The new topic on the block these days has been the Disi water project and the new study revealing naturally occurring radioactivity in underground aquifers. The Jordanian government, continuing its sacred traditions, contravened and decided to live the lie and go ahead with the project. This behavior, coupled with many Jordanian jouranlists', paid and otherwise, subconscious effort at agreeing with the government, opened the door to conspiracy theories fueled by the mere presence of Israeli scientists in the team that had undertook the study.
All the while, the Jordanian government, people and journalist as well, went past news reports of a Jordanian Scientist, Mohammed Rasool Qtaishat, inventing a new desalination method that would drastically reduce the cost of the process of desalination. Current technologies cost about 50 cents a cubic meter, as in an Israeli desalination plant.
The Disi Project, as it stands now, will cost $875 Million to construct. The government, however, will not get possession of the project for another 25 years. This brings up the issue of opportunity cost given up to Gama Enerji, the contractor constructing and owning the project for its first 25 years of its life. If we were to assume a 20% annual return on investment for the 25 years Gama is the sole owner of the whole project, that would be, discounted to present value, around $2 Billion dollars. (don't ask me to show you calculations! Well, at least give me the benfit of the doubt)
Poseidon, a company in San Diego, CA, has already started work on a desalination plant that will cost $300 Million and produce roughly half as much water as what the Disi project would produce.
My grave concern is that we would have to wait until a new government is formed to know who is actually behind the Disi project and why is it being pushed so hard. We all remember the Dead Sea Casino [or]deal.
All the while, the Jordanian government, people and journalist as well, went past news reports of a Jordanian Scientist, Mohammed Rasool Qtaishat, inventing a new desalination method that would drastically reduce the cost of the process of desalination. Current technologies cost about 50 cents a cubic meter, as in an Israeli desalination plant.
The Disi Project, as it stands now, will cost $875 Million to construct. The government, however, will not get possession of the project for another 25 years. This brings up the issue of opportunity cost given up to Gama Enerji, the contractor constructing and owning the project for its first 25 years of its life. If we were to assume a 20% annual return on investment for the 25 years Gama is the sole owner of the whole project, that would be, discounted to present value, around $2 Billion dollars. (don't ask me to show you calculations! Well, at least give me the benfit of the doubt)
Poseidon, a company in San Diego, CA, has already started work on a desalination plant that will cost $300 Million and produce roughly half as much water as what the Disi project would produce.
My grave concern is that we would have to wait until a new government is formed to know who is actually behind the Disi project and why is it being pushed so hard. We all remember the Dead Sea Casino [or]deal.
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2 comments:
I think the 2 billion figure you mentioned is rather "conservative". But here's where Desalination is an issue. It's not free! It requires vast amounts of energy. So there's a huge running cost associated with the initial extremely simple plant (Think HUGE Boiler). But Desalination stations can be used to produce energy as well. So that will offset the cost a little bit by "selling" water AND Electricity produced.
An idea comes to mind here...
Had Jordan been more science and technology savvy, we could have organized a competition to do something like: Use Sun power to desalinate sea water in which a huge patch of the desert is used to force water to evaporate, later condense producing fresh water. It will need to be a huge undertaking but it's possible. All you need is like 20 Square kilometers of these "farms" and you have your water security for the next 100 years
In regard to energy, we could talk with Egypt to get the same deal Israel gets for natural gas.
I actually though about the solar energy use in desalination specially after First Solar was able to "reduce the manufacturing cost for solar panels below the $1 per watt price barrier."
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