WIDE-OPEN deserts and sunshine for more than 300 days a year ought to have made countries in the Middle East centres for solar power. Yet with the world’s largest oil- and gasfields nearby there has been little reason to develop renewable energy in the region. Still, much as fossil fuels are plentiful there is another liquid in short supply: fresh water.
Might the shortage of water now be alleviated through the abundance of sunlight? EcoPeace, a joint Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian NGO thinks it just might. In December it presented an ambitious, if far from fully developed, $30 billion plan to build a number of desalination plants on the Mediterranean shore of Israel and the Gaza Strip. At the same time, large areas in Jordan’s eastern desert would host a 200 square km (75 square mile) solar-energy plant, which would provide power for desalination (and for Jordan) in exchange for water from the coast. “A new peaceful economy can be built in our region around water and energy” says Gidon Bromberg, EcoPeace’s Israeli director. Jordan and the Palestinian Authority are already entitled to 120 million cubic meters of water a year from the...Continue reading
Source: Middle East and Africa http://ift.tt/1n2qq4d
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