Israel Leads World in Desalination

Article: Israel has just completed a new industrial facility that never stops working. It is the world’s largest ocean water desalination plant, providing clean water to 20% of Israel's homes. Built by a private Israel company for the Israeli government for $500 million, it uses an engineering process called reverse osmosis to produce clean water from sea water cheaply and on a larger scale than ever before. And its energy consumption is among the lowest in the world for large-scale facilities. Right now 700 million people don't have enough clean water and in ten years, this number will be 1.8 billion. Israel may be showing the world a solution. By 2016, 50% of Israel's water is expected to come from this plant. Why is it important that desalination be inexpensive?