Large seawater desalination projects: a timely solution to Israel's pressing water needs

DESALINATION ELSEVIER

Desalination 128 (2000) 191-196 www.elsevier.com/loc ate/desal

REPORT ON THE ISRAEL DESALINATION SOCIETY CONFERENCE

Large seawater desalination projects: a timely solution to Israel's pressing water needs I. Sutzkover, D. Hasson*, R. Semiat Israel Desalination Society, c/o Rabin Desalination Laboratory, Department of Chemical Engineering, Technion-lsrael Institute of Technology, Haifa 32000, Israel Tel. +972 (4) 829-2936, Fax +972 (4) 823-0476

1. Background information

ference, organized by the Israel Desalination

A one-day conference dedicated to the subject of"Large Seawater Desalination P r o j e c t s - A Timely Solution to Israel's Pressing Water Needs", was held atthe Technion-Israel Institute of Technology on December 7, 1999. Its background was the Israeli Government's

Society, enabled prominent desalination developers to present their capabilities and experience, and air their concept of a large-scale seawater desalination project they would be envisaging. The conference was held under the auspices of the Water Research Institute of the Technion (WRI) and the Center for Water Science and

Resolution 4895 of March 7, 1999, relating to seawater desalination. The resolution instructs the Minister of National Infrastructures, the Minister of Finance and the Minister of the Interior to advance the planning of integration of seawater desalination plants into the Israel water supply system and to prepare bid specifications for establishing a 50MCM/y seawater desalination plant built, owned and operated by private investment. This resolution accelerated interest by some world-leading desalination developers in making preparations for concrete proposals. The "Large Seawater Desalination Projects" con*Correspondingauthor.

Technology of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Members of the conference organizing committee were David Hasson (Conference Chairman, WRI Rabin Desalination Laboratory), Amitzur Barak (Water Commission), Nathan Berkman (Adan Technical Services), Miriam Brusilovsky (Jacobson Agencies) and Raphael Semiat (WRI Rabin Desalination Laboratory). The very large attendance at the conference, exceeding 300 participants, necessitated closedcircuit television to accommodate an overflow audience, which included over 30 visitors from twelve countries. Public interest in desalination

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has been heightened by the drought that afflicted Israel last year and so far, is still continuing. The rainfall in the year 1998/99 was only 45% of the average annual precipitation, making it the poorest rainfall year of this century. In view of the limited water reserve capacity of Israel, the unusually dry rainfall seasons led to a serious decline in the water reserves of the country. This has sharpened government and public awareness on the water scarcity situation and the need to prevent further deterioration in water quality, With these considerations in mind, the conference program aimed to advance desalination by illustrating to decision-makers the ready availability of reliable and affordable desalination technologies and by emphasizing to water project companies impending desalination business opportunities,

2. Opening session and status of the desalination project tender Professor David Hasson openedthe greetings session (Fig. 1) by expressing the thanks of the organizing committee to Meir Ben-Meir, the Water Commissioner, for agreeing to deliver a tone-setting address. Thanks were also conveyed to the world's leading companies participating in the conference for their readiness to present valuable desalination experience in the presence of competitors. The packed audience filling the conference hall was a clear indication of the rapidly growing awareness in Israel that desalination is inescapably the major tool for coping with the country's water shortage difficulties, Major General (Res,) Amos Lapidot, President of the Technion, welcomed the lecturers who represent the world's most renowned desalination developers and who can speak from first-hand experience in operating some of the world's largest desalination plants, He expressed the hope that the enlightening

information disclosed at the conference would serve to stimulate the government's decision process on the desalination issue. Lapidot concluded by recalling the notable contributions of Technion researchers to major national water projects. Eng. Koussai Quteishat, Director of the Middle East Desalination Research Center (MEDRC), expressed his pleasure at participating in an event related to a desalination - - a subject of great significance. MEDRC was established in pursuance to the unanimous agreement of the Multi-lateral Peace Group that the solution to plaguing water shortages in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region lies in desalination. MEDRC was implementing a multi-faceted programforadvancingdesalinationintheMENA region through funding research, performing in-house research, disseminating desalination material, undertaking technology transfer endeavours and organizing training projects and academic interchanges. Quteishat praised the IDS for providing dissemination of a wealth of information in a condensed, cost-effective, conference. Professor Ora Kedem, head of the Desalination Group at the Ben-Gurion University Center for Water Science and Technology, brought welcome greetings from the president of the university, Professor Avishai Braverman. She reminded the audience that the report submitted by Braverman 5 years ago was one of the very first documents to put on paper the scary numbers that demonstrate the gap between available water resources and water demands in the next few years. Ben-Gurion University researchers, sitting right on the border of the Negev desert, have naturally been long aware of the waterresearchneedsoflsraelindesalination, in the maintenance of water quality and in better water recycling, and have been traditionally involved in endeavours striving to cope with israel's water problems.

