Jordan Going Alone in the Red Sea Project

From the Jordanian Press: To help save the Dead Sea and generate water as of 2014, the Jordanian government also announced that it will implement the $10 billion Jordan National Red Sea Water Development Project. Officials said the project is separate from the Red-Dead Canal and is supported by the government.

Once implemented, the project is expected to spur an economic, industrial and agricultural boom in the Jordan Valley, as water conveyance from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea, 400 metres below sea level, will generate electricity which will be used for the desalination process and other purposes.

The JRSP is projected to provide 120mcm of water annually by the year 2014 in its first phase, expanding to 700mcm annually in later phases.

Construction on the project, which entails five phases and will be built on a build-operate-transfer basis, is expected to be completed within 25-30 years.

The first phase, scheduled to start late next year, includes taking water from the Red Sea through pipelines to a desalination facility, which will be built in Aqaba. Later, water generated from the desalination plant will be distributed to Aqaba and development projects in the area.

In the meantime, the brine from the desalination plant will be discharged through pipelines into the Dead Sea to limit the decline in its water levels.

Skip Holland, senior vice president and managing executive of MWH Global, the company managing the project, said the water will eventually be connected with the Disi project water carrier to deliver water to Amman.

Despite the similarity between the goals of the JRSP and the Red-Dead Water Conveyance Project, which also seeks to generate freshwater and save the Dead Sea from shrinking, the two projects will be carried out simultaneously.

"The JRSP is planned so it can begin immediately, the project is Jordanian and will be built on Jordanian land… The World Bank environmental and feasibility studies of the Red-Dead Project are vital for our scheme," Ministry of Water and Irrigation Secretary General Maysoun Zu'bi said yesterday.

"The country's water situation is urgent; we cannot afford to wait," Zu'bi told The Jordan Times, underscoring that the JRSP "is not a replacement for the Red-Dead Project".

The Jordanians are not waiting for us, they are promoting a separate project to exploit the Red Sea - Dead Sea 400 m topographic difference. The financing will be a problem because the energy generated by the project will be more expensive than gas or oil. From a financial point of view, a conventional desalination plant is more attractive. But this is a complex, ecological scheme, maybe the World Bank will finance it. I have not heard any serious Israeli reaction yet. (Pic: The King of Jordan donating blood. I empathize with him because he is brother fat man.)