This week felt like a bit of a vacation, perhaps because I got so much done the first couple of days. This week's course preparation was for "Water Supply," that is, the part of Israel's water sector that extracts, transports, and delivers water to consumers. I was able at last to pull together what I understand about Israel's Water Authority in its current form, a professional policy-making body under the aegis of the Department of Energy. The state water supplier is a separate entity, Mekorot, that supplies/sells water to local companies, whose service areas roughly correspond to municipalities. I was able also to describe some of the technology involved in water purification, transport, and distribution. Next week: sewage!
That done, I had next to travel to Jerusalem to meet Kobi Shmolowsky, Director of Water Planning & Development at haGihon, the local water company for Jerusalem and its environs. It was a very stimulating talk, perhaps to the surprise of the Director, who may not usually enjoy such an enthusiastic audience. We discussed haGihon's local service responsibility, as well as some of the complicated technical problems involved in delivering water within a jurisdiction with such diverse topography. Among the surprises for me was the nightly schedule of bulk water delivery from the National Carrier to haGihon's holding tanks throughout Jerusalem. I had thought rather that the main water lines simply pump water continuously over the 24 hour cycle, but it turns out (for reasons of reliability and energy efficiency) the bulk of the city's "daily water ration" is transported up to Jerusalem over several hours at night. This may be true generally for local water companies, even those close to the National Carrier, which explains the proliferation of small holding tanks and ponds as a matter of general practice.
Shmolowsky also mentioned, briefly, about haGihon's pilot project to recover effluent from its waste treatment plans for application as irrigation within the city itself. This system is independent of Mekorot's effluent supply in Gush Dan (the area around Tel Aviv) and the northern Negev. I had already noticed the use of effluent for irrigation in Jerusalem's parks -- the use of color-coded (purple) drip irrigation suggested that something was going on, but it was hard for me to believe that the effluent was pumped by Mekorot all the way from Gush Dan. Turns out the source is Jerusalem's own wastewater, which makes sense due to the devolution of waste treatment responsibility upon the local companies.
Unfortunately, the time for our appointment ran out too quickly, and so I hope to be able to meet again at haGihon to get more details about its operations.
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Coincidentally, the offices for haGihon are in Talpiot, near where I worked when I first arrived in Israel in 1994. Before the meeting, I went to check out the old digs, and found them looking more or less exactly the same in all its Brutalist Concrete glory -- but, with the addition of a crazy, psychedelic mural.
Like anyone else, I enjoy a "walk down memory lane," although Isabelle and I both found Jerusalem generally transformed from the city we knew 25 years ago. Not all for the better, unfortunately, but at least Talpiot was pretty much the same messy-and-creative industrial/commercial zone that we knew and loved.
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That same day, Isabelle and I attended also an event at the Van Leer Institute titled Israel's New Era of Energy. This was a joint presentation by Assaf Eilat (Chairman of Israel's Electricity Authority) & Gideon Freedman (Head of R&D Division and Chief Scientist, Ministry of Energy), moderated by Prof. Oren Harman, Chair of the Graduate Program in Science Technology and Society at Bar-Ilan University. The theme of the presentations was, ostensibly, "what's new" in Israel's energy sector, but in the course of the talks, both speakers emphasized implicitly how "what's new may not be new enough." At least, that was the position ascribed to Freedman, whose office is responsible for fostering innovation in both technology and policy. To Eilat, on the other hand, was ascribed the position of "cautious regulator," perhaps naturally considering the continued monopoly held by the Electricity Authority. The supply and delivery components of the company will soon be privatized, the latter akin to what has happened in the water sector. But the government will still maintain its monopoly over long-distance transmission and control of the production network, as well as regulation. Eilat explained the reservation of government controls as simply technical common sense, and as a matter of identifying where the public interest actually lies. In fact, what seems to distinguish privatization decisions in Israel from those in the US and England is the acknowledgement that regulation is an important component of the market, and not something either alien or antagonistic. On the other hand, both Eilat and Freedman lamented the lack of real planning among government echelons in the Energy Sector, and agreed that what looks like "conflict" or political intrigue concerning government policy is often just no policy at all.
We were also treated to an account of Israel's gas production, which has so recently been in the news. For all the apparent success (and luck) of bringing these new gas sources into the local energy market, there remains plenty
But Eilat had many other interesting things to say, most of which fell within the slogan: beware of being an "early adopter," especially where technology is concerned. Israel has made significant strides in reducing the role of coal in the energy sector (currently ~30%, down from 70% just a few years ago), and has plans to accelerate the introduction of PV solar electrical production at a mass-market scale. But it still lags behind European countries and California with respect to renewable energy, not least of all because Israel as "only" solar, and not hydro-electric, wind, or geothermal, upon which to depend. Eilat spoke about the technical complications, from a supply-management point of view, of an energy that is only produced for less than 50% of the daily cycle. Nevertheless, Eilat acknowledged the near-future trend of integrating energy consumption and production processes, which will make the general public an active agent in a smart electrical network supplemented by new batteries, electric cars, and rooftop PV. But here, too, Israel has slow to jump on the bandwagon, which may have helped the country avoid some "early adopter" pitfalls such as "backing the wrong horse" -- an outcome of embracing a specific technology that then loses the market battle globally -- or premature obsolescence, that occurs when the technology installed is too quickly superseded by a better, more efficient one. Eilat told the story of a recent visit of the Czech energy minister who told his Israeli colleagues that he was envious of the decisions they didn't make, allowing them more flexibility now to modernize with better equipment -- and better policies than those implemented in the Czech Republic..
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This post on the National Library of Israel's Hebrew-language FB page led me to their blog about a song by singer-songwriter Meir Ariel. I'm not familiar with most of his oeuvre, but we've had his 1991 compilation album in our library forever. A well-known track from that album, Terminal Luminlet, came up in conversation last week! (The song is delivered, typically deadpanned, but concerns a quasi-sexual obsession with... an airplane terminal.) So when I saw the NLI's bit about his use of language on the Coal Sketches album, I decided it was time to update my collection. As always, Ariel's delivery "cool" and not "warm," in McLuhan's sense, and so requires a bit of exposure to appreciate. My Hebrew comprehension skills are definitely challenged by his wordplay, but I like what I can understand. (And that may reflect my limitations more than Ariel's wit.) But Isabelle and I have been listening to the songs, and it's great. Turns out the NLI has its own version of Spotify for Israeli popular music: Shiri. Not bad!
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Finally, Isabelle and I were invited to attend a screening of Synonymes, the Israeli-French movie that won German's prestigious Golden Bear award. At least we stuck it out until the end; the couple that invited us walked out in the middle. They couldn't stand the movie's incoherence and narrative chaos. Or maybe they didn't like the dialogue, which was more like a sequence of monologues among characters who didn't listen. Or perhaps I was the one who had been sufficiently inoculated by all those heavy German and French movies from the 1970s -- there's very little in cinema I won't suffer until the very end. I think Isabelle wishes she had left along with our friends, but I thought the movie wasn't bad as a personal essay. (Israeli audiences are, naturally, trying to understand What It Says About Israel.) I tend not to "agree" with polemics about national identity, which usually are just a bunch of shallow stereotypes, mostly bad even if also good. So I can't recommend the movie, but I've certainly seen worse. I just don't remember when.
Of course, I liked the recent Aquaman and, a decade ago, Speed Racer. Come to think about it, maybe Synonymes could have used a bit more CGI...
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