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Fig. 1. Opening session of the conference.

Professor Uri Shamir, Director of the Technion's Water Research Institute (WRI), expressed pleasure at the WRI being one of the supporting organizations hosting this important conference. The WRI was created in response to the declining support of water research by the national authorities. From the start, the WRI opened its doors nationwide to water researchers of other universities, agencies and private enterprises. Shamir then stressed the imperative of adopting a proper balance of water supply and water demand management policies. He reviewed differences in opinion regarding the timing of desalination, stressed the need for a clear government policywith respectto agriculture and

called for consolidation ofthe present fragmented national responsibility for water in a single authority. Shamir cited components that should be included in a comprehensive, well balanced water plan, analyzed the positive contributions derived from large-scale seawater desalination and concluded by noting the special significance of this conference in providing well proven data for informeddecision-making. In opening the conference proceedings, Meir Ben-Meir, the Government Water Commissioner, stressed the ecological threats facing Israel, the widening gap between fresh water supply and population growth, the extreme rainfall fluctuations that imperil water reserves and the danger

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of desertification. He voiced a strong plea to the

3. Conference highlights

government to launch immediately a large-scale seawater desalination program, In fact, a proposed set of tender documents for executing the first large-scale seawater desalination project has already been drafted by the Water Commission. D. Hoffman of Adan Technical and Economic Services, who prepared the tender documents under the direction of the Water Commission, presented at the conference

The main part of the conference consisted of presentations delivered by seven leading Israeli and international companies. P. Glueckstern and M. Priel reviewed the desalination activities of Mekorot, the national water supply company,

the main technical, economic and commercial paralneters and the key bidding requirements and procedures of the tender documents, The tender will be international, open to all proven technologies and qualified contractors with Israeli partners capable of assuring local operation and maintenance of the facility. The contract basis will be of a BOOT project extending over a period of 20-30 years. The size of the project is 50-55 MCM/y, and the facility's design is to allow for future expansion to double this initial capacity. The site of the project-- the Eilat-AshkelonOilPipeCorporation's("Katza") Ashkelon compound - - was selected on the basis of earlier studies which focused on tile integration of large-scale desalination plants within the existing water supply system, The draft tender documents were submitted to the Ministries of National Infrastructures and Finance on October 6, 1999. The tender's schedule foresees the start of commercial operation within less than 22 months from the date of the Government approving issuing of the tender, According to a J e r u s a l e m P o s t press report, dated December 23, 1999, the ministerial economics committee deliberated on the desalination tendering issue at a meeting held on December 21. It was resolved not to give the immediate go-ahead and postpone the decision to April 1,2000. Nevertheless, the Water Commissioner, Mr. Meir Ben-Meir, expressed his confidence that the proposal for a plant that would produce at least 50MCM/y will be approved,

which has erected some 30 desalination plants in Israel during the last 27 years. Large-capacity designs prepared for desalination plants to be erected at southern Mediterranean sites were mentioned and some comparative costs presented. A.L. Goldstein reviewed the desalination activities oflonics over a period of four decades in which Ionics built over 3000 desalination plants, the largest number of plants built by any desalination company. The concept of"own and operate" was pioneered by Ionics, and in the past 10 years Ionics has invested over $1/4 billion of its own capital in "own and operate" facilities. The contract recently awarded to Ionics for the Trinidad desalination facility was for a 40 MCM/y project, close in size to projects being contemplated in Israel. Goldstein ended his presentation by voicing a clear message to those involved in the desalination decision process: desalination technology is proven, desalination economics are competitive and the time is ripe for definitive action. In reviewing the Tampa Bay desalination project, with its record-setting lowest water cost of $0.453/m 3, E.J. Sondey of Poseidon Resources Corporation aptly depicted this project as "an epoch-making idea that will open new markets". Apart from desalination, Poseidon has developed thelargestwastewaterprivatizationintheUSand the largest project holdings in Mexico's water treatment sector. Sondey ascribed the following characterizing features to the Tampa Bay 100,000m3/d project-- a unique combination of proven technology, innovative financing and shared use of utility infrastructure which produced break-through pricing. Elements of the

