Crown Prince Haakon of Norway (L) and King Abdullah II of Jordan (C) tour the Sahara Forest Project Launch Station in the Jordanian Red Sea resort of Aqaba, on September 7, 2017. (AFP PHOTO / Khalil MAZRAAWI)
AQABA, Jordan (AP) — Water-poor Jordan on Thursday launched a project using seawater to produce crops with clean energy.
Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Crown Prince Haakon of Norway, which contributed most of the $3.7 million cost, inaugurated the facility in the kingdom’s Red Sea port city of Aqaba.
Haakon told reporters he was “impressed by the way innovative ideas have been translated into a plant the size of four football fields.”
Haakon, Crown Prince of Norway, tours the Sahara Forest Project Launch Station in the Jordanian Red Sea resort of Aqaba, on September 7, 2017. (AFP PHOTO / Khalil MAZRAAWI)
The facility, part of the Sahara Forest Project (SFP), produces “energy, freshwater and food and all this in an arid desert,” he said.
The facility, surrounded by rocky desert, uses seawater to cool greenhouses. A solar-powered plant then desalinates the water for irrigation.
Get The Times of Israel's Daily Editionby email and never miss our top stories
Inside the greenhouses, pesticide-free cucumbers flourish.
The project is set to produce 130 tons of vegetables a year and 10,000 liters of freshwater a day.
“This is just the start,” said Joakim Hauge, head of SFP. He said the organization selected Jordan because it has the required abundance of sunlight and seawater.
Advertisement
A picture taken on September 7, 2017 shows an information billboard bearing the name of the Sahara Forest Project and its supporters at the Launch Station in the Jordanian Red Sea resort of Aqaba. (AFP PHOTO / Khalil MAZRAAWI)
Last month, a report by Stanford University suggested that Jordan, one of the world’s driest countries, could face more severe droughts unless new technologies are applied in farming and other sectors.
“Future adaptation to extreme droughts in Jordan will be an immense challenge,” said the report by the university’s School of Earth Science. “The projected negative impacts of more severe droughts of greater duration calls for essential alternatives.”
Help us report truthfully on social media
As a multimedia journalist, my job is to take the quality, fact-based journalism produced by The Times of Israel newsroom and make it accessible across every platform — from Instagram posts to podcasts to short-form videos.
This is how many, especially young people, consume news these days. But misinformation is rampant on social media. Our team at ToI produces accurate, responsible short-form reporting on Israel and the Jewish world.
If you believe in the importance of factual social media journalism, please consider joining our reader support group, The Times of Israel Community. Your financial support is essential to sustain responsible multimedia reporting.
We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.
That’s why we started the Times of Israel - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.
For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.
Thank you, David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on Google
