Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi, I'm Elena Harkness, Executive Director of Current and CEO and Principal Investigator for Great Lakes.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: Renew and you're listening to the Water Values Podcast.
[00:00:09] Speaker A: The Water Values Podcast is sponsored by the following market leading companies and organizations by IDE Water Technologies, your partner in water treatment and sustainable desalination for six decades by Advanced Drainage Systems Our Reason is water by 1898 & Co. Possibilities Powered by Experience by Woodard and Curran High Quality Consulting Engineering Science and Operations Services by Innovation and Stewardship for a Sustainable Tomorrow by Xylem Let's Solve Water by the American Waterworks Association Dedicated to the World's Most Important Resource by Black and Veatch Building a World of difference by 120 water new rules need New Tools and by Suez Digital Optimizing Water. This is session 279.
Welcome to the Water Values Podcast. This is the podcast dedicated to water utilities, resources, treatment, reuse and all things water. Now here's your host, Dave McGimpsey.
Hello and welcome to another session of the Water Values Podcast. As my daughter Sarah said, my name is Dave McGimpsey and thank you so much for joining me and thank you for your support. Now over the last 11 plus years, we've got a terrific show for you this month. Alon Tavor, the CEO of one of the world's leading desalination companies, IDE Technologies Group, joins us and provides a deep dive on desalination, its history, where things stand today and where things are going. Plus alone gives a great perspective on reuse and its relationship with desalination. So stay tuned.
Also, Reece Tisdale joins us for a Bluefield On Tap segment that delves into Bluefield Research's analysis of capital improvement plans of large water and wastewater utilities. So get ready to find out where the majority of the capital plans intend to spend their CAPEX budgets.
But before we get to today's conversations, we always say thank you to our fantastic sponsors at the top of every show. And boy do we have some great sponsors for you in 2025.
IDE Water Technologies Advanced Drainage Systems 1898 & Co Woodard and Curran Entera Xylem the American Waterworks Association Black and Veatch120 water and Suez Digital Solutions.
What a terrific collection of impactful companies that have affirmatively decided to support water industry thought leadership and education.
And I thank you all and I'd like for you to do me a favor if you would, please. If you work for or with any of the sponsors, please thank your boss or thank your contact at the sponsor firm and let them know that you appreciate their leadership in the industry through the sponsorship. You'd be surprised how far that simple little note of thanks will go.
And as long as you're letting the sponsors know you appreciate their support of water industry education and thought leadership, why not leave a rating interview on Apple Podcasts or whatever other podcast directory you're accessing the podcast on? It'd be greatly appreciated and it helps others find out about the podcast as well. And also, please don't forget to subscribe to the podcast. Yes, I hear that is important.
Well, before we head on to the interview with Alon, we've got a Bluefield on Tap segment with Bluefield Research's Reece Tisdale. So take it away, guys.
Reece, welcome back to another Bluefield on Tap. How you doing this month?
[00:03:48] Speaker B: Things are good. Happy. Almost end of summer. Although I did just hear yesterday or read something this weekend, it was in the Wall Street Journal that summers are extending depending on where you are in the country. So I think in New England we're getting an average, temperature wise, 11 more days of summer a year, something like that. So things are good.
[00:04:09] Speaker A: Yeah, well, my, my daughter started school at the local public school on August 6th, so summer's getting shorter, in my view.
[00:04:24] Speaker B: August 6th, that's tough. Yeah, my kids don't even go back till September.
[00:04:28] Speaker A: Yeah, it's, you know, it always feels like school starts earlier and earlier, but when I saw the start date this year, I was like, wow, that's really early.
Really, really early. All right, so what is on your mind? What's risen to the top of Bluefield's stack this month?
[00:04:46] Speaker B: So, I mean, yeah, as we were talking about it, I was thinking about things that would be of interest. There is a lot of activity happening, M and a wise. There's some new partnerships coming, investments being made.
But serendipitously, I guess, our annual analysis of almost 800 capital improvement plans, I.e. utility budgets and their planning documents, we've just completed that, so it literally hit the presses yesterday. And so I thought I'd share some of the insights from that.
