VZCZCXRO8140
RR RUEHAST RUEHDH RUEHHM RUEHLN RUEHMA RUEHPB RUEHPOD RUEHSL RUEHTM
RUEHTRO
DE RUEHTV #2149/01 2731518
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 301518Z SEP 09
FM AMEMBASSY TEL AVIV
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 3638
INFO RUEHJM/AMCONSUL JERUSALEM 2882
RUEHAM/AMEMBASSY AMMAN 6638
RUEHZN/ENVIRONMENT SCIENCE TECH COLLECTIVE
RUEHRC/DEPT OF AGRICULTURE WASHDC
RHMFIUU/HQ EPA WASHINGTON DC

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 TEL AVIV 002149 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR OES/ENV, NEA/RA, NEA/IPA 
USDA FOR FAS/ICD/RSED 
AMMAN FOR ESTH - BHALLA 
EPA FOR INTERNATIONAL 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: SENV ENRG EINV IS
SUBJECT: ISRAEL MAKES PROGRESS ON DESALINATION SUBSTITUTION 
 
¶1. (U) Summary:  Now entering its fifth year of substandard 
rainfall, Israel is making notable progress in substituting 
desalinated sea water for natural source fresh water for public 
consumption.  Expanded production from existing seawater facilities 
should reach 160 million cubic meters (mcm) annually shortly, with 
an additional 36 mcm of water from brackish water desalination 
operations.  A new seawater desal plant in Hadera will add 127 mcm 
in phases starting by the end of 2009.  Capacity for another 250 mcm 
is at the tendering stage, and a further 50 million mcm is under 
review for future action.  By 2013 Israel should have about 578 mcm 
of desalinated water per year available - 75 percent of household 
consumption needs.  This will come at the price of heavy demand on 
the country's power infrastructure, however, which is very dependent 
on foreign energy sources.  This additional power demand will have a 
negative impact on Israel's CO2 emissions, making potential climate 
change gas reduction targets harder to achieve.  End Summary. 
 
Good News on the Water Front 
---------------------------- 
 
¶2. (U) ESTH officer recently toured Palmachim desalination plant, 
opened in 2007, that presently desalinates 30 mcm per year. 
Executives of Global Environmental Solutions (GES), the 
Israeli-based company that constructed the Build-Operate-Own 
project, said it is undergoing a 50 percent expansion, to produce up 
to 45 mcm annually.  The expansion will take up to a year to 
implement.  The Israel Water Authority has also asked the 
French-Israeli IDE group that operates the Ashkelon Desalination 
facility, a BOT operation that came on stream in December 2005, to 
increase its capacity.  Ashkelon will move from 100 mcm to 120 mcm 
per year once additions are completed.  Before the end of 2009, a 
new plant located in Hadera will start to produce desalinated water, 
initially 100 mcm annually to be expanded to 127 mcm in coming 
years. 
 
¶3. (U) On September 9, the European Investment Bank, which is the 
European Union's long-term investment arm, announced that it will 
provide about half of the financing for the Ashdod desalination 
plant, a facility in the tender phase which is expected to provide 
100 mcm by the end of 2012.  EIB financing of NIS 1.5 billion (USD 
400 million) is important as the EIB's low interest rate will lower 
the final price of the water produced.  Financial closing for the 
Ashdod facility, which will be a BOT operation, is expected in March 
¶2010.  The EIB has also expressed willingness to offer financing for 
a desalination facility at Sorek that will produce 150 million cubic 
meters annually.  The Sorek plant is in the tender process and 
should also start operation in 2012. 
 
¶4. (U) In sum, by the end of 2010 Israel may have as much as 292 mcm 
of desal water available, some 38 percent of consumer use fresh 
water consumption.  If planned constructions keep to schedule, a 
total of 578 mcm of manufactured water may be available by 2013. 
Given that Israel's domestic household consumption use of water in 
2007 was 767 mcm, desalinated water will cover more than 75 percent 
of household fresh water needs.  This represents 37 percent of total 
water use, the balance being agricultural use at 57 percent and 
industrial use at 5.7 percent of the total, whose needs can be 
filled in part by treated wastewater.   The fall in demand on 
natural freshwater supplies may be more than the exact counterpart 
amount, in fact, because of the high rate of wastewater recycling in 
Israel.  With nearly 80 percent of first use freshwater captured, 
treated, and reused for agricultural or industrial purposes, each 
gallon of desalinated water can replace 1.8 times the volume of 
direct-use natural fresh water.  Authorities hope this will relieve 
the stressed and over-pumped rivers, springs, aquifers and Lake 
Kinneret. 
 
The Good News is the Bad News 
----------------------------- 
 
¶5. (SBU) While water self-sufficiency would be good news, it comes 
at a high price.  Desalination requires large amounts of energy to 
pump sea water through reverse osmosis membrane filters.  These 
filters trap the salts and minerals in a residual brine which is 
returned to the sea.  Achieving up to 80 bars of pressure for 
desalination is costly, even with the recapture of some energy 
through an innovative system that improves the energy efficiency of 
the process by 60 percent.  The Ashkelon desal plant was constructed 
with its own natural gas-fired generating plant, so as to be 
independent from the public grid.  Officials at the Ministry of 
National Infrastructure acknowledge that the energy demands of 
desalination impact their plans for augmenting generating capacity 
in the Israeli grid.  Each cubic meter of desalinated water needs 4 
 
TEL AVIV 00002149  002 OF 002 
 
 
to 5 kilowatt hours of electricity to produce - the major cost 
factor in production.  Estimates of the energy needs for all the 
desalination capacity present and planned run from 3 up to 6 percent 
of total national power.  Israel already expends five percent of its 
total energy capacity pumping water around the country. 
 
¶6. (SBU) Last year Israel tendered its first major solar power 
plant, and passed regulations creating an incentive structure for 
renewable energy producers to feed-in to the national grid. 
Nonetheless, conventional sources like coal (69%), natural gas 
(20%)and fuel oil (9%) still provide most of Israel's electric 
energy.  The national goal is 10 percent of alternative energy by 
¶2020.  So far only four of the 12 major power plants have been 
converted from coal to natural gas.  The discovery of the Tamar 
natural gas field, holding 88 billion m3, off Israel's Mediterranean 
coast near Haifa may help speed other conversions, but CO2 output 
from power generation will rise regardless of its coal or gas 
source.  The director of a leading environmental NGO in Israel 
estimates that the current and new desalination facilities will 
together increase Israel's CO2 emissions by 4 percent due to their 
energy needs. 
 
¶7. (SBU) Comment: Israel's quest for desalinated water capacity is 
putting in jeopardy its ability to achieve any actual reduction in 
CO2 emissions.  Although Israel has not officially committed itself 
to an emissions reduction target, the country's growth in water 
desalination capacity, its growth in consumer electric energy demand 
(4-5 percent most years), and growth in population (about 2 percent 
annually) imply that a reduction in the absolute output of emissions 
(compared to a decline in the relative rate of growth) may be very 
difficult to achieve.  Additional sources of CO2 and other GHGs such 
as the transportation and the building/housing sector also 
contribute substantially to Israel's emissions.  However improving 
vehicle mileage and building heating/cooling efficiency progresses 
slowly, as these are not point sources and implement requires 
several years.  Nonetheless, Israel's population has responded well 
to previous calls for conservation, reportedly saving 15 percent in 
consumer water usage over the past year, and may do so again.  A 
campaign dedicated to water, electricity, and lifestyle conservation 
may modify the present path which is leading towards a trade-off 
between water sufficiency and climate change emissions reductions. 
 
CUNNINGHAM