[Israel wants to be seen in the water world the same admiring way
it is viewed in the realm of high-tech. The country’s exports of water products
have tripled in the past five years and now total $2 billion, according to
Israel’s economic ministry. Its biggest customer is the United States, but new
markets are opening in countries with an emerging middle class, such as Mexico,
Turkey, China and India.]
 |
NIR ELIAS/REUTERS -
People walk in a desalination plant during its inauguration
in the coastal city
of Hadera, north of Tel Aviv. Israel is hoping to sell its
water-conservation
technologies to the world |
The Israeli water industry took over the convention center here this week
to show the world its bacterial sewage scrubbers and computerized shower heads,
its low-flow nipples to grow high-yield tomatoes, and its early-warning
mathematical algorithms to detect dribbles, leaks and bursts.
It might not have been the sexiest business conference in a
country that refers to itself as “start-up nation,” but there’s a lot of money
in water.
Israel wants to be seen in the water world the same admiring way
it is viewed in the realm of high-tech. The country’s exports of water products
have tripled in the past five years and now total $2 billion, according to
Israel’s economic ministry. Its biggest customer is the United States, but new
markets are opening in countries with an emerging middle class, such as Mexico,
Turkey, China and India.
Because of Israel’s history of scarcity, isolation and
resourcefulness, it has the jump in water management and conservation. The
first prime minister of Israel, David Ben-Gurion, issued the call to “make the
desert bloom.” Since then, Israeli leaders have periodically dangled the transfer of water
technology as a possible incentive for peace with the Palestinians and Arab
states.
Two Republican governors from arid states, Rick Perry of Texas and
Brian Sandoval of Nevada, were on hand with large delegations this week to
peruse the wares at the Watec Israel 2013 exhibition.
Perry hailed Israel for its reuse of wastewater — Israel recycles
more than 80 percent of its effluents, compared with about 1 percent
in the United States, the governor said.
Asked about potential deals between Israel and Texas for water
technology, Perry said in an interview, “Let’s do it.”
The Texas governor was repeatedly approached by representatives of
the Israeli water business who introduced themselves, delivered business cards
and made their sales pitches.
The reason for their interest did not escape Perry. “Texas goes
from drought to drought, and what we need to survive is to conserve and use
wisely what water we have,” Perry said. Texas residents will vote in November
on a $2 billion initiative to rebuild the state’s water infrastructure.
The hallways of the Tel Aviv convention center were packed with
engineers from China, Spain, France and Australia. Buyers and sellers huddled
around water coolers signing memorandums of understanding.
Israel is a world leader in desalination of seawater. By next year, more
than a third of Israel’s tap water will come from the Mediterranean Sea and a
few briny wells. Israel’s total water consumption remains nearly at 1964 levels
— even though its population has quadrupled to 8 million people, according
to the economic ministry.
“They say that necessity is the mother of invention, and that is
clearly the case in Israel,” said Oded Distel, director of Israel New Tech, a
government agency that primes the water pump by giving grants to high-tech
water start-ups and helps market the water industry abroad. “If we had to rely
on sources of fresh water, we wouldn’t be here. In Israel, we use every drop
twice.”
Distel said that water used to be a kind of “dumb industry”
dominated by low-tech and cheap water, distributed by centuries-old pipes and
canals, employing irrigation technologies that dated to the ancient Egyptians.
Municipal water systems such as those in Los Angles, London and New Delhi
traditionally lost 20 percent or more of their water to leaks and
evaporation.
But in a world dominated by scarcity, climate change and
population growth, water is no longer being taken for granted.
The modern water industry here was launched in the mid-1960s, when
an Israeli agronomist named Simcha Blass and his son Yeshayahu partnered with a
kibbutz to manufacture the country’s first drip-irrigation system, which
delivered a trickle of water directly to the plant roots.
Their invention created the low-volume irrigation revolution and
evolved into a company with 3,000 employees that sells drip irrigation and
greenhouses in 150 countries.
“Israel will soon become the largest hub for water innovation in
the world,” said Amir Peleg, founder and chief executive of TaKaDu, which uses
algorithms to monitor municipal water companies for leaks in real time.
Israel’s public and private sectors are investing heavily in
developing and promoting the water industry. There are 280 water technology
companies in Israel.
Peleg’s company is a subject of study at Harvard Business School.
He is a product of Israel’s start-up nation — educated in the Israeli
army’s elite computer intelligence unit, with degrees from Israel and France.
Peleg made a fortune selling YaData, a behavioral targeting company, to
Microsoft in 2008.
After the sale of his software company, Peleg said he cast around
for a new niche and discovered water. He said Israel has the science, the entrepreneurs,
the demand and the venture capital to create the perfect incubator.
“I will be serious with you. Not all of us are in Greenpeace,”
Peleg said. “But there is a huge growth potential here.”
