Saudi Arabia Opens World’s Largest Desalination Plant

Maurice Picow (Green Prophet)

May 14, 2009

Saudi Arabia has always had an acute fresh water shortage problem. The problem has been so severe that a proposal was once considered to literally tow an ice burg from Antarctica all to way to the Kingdom for use as fresh water.

The practicality of constructing desalination plants to extract salt and other minerals from sea water became a much more practical plan, and 27 have now been constructed in the Kingdom, supplying 70 percent of the country’s drinking water as well as more than 28 million megawatts of electricity. A new desalination plant, hailed as being the world’s largest, has now been completed in the new Jubail II Industrial Zone in the Kingdom’s Eastern Province.

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