[00:05:17] Speaker A: All right, let's hear it.
[00:05:19] Speaker B: So, all right, I'll give you a quick framework, right. 777 utilities across 50 states, eight Canadian provinces. These are utilities that serve roughly and I there are a couple exceptions that serve more than 50,000 people and above.
We have clients who ask for other specific ones. So we throw those on the list. So U.S. and Canada, we look at across those budgets, we look at drinking water, wastewater, stormwater, and then there's like an other category.
And we do break the real sort of, I think value add is we look at all the projects across those utilities. This year it's about 35 or so thousand and we categorize them across 35 different categories and that's everything from, you know, digital solutions to distribution networks, green infrastructure, supply, treatment facilities, pipes, pumps, plants and so on.
So the big number is for those budgets, we're looking at $411 billion across their budget periods.
[00:06:27] Speaker A: Wow. So now let's back up a little bit. Are these utilities? Based on the population sizes, I would guess most of these, the vast majority are municipal or publicly owned utilities, rather.
[00:06:41] Speaker B: Yeah, they're publicly. Exactly. They're publicly owned. We have them in, like I said, every state, plus Washington, D.C.
and Canadian provinces. So they are the large ones. They're also the ones that have pretty good information on their budgets. And we do, we have a set that we work on every year and clients ask us for others, you know, to throw into the mix because it gives them some insights for their business development teams.
[00:07:07] Speaker A: Very good. And on the cips, are you, are you looking at. Because normally when I see a cip, it's usually they'll break it down into like a five year segment and they'll have a kind of a Gantt chart in terms of when the projects are going to be taking place. So can you kind of put that in context? Is this 411 billion like a five year capital plan or is that what, what the Gantt chart shows is going to be spent in 25 or 26?
[00:07:34] Speaker B: Yeah, so I think actually that's a really good point. So it looks like. So obviously this year is the most realistic, obviously, because it's got all the projects and every utility is a little bit different. Like we've talked about this before. It'd be really nice if everybody did the same thing and then we could do some much easier analysis. But maybe that's why we have a job.
So 66% of the utilities we looked at have one to five year plans. Right. That means they're choosing, they've got either one year, two year, three year. And so there for them there is a bit of, you know, the, the total number declines over time. So we don't forecast it. We just take the numbers that they're laying out over that time period.
34% of them do 6 to 10 years. And so our window that we look at really goes out to 2034. So within that range. But the most applicable information is this year and maybe Next year as far as the budgets are concerned, because after that, it starts to tail off.
[00:08:43] Speaker A: Interesting. All right, so.
Because I've got a couple of utilities that are bringing rate cases here very soon, and I've got a sense in terms of what the types of assets they need. But I'm curious what your analysis has forecast and. Or has determined in terms of where are utilities spending money? Is it plants? Is it outside the fence? Where's. Where's the money going?
[00:09:10] Speaker B: Yeah. So quite honestly, distribution and collection network. So distribution on drinking water side collection on wastewater suicide, that accounts for about 45% of total spend. So that's really the big ticket item.
Thereafter, you're looking at plants. So I'll just give you the numbers. Right. Distribution collection. Of that total 411,139 billion goes to distribution and collection plants represent another 104 billion. So if I, you know, when we look at it that way, it's.
Yeah, so I'd think that's about 45%. Sorry for the numbers, but yeah, distribution collection is the big number. That's where they're all spending their money. One thing that came out this year is also, I think it shifted a little bit from when we did it last year. We've been doing this five or six years running. @ this point is drinking water is about 50% of the total.
Yeah. So just surprising not, sorry, drinking water is the bigger chunk of the spend as opposed to wastewater. It sort of flips back and forth when we look at the budgets.
There are nuances to the data itself and sort of how it is, how it's collected, but also what they're reporting in their own timing.
[00:10:28] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, that's really interesting because I've always thought that sewer utilities are a little more capital intensive than water utilities simply because in order to get those pipes for gravity systems, in order to get the pipes at the level they need to be, you got to go down deeper. And that means a lot more expense.
