ASHALIM, Israel – You shouldn’t look at it directly, but that’s easier said than done.
Drive through the cliffs and craters of the Negev desert, and it’s hard to miss:
a penetrating light, mounted on an austere gray tower, more than 243 meters high.
It is also visible From space.
this is the big one solar tower of Ashalimone of the tallest structures in Israel and, until recently, the tallest solar power plant in the world.
“It’s like a sun,” said Eli Baliti, a shopkeeper in the nearest town.
“A second sun”.
For supporters, the tower is an impressive engineering feat, a testament to Israeli solar innovation.
For critics, it is insanely expensive to rely on technology that had become obsolete when it was operational.
But for Baliti and the approximately 750 inhabitants of the nearby city, Ashalim, from which the plant takes its name, the tower is something of much more tangible.
It is the ever-present background of their lives, a source of frustration, occasional affection and even pride, causing so much anger as amazement
Sometimes it looks like a dystopian skyscraper, looming ominously over the cows and roosters of a dairy across the street.
The height of the tower makes comparisons with the Tower of Babel, its blinding light with the burning bush.
Its base looks like a spaceship hangar, its turret the apex of a fantastic fortress.
For some, it is reminiscent of Tolkien’s JRR “The Lord of the Rings”.
“IS the eye of Sauronsaid Uriya Suued, an engineer who lived in Ashalim until September.
At other times, the tower looks more like a lanky, gentle giant, standing awkwardly on the edge of a group photo.
You may even forget it’s there, until you see it poised, almost comically, behind a garden wall or incongruously, even apologizing, above the bathers in the city’s outdoor pool.
“A lighthouse without a seasaid Ben Malka, who runs the pool.
“Sometimes it’s very nice,” said Eran Doron, the regional mayor.
“Absolutely disturbing,” said Isaac Nir, co-founder of a local seed producer.
Using the sun’s energy, the tower generates enough electricity to power tens of thousands of homes.
Completed in 2019, the plant it shows both promises and errors Israel’s solar industry, and is a case study on the unpredictable challenges that await any country seeking to transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy.
Inactive during the night, the tower begins its day when the neighboring roosters begin their morning choir, with the first light of dawn.
At that moment, the sun’s rays hit a sea beyond 50,000 mirrors strategically positioned between the dunes surrounding the tower.
The mirrors reflect the light rays upwards, concentrating them in a giant water kettle inside the turret.
The reflected sunlight, which creates the intense glow that dazzles anyone who looks directly at it, heats the water over 1000 degrees Fahrenheit, turning it into steam.
In a process known as Solar thermal energy, the steam is conveyed down to the ground level, creating turn the turbines to generate electricity.
There are more than 25 similar towers around the world, including China, Spain and the United States, but only one, in the United Arab Emirates, is taller.
For its supporters, the Ashalim Tower is a sophisticated and pioneering endeavor that showcases the skill of Israeli solar energy experts.
“I’m very proud of it,” said Israel Kroizer, an engineer who oversaw the installation and configuration of the 50,000 mirrors.
“It’s a very complicated project”.
Under the project, several million dollars were spent on infrastructure in Ashalim, including roads and a youth club.
The money came from Megalim solar energythe multinational consortium that built and manages the plant.
The project has also led at least 70 new jobs in a remote and sometimes neglected region, boosting its economy, said Doron, the regional mayor.
“Good work and good pay,” Doron added.
“Lemon lemonade”.
Founded in the 1970s, Ashalim is a small town with little industry of its own; some residents run guesthouses for tourists, but most work in nearby towns.
It is a Jewish city: thousands of Bedouin Arabs live nearby, but most of them in poor villages, some of which are not officially recognized by the government and not connected to the national electricity grid.
During the construction of the tower, rumors abounded in Ashalim about the possible impact.
The children feared that the turret might explode.
Adults wondered if militants in Gaza could attack it with rockets.
And some were unnecessarily worried that it could cause harmful radiation to residents.
“People thought it would give you cancer,” said Shachar Lebel, a teacher at Ashalim kindergarten.
“People joked that we would grow queues.”
All those fears proved unfounded and some, like Lebel, came to appreciate the tower.
It has turned into a comforting North Star for some residents on their way home after long car journeys.
But a sense of discontent remained, even among those who otherwise strongly support the green energy.
Stain
For many villagers, who moved to Ashalim in search of flawless views of the desert, it was a notable blot on the landscape.
“I’m for clean energy,” said Malka, who runs the pool.
“But they chose to do it as they crossed the city.”
“Maybe they could have taken it 80 kilometers into the desert,” he said.
The tower also regularly kills or burns passing birds attracted to light, villagers said.
Similar phenomena have been documented on solar towers in other countries.
In the broader Israeli discourse, the tower attracted particular criticism because its electricity turned out to be very high more expensive compared to that created by other forms of solar energy technology.
Under an agreement signed in 2014 between the government and the consortium that built the plant, the companies agreed to pay construction costs of approximately $ 800 million.
In return, the government promised buy electricityd from the tower at a rate of about 23 cents per kilowatt hour, according to the Israeli electricity authority.
That was considered a fair rate at the time of the auction.
But during construction, scientists made unexpected improvements to a simpler form of solar power:
photovoltaic panels that convert sunlight into electricity without the need for mirrors or water.
And these improvements have allowed the solar panels to generate energy for about a fifth part of the cost of a solar thermal tower, according to data published by the Israeli government.
In fact, solar panels have become so profitable that Kroizer, the engineer who helped build the Ashalim site, has left the solar thermal industry and now runs a company that focuses on panels.
The Israeli government has even considered reducing losses and abandoning construction of both the tower and a nearby project that also uses solar thermal technology.
But officials backed off because the cost of compensating contractors would outweigh the savings.
An Israeli business newspaper, Calcalist, called the situation “one of the saddest stories” in the history of Israeli infrastructure.
Others claim that the tower’s more expensive energy is, in fact, almost imperceptible to Israeli citizens, as the higher cost It is distributed among the millions of consumers of the national network.
For Yosef Abramowitz, a major Israeli energy entrepreneur, the real problem with the Israeli solar sector is that, in a time of climate crisis, it provides a share very small of Israel’s energy needs:
less than a fifth in 2021, according to the government. record.
“Ashalim is a wonderful example of Israeli climate technology innovation,” said Abramowitz, who led the installation of large solar fields in other parts of Israel.
“But this is not Israel’s energy story,” he added.
“Israel’s energy story is that we are bad actors when it comes to climate.”
That national debate has little daily relevance to many Ashalim residents.
But it put them on the map and even made them a little proud.
“Everyone in the country talks about it,” said Lebel, the teacher.
“And I’m like: I live next door!” This article originally appeared in the New York Times.
Carol Sutherland, Jonathan Rosen and Myra Noveck contributed to the research.
c.2022 The New York Times Company
Source: Clarin
