Rising prices at gas stations keep millions awake at night. The prolonged war in the Middle East is worrying, as a result of which refineries and tankers are being destroyed, and the prospect of shortages in oil supplies does not allow us to look optimistically at the future.
However, this Today, it is not oil that is the most strategic product in the world, but water. Primarily drinking water, but also those used for economic purposes. Its absence may lead to massive political and economic turbulence, much greater than fuel shortages.
Currently, seawater desalination it is the most important source of drinking water for over 300 million people in the world. The vast majority live in areas that became the target of retaliatory attacks by Tehran after February 28, 2026, following the aggression of Israel and the United States against Iran. These are primarily Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the Sultanate of Oman and Israel.
A long tradition of desalination
We have plenty of water. Unfortunately, mainly the one that comes from oceans and seas. 97.5 percent of the total amount of water on Earth is marine resources. The remaining, small part is freshwater reserves. And every year we have less and less of it.
The history of seawater desalination dates back to before our era. Even then, the inhabitants of the Mediterranean coast obtained drinking water in this way. The first desalination plant, similar to today's, was built on a small island off the coast of Tunisia in 1560. In turn, the first patents for desalination of sea water by distillation were granted in England in 1675-1683.
In the 19th century, many countries achieved considerable success in the process of desalination of sea water. This group included Chile (with over 6.4 thousand km of coastline), where in 1872 Swedish engineer Charles Wilson developed the world's first desalination installation powered by solar energy and producing 20-25 cubic meters. fresh water per day.
In 1892, Russia joined the countries converting salt water into fresh water. The first desalination plant based on the principle of multi-stage water evaporation was launched there.
During World War II, water desalination was intensively developed – mainly by distillation. In the 1950s and 1960s, oil exploitation in the Middle East triggered a local boom that led to the construction of new seawater desalination plants. After 1958, seawater desalination was taken up by China, a country whose increasingly large areas were facing a water deficit. Since then, more and more modern desalination plants have been built there, with increasing efficiency, but the Chinese water desalination market is still in the development phase.
Desalination plants require the constant presence of specialized specialists who deal with both operation and ongoing repairs of the installation. Libyans learned how important they are in the late 1980s, even before the Great Artificial River was created, supplying drinking water from underground aquifers in the Sahara. KWhen Japanese specialists resigned from working at the Libyan desalination plant, many Libyans had to remember where the deep wells that had been forgotten for years were still operating and whether they were still in operation.. Because brushing your teeth with salt water is not a pleasure. So how to make tea?
Priceless technologies
Desalination of seawater is a process that requires large amounts of energy and, in addition, generates brine (a concentrated salt solution with an admixture of chemicals that clean the installation) which is harmful to ecosystems. Water obtained from desalination is often twice as expensive as water from other sources. The process itself, to put it simply, involves the removal of salts and minerals in order to obtain drinking or utility water using membrane or thermal methods. The most popular and relatively energy-efficient desalination method is reverse osmosis (RO). It uses pressure to push water through semi-permeable membranes that trap salts and other contaminants such as bacteria, viruses, heavy metals and microplastics.
Desalination through thermal distillation is more energy-intensive, so it is used by rich countries with large oil and gas resources. The water desalination process also uses electrodialysis (it uses the difference in electric potential to remove salt ions from water) and freezing (salt water is cooled until crystallization, which produces pure ice granules separated from the concentrated brine).
The country most dependent on obtaining fresh water from salt water is Qatar. As much as 99 percent its water resources come from marine desalination plants. Israel is high on this list — obtains 90% through desalination. drinking water. Israelis desalinate water from the Mediterranean Sea. The country's water needs are met by five specialized plants: Sorek I, the desalination plant in Hadera, Ashkelon, Kibbutz Palmachim and Ashdod.
The son of the Shah of Iran Reza Pahlavi visits desalination plants in Israel (2023)Jack Guez/AFP/East News
The Sorek plant, one of the largest in the world, produces over 600,000. cubic meters drinking water per day. Price of desalination of 1 cubic meter. water in Israeli desalination plants is about 70 cents, but the recipient pays three times as much – $2.22. (data from 2023). And it is one of the lowest rates in the world for freshwater obtained from the sea.