[00:10:47] Speaker B: Yeah, no 100%. I was surprised when I saw that because last year was closer as well. I mean, one thing that does jump out, which I think is interesting, is we do look at it the spend from year to year on a per capita spend and the price. So we started this go around. We just did 2023, 2024, 2025, and the per capita spend is definitely climbed dramatically. And so we look at it from drinking water, wastewater and stormwater. So to give you an idea, drinking water spend per capita since 2023 has increased 52% on the wastewater side, about 38%.
And on stormwater, it's been actually up and down. So it sort of ramped up last year and it's come back down a little bit on a per capita. So for drinking water in 2023, it was $118 per capita, and now we're looking at 180 for this past year. And on wastewater, similarly, 118 for wastewater last go around. Now we're at 164. So it's climbing. And I suspect that's part of labor costs have risen during that period. 23 to 25, inflation, other equipment. So the budgets are going up.
[00:12:04] Speaker A: Absolutely. And we all know it's all going to end up on the utility bill, that everyone pays every month. So that's going to continue to climb.
[00:12:14] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, and that's the struggle. I mean, we've talked about this, the utilities, and when you're dealing with whether it be the rate cases for the regulated utilities or even the public utilities, it's how much can you raise rates to cover the cost and what are the options? So not every utility, these are the bigger ones. Right. So they have a bit more sophistication and flexibility as far as funding sources, whether it be, you know, bond markets, other cap, you know, looking at the municipality. But if a big chunk's coming from the rates, someone's got to pay for it.
[00:12:46] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:12:47] Speaker A: All right. Well, Reese, we could talk about this for a long time, but it's always great to speak with you. Thanks so much for, for sharing the results of your recent research and we'll talk to you again next month.
[00:12:58] Speaker B: Yeah, great to talk to you and enjoy August.
[00:13:01] Speaker A: Amen.
All right, bye.
[00:13:04] Speaker B: Bye.
[00:13:06] Speaker A: As always, great information from Bluefield Research and Reece Tisdale. Now it's time for the main event, our interview with IDE Technologies Group CEO Alon Tavor.
Let's get that water flowing.
Well, Alon, welcome to the Water Values podcast. Great to have you on. How are you today?
[00:13:24] Speaker C: I'm great. Thank you, David. And thank you for inviting me.
[00:13:27] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm excited to chat with you today.
Let's start off, for those who may not know much about you, could you please provide just a little background on your history and how you came to the water sector?
[00:13:45] Speaker C: Well, although originally I'm a chemical engineer, I actually define myself as a technical business expert with a lot of managerial skills and experience. I am running different type of companies, industrial ones, for more than 20 years as CEO.
But in the last five years, I came to my true love, which is water.
I Came almost by mistake, but really it's a love. And if you ask people about water, how you will describe water, most people will tell you life.
And I think it says everything.
[00:14:30] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:14:31] Speaker C: So I'm in that position as the CEO in the last five years.
And what I'm trying to do before anything else, is to create the business and the technology vision of our company facing the new challenges, but also the new horizons which are being opened in the last years to understand the place of water in our universe. And that's what I'm mostly busy.
[00:15:02] Speaker A: Terrific. So you kind of alluded to it. What are you doing in the water sector now? What company and what's your position?
[00:15:10] Speaker C: So I'm the CEO of a company called IDE Technology Group.
IDE typically stands for. Originally stands for Israeli Desalination Engineering. But our internal joke says that it stands for I do everything.
And we try not to, actually, but, you know, it's always a challenge.
Ide is celebrating 60 years just now, and. And we are one of the pioneers of the desalination industry. Back at the time that people were still doing that with thermal energy rather than the reverse osmosis, which is the most common technology these days.
And actually, our company is not involved only in desalination, but also a lot into how to recycle and to recover water in the more challenging cases.
But we share the view that creating new sources of water, both from the sea or from difficult streams, which have challenging technologies, are required there to solve the problem. This is the essence of our company.
