XPost: alt.economics

Ben Allen
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Lived in IsraelFeb 10
“70% of Israel's domestic water demand is provided by desalination“ (embassies.gov). Why doesn’t the US build desalination facilities in
states like California & Nevada, who struggle with having enough water
for farming & city life?
Excellent questions. Let’s parse them out.

Why doesn’t the US build desalination facilities in states like

California & Nevada,

Nevada is a long way from the sea. Desalination plants generally need a
sea water or brackish water source. The cost of pumping water over
distance makes desalinated water, already expensive, prohibitive. Too prohibitive even for domestic consumption.

California already has 12 desalination plants[1] and counting.

The problem for California is that building desalination plants, while
very expensive is electorally easy (a billion USD of tax payers dollars
here and there and pretty soon you are talking about real money).
Desalination however by itself is not nearly enough. Much harder are all
the difficult steps Israel was forced to take. These steps included
water thrift, water recycling and most of all - water management.

See Ben Allen's answer to What, if anything, can California learn from
Israel to solve the Californian water crisis?

who struggle with having enough water for farming & city life?

California actually has plenty of water. It is just misused.
Californians have merely chosen to export their water, this liquid gold,
in the form of water intensive, relatively low value, agricultural
produce, to other states and countries.


California water exports. That’s two (2!) domestic showers worth of
water to produce just that handful of pistachios being lifted above.
(Pic Source)

It’s possible to do such things. Israel does it quite successfully now.
But the Jewish state takes that expensive desalinated water and sells it
to domestic end-users who pay market rates without exception. All the
while Israel instantly detects and quickly fixes the slightest leak in
their water pipe system. It then recycles the urban water for
agricultural use (90% of Israel’s water is recycled!). The farmers then purchase that purified waste water, every drop that Israel can offer,
and in turn use it for crops selected for their water consumption vs
selling price, using the very latest, indigenous, cutting edge
technology and minimal water farming methods. The selling price of goods
grown in Israel has to include the full cost of the water used to grow it.

In Israel, it’s all about water
While in Israel, I learned how the life-giving resource of water is
brought to a dry and thirsty land and conserved so that generations to
come can eat of the fruit of the land. https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/in-israel-it-s-all-about-water

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