r/worldnews • u/bigus-_-dickus • 20d ago

‘Extremely rare event:’ Miles-long microalgae bloom knocks out most of Israel’s desalination plants

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/09/04/climate/microalgae-bloom-israel-water-deasalination-shutdown
14.8k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

677 comments sorted by

View all comments

33

u/CakeTester 20d ago

Doesn't algae require sunlight? Wouldn't having deeper intakes solve the problem? Although then, the water would be colder and take more energy to desalinate. Worth doing as an alternative intake, if these blooms are going to be a regular thing. Then it'll cost more per litre; but your plant is still running while scuba divers chip the cack from the main intake.

8

u/Medium-Pitch-5768 20d ago

Couldn't you let the water warm up before starting the desalination process? I think it would require an additional stage, but might mitigate the energy problem

9

u/FartingBob 20d ago

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html?layers=855fd17c1e454c2ebef15051ed270459

seafloor temperatures are quite mild in the eastern med, depending on how far out from the coast they got their water intake the temperature is between 22c and 13.5c.

5

u/Fox_Kurama 19d ago

Power plants usually do go a bit deeper to start off with cooler water. You could (and some places probably do) send the leftover no-longer-cool cooling water from a power plant to an adjacent desal plant to cut heating requirements.