[00:16:24] Speaker A: Got it. So can you give a little history of desalination? Where has desalination been? And then I'd like to get into where we're going with it, but I think it's good to at a baseline.
[00:16:37] Speaker C: Yeah. So, you know, think backward 2,000, 3,000 years ago, when you have sailors going in the sea, and as long as they could have have the water they took from the shore, that would find. But they came to a place where they just didn't have water. So the basic solution, which, you know, we've done, probably all of us in elementary school, as basic science lessons, is to take water and to boil it and then use cold plate or something of that kind to make it condense. And then you have desalinated water. Right. It's that simple, basically.
And this is the origin of the desalination.
And that used to go like that for so many years.
But somewhere in the early part of the, let's say, mid 20th century, people started to realize that, although we can Use energy to desal. This is not economical and this is not viable. So people started to try and optimize how to use less energy to get the same amount of desalination. And very early in the history of Israel, our first Prime Minister, Mr. David Ben Gurion, he came and said we should learn how to create potable water from the sea and we should share that know how with the world. And based off that message, IDE was formed originally as a research institute and then converted into a commercial company.
And all the way through mid-90s, the only practical technology was sophisticated thermal distillation of water.
And as of mid-90s, we came into that technology, which calls the reverse osmosis, which is the leading technology still today and probably will serve us in the coming two, three decades, even as new technologies develop in parallel.
[00:18:55] Speaker A: Terrific. So you highlighted the energy intensity of it. And I think we all know that in the world of climate change, energy is one of the contributors to increased carbon in the atmosphere. And so I'm curious about efforts to decarbonize desalination and where you think that's leading. Because the energy intensity is significant, right?
[00:19:30] Speaker C: It is.
But I have to say something important before we go into the issue of how we reduce the carbon emissions. Okay. Which is it's definitely a mission to be, to be done, and we all have to invest into that.
We also need to look at the major point, which is the cost of not having water. Okay? Because so for so many years, people looked at the issue of what's going to be the cost of my water, what's the environmental impact behind desalination, etc. But in the last five years, what we're facing is a practical infringement of the basic water cycle, which we all learned again in elementary, high school and even before. You know, you have the clouds and you have rain and the water trickles into the ground, then you have aquifers and you have rivers and lakes, and it's a base nice cycle, which works. Well, it doesn't.
It doesn't anymore.
And people more and more around the world now, they realize that they cannot rely on the basic sources of water to have enough water, both for domestic, industrial and agricultural use. And therefore desalination is becoming a must because the cost of not having water is tremendous. There's so many industries which relates to our basic life, which needs water as part of their, if you like, bloodline. Right? So just imagine about all the food industry, it's all about water. But also the computer we use now is part of the electronic and semiconductor industry, where everything there goes around water. And also we use lithium, which is part of the mining industry. And in the mining industry, again, a lot is our water. Now, just think about the basic bottle of something sparkling. I don't want to create here, advertising here, right? But the basics, a sparkling bottle of beverage. We have, you know, that the cost of the water inside that bottle is practically zero, but the cost of not having that water means no sales.
So this company is not going to be in business because they don't have water. And the same goes for all the industries I mentioned. So practically today, everybody needs to realize the cost of not having water is a real threat on humanity. And therefore, we have to look for the best ways to have more water. Those involves, obviously, reduce the losses, reduce the leaks, reduce the waste. All of those, obviously it relates to the recycling of as much as you can of the water which are already available.
And it relates also to being able to desalinate or whether it is brackish or seawater to create new water.
Now, the moment you understand that this is a must, now comes the question, is it possible to do it in very high, environmentally concerned way? And the answer is, absolutely. Then comes the question, will it be more expensive to do it in an environmentally friendly and aware way? And the answer is not necessarily. And I think this is the real message which is coming. We have to have water. Diesel is one of the important tools in our toolbox of having enough water.
And while diesel is a must, it can be done in a very environmentally aware way. Okay, now, I can go into a lot of the elements of how we can do it environmentally friendly, but I think, first of all, people should understand those basics.
