Sorek desalination plant opens (2013)
Israel opened the Sorek reverse-osmosis desalination plant, then the largest of its kind, producing 624,000 cubic meters of fresh water per day. The technology had existed since the 1960s but cost too much to scale. Sorek hit a price point near 58 US cents per cubic meter.
Israel went from chronic water shortage to a water surplus within five years and began exporting water to Jordan.
Desalination is now a routine water source across the Gulf, Spain, and parts of California, supplying about 1% of the world's drinking water.
Desalination took 50 years to move from lab to mainstream infrastructure because it needed cheap energy and big membranes. MOF water harvesting faces the same scaling question, but at a much smaller and more distributed unit size.