The Desalination Fix: Inside Israel’​s Water Revolution

TEL AVIV — From the beautiful beach of Palmachim, on the Israeli coast, it’s hard to picture what's happening below your feet, where 624,000 cubic meters of sea water are being sucked up every day by two enormous pipes and transported more than two kilometers inland to be transformed into drinkable water.

Welcome to Sorek, the world’s largest desalination plant to use a cutting edge process called seawater reverse osmosis. The facility emerged from the sand in 2013 and is located 15 kilometers south of Tel Aviv. It now provides 20% of Israel’s running water and supplies 1.5 million people.

A technological gem, the installation has become a pilgrimage site for experts from all over the world. With a deafening roar, the water is projected through porous membranes that filter out salt crystals. The brine is thrown back into the sea while minerals are added to the filtered water.

"At the end of the process, the water is perfectly drinkable, with the right alkalinity and hardness," explains Micha Taub, Sorek’s chief technology officer, as he fills up a plastic glass from a tap.

"Today, we have too much"

Desalination is one of the mechanisms that enabled Israel to overcome the water stress its semi-arid climate seemed to condemn it to. At the behest of the government, four factories have been opened in the last decade. A fifth is expected to become operational by the end of 2015. Together, they will produce 70% of the water consumed by Israeli households.

The model is not without its critics. Environmentalists see desalination as a large energy hog with a high carbon footprint. Some are also...