[00:23:44] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree with you wholeheartedly. That was a very interesting discussion and very interesting background. So I appreciate that.
So you've led me to this point where I, you know, the natural question is, well, how do you do that? How do you. How do you come to environmentally sustainable desalination?
[00:24:06] Speaker C: Okay, so thank you for asking that, David.
And I want to separate between energy, chemicals and marine environment as the three main elements which we should address.
And I'll start with energy, because obviously everybody's concerned about the energy intensity and the carbon footprint it can create, et cetera. So actually, yes, to diesel seawater, you actually need somewhere between 3 to 4 kilowatt hours into every cubic meter you produce.
And if you calculate the yearly carbon emission of a big plant, you'll be surprised. It is so impressive, like to have a person traveling every day to work in his car, assuming it's not electrical. Okay, so on one side it's huge, and on the other side, when you put it into comparison, it's quite amazing to see that this huge amount is actually not so huge when you compare it to domestic demand, to flights, in airplanes, et cetera. Okay, so that's one point. But even if it is not as big as the first feeling that people have, still our goal is to reduce it as much as possible. Right?
So the beauty is that by great engineering you can do two things. Reduce the actual quantities that you require for the diesel and in parallel to combine it very well with renewable.
And that's really amazing because just think about it, a lot of people today are talking about the usage of storage batteries combined with solar power to flatten the demand of the energy and enable renewable all along the day. Right now, if you put already a big solar field, instead of sending it into batteries, with all the impact, environmental impact and losses and everything which relates to batteries battery storage, actually you can send it to enlarged desalination plant, produce more water during those hours of the solar energy. Obviously it works very well also with wind fluctuation in the wind. And it is much cheaper to build a bigger plant and in a way, if you think about it, store the energy already in the produced water than to store it in batteries.
So that means that by the combination of the desalination plant and the energy source in the smartest way, you can increase substantially the usage of renewable energy.
And by great engineering, you can also reduce the amount of kilowatt hours which are required to produce every cubic meter of water.
So in that we can add another point and that actually the ocean is a great absorber of CO2.
So there are technologies which IDE is already using and still developing more in our R and D of how to use our plants also as absorber of CO2 from the environment.
And therefore we can actually reduce the carbon footprint substantially. And because we don't want only to talk, we believe that whatever you can't measure, you can't improve. So we developed a methodology of life cycle analysis which works for desalination plants. Well, where we can look at the specific case, specific territory, specific regulation, specific whatever, and take elements from our toolbox and create low carbon footprint desalination plant, which is not necessarily more expensive than the regular alternatives.
That goes for the CO2 emissions.
[00:28:46] Speaker A: Fascinating.
[00:28:47] Speaker C: Love it.
[00:28:47] Speaker A: Yeah, go ahead.
[00:28:48] Speaker C: Yes.
Now, the second point which I mentioned, if you remember, was the chemicals. Okay? So I can tell you that IDE for many years Already is using much less chemicals than the practice in the industry because we believe that we can use less chemical and get the same results. And we have proven plants which work for 10 and 15 and more years doing that. But in the last years we moved into the brine mining and production of green chemicals. And the idea is that we can actually have a plant where most of its chemicals are being produced in situ from the seawater and then going back basically to the potable water and the seawater, which means we don't bring new chemicals into the site. Now when you think about it, that's amazing because using some more energy, which has to be obviously renewable, if you want to do it with the low carbon footprint, you can actually reduce all those whole link of chemicals into the plant. You can reduce the things where you cannot control about the other people producing your chemicals and produce your chemicals in situ. And that's amazing things we are doing. It's already implemented partially in part of our plants and we are still in our R and D developing more and more solutions which will bring those plants to be basically without the usage of external source chemicals.
And last and not least is the influence on the marine environment.
A lot of people are concerned what is the fact that we are sending more salty water back into the sea? What is the impact on the environment?
But actually before you do that, you should ask yourself, how do I bring the seawater into the plant and how do I send it back and how do I maintain this system which is called intake and outflow, in a way that create the minimum environmental impact.
