by a towing ship onto the shore directly to the consumer/ consumers’ facilities. At consumers, the “ice ships” can be thawed by using surrounding temperature while utilizing the chill of the ice boats during their transport for cooling purposes. 30 million barrels (bl) of drinking water or more can be utilized in one towing shipment!
We also developed a patent to cover drinking water needs in inland areas, warm and dry areas with no infrastructure for water transportation. This system is based on acquiring drinking water by using our patented method utilizing water condensation (in large quantities) from the warm surrounding air. It is based on cooling off aerial humidity on condensation surfaces.
Contacts for further information and utilisation: [email protected]
Gerhard Laschober