Saudi Arabia has the largest desalination capacity. This is no coincidence – one third of the kingdom's area is occupied by the sandy desert of Ar-Rab al-Khali (literally: empty quarter). Beneath it are the world's largest conventional oil deposits – Al-Ghawar. Saudi Arabia without water from the desalination plant would practically cease to exist! That is why so many water desalination installations were built in this country. These include: one of the world's largest desalination plants, Ras al-Chair, and facilities in Al-Jubail.
Desalination plants like fortresses
The CIA considers drinking water a “strategic commodity” in both the Middle East and as well as in desert and semi-desert areas in many other countries of the world. After February 28 this year, after the outbreak of the war, the risk of many of these areas going without water has increased dramatically.
Today, there are approximately 450 modern seawater desalination plants in operation in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Oman. They are responsible for 40 percent. global desalinated water production. There are approximately 100 million people in the region who are completely dependent on their functioning.
For a resident of the UAE, the availability of natural, renewable freshwater resources drops below 100 cubic meters, and some sources even indicate values of 15-16 cubic meters. per capita per year. This is well below the threshold defined as absolute deficiency (500 cubic meters). To meet the huge demand for freshwater, two emirates – Abu Dhabi and Dubai – They are investing tens of billions of dollars in desalination projects.
Iran knows that attacks on desalination plants can be profitable. He does not hide the fact that he wants to destroy the plant in Al-Jubail in Saudi Arabia. If successful, the kingdom's authorities would be forced to evacuate the inhabitants of Riyadh within a maximum of… seven days! But the question is: where? Riyadh and Al-Jubail are connected by giant pipes over 500 km long, which supply 90 percent of the country's electricity. fresh water. Destroying just a part of this life-giving artery may have consequences that are difficult to imagine. The Saudis have great hopes for the future of Al-Jubail – in 2040, the capacity of this desalination plant is expected to reach 4.5 billion cubic meters. annually.
There are many examples of more or less effective attacks on desalination plants. Iran consciously attacks both plants and the power plants that power them. A few weeks ago, Tehran attacked the Fujairah power plant in the UAE, which operates one of the world's largest desalination plants. In Kuwait, debris from a drone caused a fire in one of the desalination plants. The attack was revenge for Israel's earlier strike on Iran's water infrastructure and nuclear power plants near the Persian Gulf city of Bushehr.
There were also reports of a US attack on an important desalination plant on the island of Keshm, which allegedly prevented the supply of drinking water to approximately 30 Iranian villages.
Desalination plants are and will be attacked in this war, there is no doubt about it. These installations are also extremely susceptible to all types of sabotage and sabotage. And since they are part of the most important part of critical infrastructure, They will probably soon turn into real fortresses.
“Weekly Review No. 16”Weekly Review
Europe is also desalination
Global warming causes the countries of the Old Continent to experience increasing shortages of fresh water. According to the Wodne Sprawy website, European countries use desalination technologies similar to those used in the Middle East. Such installations have already been built in the UK and France, mainly on islands and coastal regions where freshwater resources are limited and do not fully meet demand. Several desalination plants operate in the French island of Corsica. Most of them are found in Spain, where sometimes not even a drop of rain falls for several months. The first desalination installations were built there half a century ago. Plants on the Iberian Peninsula are not as large as in the Middle East, but there are almost 800 of them. They produce approximately 5 million cubic meters in one day. drinking water.
Barcelona, SpainOttoPles / Shutterstock
Barcelona is an example of changes in the way residents are supplied with fresh water. By 2021, desalination plants in the Catalan capital met only 3%. residents' needs. Today this percentage has increased to 33%.
In Poland, freshwater resources are also decreasing dramatically from year to year. However, a large-scale desalination plant producing drinking water has not yet been built. Since 2019, the Grupa Azoty Police station has been operating, which deals with desalination of water from the Baltic Sea.