And also there, there are ways that we have already developed that can reduce that impact substantially.
And in parallel, it's very interesting to see that long term measurements that had been done both in Australia, the us Israel and other places show that there is no negative impact of that salty water which are being sent back to the sea because the dis dilution is so fast and bring it to the same levels like the very near environment that actually no damage is happening.
[00:31:39] Speaker A: Interesting. How do you, where, where are you discharging?
Is it, is it multiple discharge points or is it like one discharge point? How does it dilute so quickly?
[00:31:52] Speaker C: Very good question.
First of all, ide, whenever we can influence the decision making, we tend to send the brine quite far and deep into the sea. Okay. Because you know that when you go to seashore where the shore or the depth of the water near the shore is not much, so you have shallow water, those will be typically hotter, right? Why are they hotter than like going into the Pacific or the Atlantic. The reason is that you don't have good mixing near the shore where it's shallow with the mass of the, of the body of the water, of the ocean. Right.
So the idea is that first you have to send the brine relatively far away. That can be a mile, that can be a mile and a half, sometimes more away from the shore. And in that way, first of all, you ensure that you have a big body of water that can absorb the relatively small quantities which are going to be mixed. That's the first point. The second point is what we are actually having is a design of sophisticated design diffusers, multiple. Actually it can be one diffuser with multiple points or several diffusers.
And by the usage of some additional energy, you actually mix it very well. And we're using high end simulations to design that. And after that, when we measure the actual results of our plants compared to the simulation based, we see that the simulations work well and typically were even better than the extreme cases which we're taking on our simulations.
[00:33:48] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:33:49] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:33:50] Speaker A: Absolutely fascinating.
You obviously know what you're doing, so you've done a lot of discussion about kind of where we've come from, a decel perspective to how IDE is approaching it now. What do you, what do you envision for the future? Is it, is it, is it continuing to improve upon these, these, these improvements that you've already identified or kind of what are we looking for in the future alone?
[00:34:19] Speaker C: Okay, let me say that a lot of that is, is going to be influenced substantially from regulations, decision making, financial bodies, request, et cetera. What do I mean?
I mean that today, even though a lot of people speak about environmental policies, you know, what's called ESG and people really show concern, etc. When it comes to the publishing tenders or when it comes to the actual regulations which exist, people do not put enough attention into those concerns.
So when we're looking into the future, we also have to ask ourselves, can we shape the future?
Can we influence the way things are being done? And one of the reasons I'm with you in this podcast and interviews in different places and articles that we're publishing is to try and tell everybody, guys, this is our mutual interest. All of us should look at how we are reducing the environmental impact of desalination and harnessing that as one of the important tools of overcoming the water scarcity which is becoming so substantial globally now. Okay, so the more when you are looking at the future, the more everybody will be focused on the same direction you will see the changes coming faster.
Now, I shared with you some of the things we're doing in our O and M, in our R and D. Sorry, why? Why we're spending that money in the R and D.
We are doing that because we believe this is the right direction. We believe that sooner or later everybody will understand that and start asking for that. And we believe it is our mission to prove the feasibility.
So we will have by far plants which are better connected to renewables, plants which minimize the usage of chemicals, plants which minimize the environmental impact in the marine environment. We're going to see that? Absolutely. And with that, the more it will happen. I also believe that new technologies, which today are not feasible enough, but already into base R and D work. I believe that new technologies will come which will continue to improve it more and more and more. And I'm sure that if both of us will be patient enough to have this kind of podcast in five years, we can discuss many new technologies that had emerged and existing technologies that have been implemented alone.
[00:37:16] Speaker A: That was absolutely fascinating. I'm curious, you mentioned at the very beginning of this kind of reuse, how do you view reuse versus desal, and are there certain instances where one is better than the other? Or how should we go about deciding reuse versus desal? What's the answer to that question?
[00:37:37] Speaker C: David, thank you so much for asking this question.
It's so important to look at that.
I want to start with the basic point which says there is no magic solution. There is no single, you know, school homework solution.
