Abstract
The Levant area of the Middle East suffers from scarce supplies of fresh water and lacks developed renewable energy supplies. The region is also facing rapid population growth and climatic change, placing additional pressures on limited natural resources.
As such, the region’s countries are in need of long-term strategic planning in the water, energy and land-use sectors.
Israel and Palestine have access to the Mediterranean, and thus, relatively easy access to desalination, but have relatively little open spaces necessary for large scale renewable energy facilities; whereas Jordan’s access to the sea is far from its population centers, but it has a relatively large amount of unpopulated spaces that are very suitable for producing renewable energy, particularly solar. This report presents a pre-feasibility study of an initiative for water energy exchanges between Israel, Jordan and Palestine as a means of addressing water and energy needs in an economically efficient and environmentally sound manner. The overarching idea is that Israel and/or Palestine could produce desalinated water and supply this to Jordan, while Jordan could supply Palestine and Israel with renewable energy. As such, all sides stand to gain from mutual dependencies of regionally integrated water and energy sectors.
As a pre-feasibility study, the objective is to present a workable framework for how such an arrangement could be implemented, to evaluate various technological options for achieving such an arrangement, to undertake initial economic analysis of such a project, and to identify political benefits and challenges to project implementation. The following sub-sections in this introduction will present a brief survey of some of the resource scarcity issues facing the region, followed by a description of some of the policies in place to address these issues, and finally a more detailed description of and rationale for the proposed water-energy exchanges.
As such, the region’s countries are in need of long-term strategic planning in the water, energy and land-use sectors.
Israel and Palestine have access to the Mediterranean, and thus, relatively easy access to desalination, but have relatively little open spaces necessary for large scale renewable energy facilities; whereas Jordan’s access to the sea is far from its population centers, but it has a relatively large amount of unpopulated spaces that are very suitable for producing renewable energy, particularly solar. This report presents a pre-feasibility study of an initiative for water energy exchanges between Israel, Jordan and Palestine as a means of addressing water and energy needs in an economically efficient and environmentally sound manner. The overarching idea is that Israel and/or Palestine could produce desalinated water and supply this to Jordan, while Jordan could supply Palestine and Israel with renewable energy. As such, all sides stand to gain from mutual dependencies of regionally integrated water and energy sectors.
As a pre-feasibility study, the objective is to present a workable framework for how such an arrangement could be implemented, to evaluate various technological options for achieving such an arrangement, to undertake initial economic analysis of such a project, and to identify political benefits and challenges to project implementation. The following sub-sections in this introduction will present a brief survey of some of the resource scarcity issues facing the region, followed by a description of some of the policies in place to address these issues, and finally a more detailed description of and rationale for the proposed water-energy exchanges.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Ecopeace |
| Number of pages | 68 |
| State | Published - 2017 |