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contractual structure, the plant and process design were described, Another large BOOT project is the 40,000m3/d Larnaca desalination contract recently awarded to IDE Technologies, a company which has been active in desalination since 1965 and has installed over 300 plants in 36 countries. G. Kronenberg of IDE described the organizational features of the Larnaca project and its design features, J. Horgen of Suez-Lyonnaise des Eaux described the profile of this global company, active in energy, water, waste services and communications. The company has a staff of some 200,000 employees in over 100 countries, Its desalination activities are directed by Degremont, a fully owned subsidiary. Suez-Lyonnaise des Eaux, together with Degremont and Israeli partners, is expected to participate in the competition for the contemplated Israeli desalination projects, Another global company covering similar fields of activity is Vivendi Water. The company has a staff of some 250,000 employees in over 100 countries. M.M. Bourbigot and T. Pankratz briefly reviewed both thermal and membrane technologies and recent cost and performance improvements, including hybrid and dual-purpose plants. Vivendi owns SIDEM, specializing in MED plants, and the USFilter and Memcor Group, specializing in membrane technologies. According to these presenters, Vivendi Water has

The basic premise of the consortium is that the main problem Israel faces in introducing largescale seawater desalination along the Mediterranean seashore is not a technical or engineering problem. It is the rather long problematic permitting process which may even take up to or even over 10 years, which could not be by-passed by special legislation. The consortium partners believe that the only medium-term solution available to Israel for immediate implementation is to install a mobile floating desalination vessel which offers an economic alternative to conventional land-based plants. The ship can serve the country until an orderly long-term planning and tendering process takes place for a large-scale (over 150MCM/y)land-based seawater desalination plant along the Mediterranean shore. The design parameters for a seawater RO plant of 150,000m3/d (50MCM/y) were presented and operational and environmental issues described. As regards the ship, it was estimated that a standard bulk carrier ship of about 150,000MT deadweight will be adequate to house the entire desalination plant and its accessory units, notably the power generation section. The ship will be stationed at a distance of 2-4km offshore by Catenary Anchor Leg Mooring.

built and operated at least 11 large-scale RO plants and is the world's largest supplier of desalination systems (9% of the world's installed capacity). The Vivendi Water group is also expected to participate in the competition for the contemplated Israeli desalination projects. The final paper was presented by three partners of a "Red-Med Marine Desalination Consortium": S. Rodav (Torrel Energy, Israel), R.B. Klose (Salzgitter Analgenbau, Germany) and S. Jayakumar (Keppel FELS, Singapore).

In the closing session chaired by Professor Raphael Semiat, participants of the conference unanimously adopted a resolution directed at the Israeli Government and the public at large. The main points of the resolution are as follows: • The conference highlighted the substantial reduction in desalinated water costs that has taken place in recent years and the vast experience that has accumulated in the world in the construction and operation of largescale desalination plants.

4. Conference resolution

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• Leading Israeli and international companies, having an impressive record in the construction and operation of some of the world's largest desalination plants, presented plans for large-scale seawater desalination that could be implemented in Israel with easy financing and economical water costs. • Also presented at the conference were the guiding principles, prepared according the directives of the Water Commission, for the contemplated desalination project, • The conference calls upon the Government of Israel to ensure the availability of water, the most basic human need, by the secure approach of desalination, which is a source of high-quality water, independent of foreign agents. The Government is urged to release

henceforth, without any further delays, tender documents for bidding the first large desalination project of about 50MCM/y.

5. Conference proceedings Final edited papers of the conference and highlights of the discussions will be published as a book, which will be available for purchase around April, 2000 from the publisher: Information Center of the Water Research Institute Technion-Israel Institute of Technology Haifa 32000, ISRAEL Tel: +972 (4) 829-3800; Fax: +972 (4) 829-3577