We have to have, you know, we have such huge challenges on water scarcity globally that we should have a vast toolbox which is available to humanity, and we should use all of them together because that's the only way we are going to have enough water to keep moving on.
You know, unluckily, we had this disaster in Texas with the floods, right?
Now you ask yourself, what does it mean?
You know, it's, it's. It's a level of floods which we're not used to. Does it mean that we're going to have actually more rain? And if we can capture those flood water, we will have enough water?
And the answer is that nobody knows. The one thing we know is that rainfall is becoming erratic, both in frequency and in quantities. Okay? So that means that we have to have in our toolbox a way to collect flood water, storm water, we have to have a way to recover water from contaminated sources, and we have to have a reuse for every drop of water we use, and we have to have the diesel. So I don't think it is debt or debt. I think it's both.
This is part of the solution is having both. Okay, and where first of all, both from environmental approach, but also from cultural approach, people should reuse.
And when I'm saying reuse, you know, some countries like Israel is already reusing basically almost everything which is possible. We just reuse huge amount. Most of our residential and industrial water are being reused to agriculture. Okay, but can we reuse more? And the answer is yes, you can still squeeze a little more. Okay, it's there. It's possible we can squeeze more.
But some countries, and US is a good example, still do not reuse enough.
So the goal is a reuse as much as you can, because that's the right culture, which means we all are being aware to the fact that there is not extra drop to waste.
Okay, then in a lot of places, Israel is an example. But I can tell you that Sweden is in the same place. There is no more much water to recycle to reuse. So then definitely you need to have diesel. Now one can come and ask. So first we have to reuse everything and only then go to diesel. My answer would be no, because development of desalination plants takes a lot of time. And if people are not getting prepared and starting to develop those opportunities in parallel, we might come to the place that when we need it is going to take still few years until you'll have those water. So we should do both and all the time balance and make sure that all those new water that have been produced by the diesel are also being reused.
[00:41:19] Speaker A: Fascinating. Absolutely. Alon, you've been absolutely terrific today. I have learned so much and it has been a great pleasure speaking with you.
Before we say goodbye, do you have a leave behind message that you'd like to leave the listeners with?
[00:41:35] Speaker C: Yes, Please remember how expensive is not to have water and do whatever you can to waste as little as possible to push your societies, your communities around you to reuse, to recycle. But also be open to this side because it's the great way, is the great tool to make sure that we will all have water in the coming decades.
[00:42:05] Speaker A: Terrific. Well, Alon, thanks so much for coming on today again.
You were fantastic.
For those who want to find out more about you, more about IDE Technologies Group, where can they go to get that information?
[00:42:18] Speaker C: Well, we have a very nice website, idetech.com and people are more than welcome to go in. We have lots of webinars, free webinars, which we share, and a lot of those are recorded so people can view them in their free time and would be more than happy to support anyone which is interested in learning more about having new water.
[00:42:46] Speaker A: Terrific. Well Alon, thanks so much again. It was great speaking with you and we'll talk again soon. Thanks so much.
[00:42:53] Speaker C: Thank you David for this opportunity. Bye bye bye.
[00:42:57] Speaker A: Alon was absolutely phenomenal. He clearly gets into his job and his impassioned explanation of sustainable desalination really struck a chord.
So keep up the great work at IDE Alone. Can't wait to see what's next for desalination.
Well, I'd love to know what you thought about the interview. Please check out the Show Notes page for information and links on this episode. Just Google the Water Values Podcast, click the first link that comes up. That should be our landing page on the Bluefield Research website.
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You've been listening to the Water Values Podcast. Thank you for spending some of your day with my dad and me. Well, thank you for tuning in to the disclaimer. I'm a lawyer licensed in Indiana and Colorado, and nothing in this podcast should be taken as providing legal advice or as establishing an attorney client relationship with you or with anyone else. Additionally, nothing in this podcast should be considered a solicitation for professional employment. I'm just a lawyer that finds water issues interesting and that believes greater public education is needed about water. Water issues. And that includes enhancing my own education about water issues, because no one knows everything about water.
