Israeli state-of-the-art modular cover system decreases evaporation of reservoirs and saves precious water while preserving quality.
These aren’t ordinary plastic balls. They do much more than shade the water. Photo courtesy NeoTop Water Systems the world.
It has also sparked a tidal wave of interest in NeoTop Water Systems, an Israeli startup that has scientifically proven that its patented spheres – designed to be job-specific as opposed to the balls California has so far deployed — decrease evaporation of reservoirs, save precious water and reduce growth of algae to preserve a healthy ecosystem.
The Israeli company’s second-generation product is set to be unveiled at the upcoming WATEC Israel 2015 international exhibition of water technologies, October 13-15 at the Tel Aviv Fairgrounds.
“Our product is very different from other solutions,” Noam Levy, CEO NeoTop Water Systems (formerly Top-It-Up), tells ISRAEL21c. “Our spheres have a sophisticated design and they’re the only system now on the market that cools the water.”
Like the LA shade balls, the Israeli floating spheres block sunlight. But thanks to their ability to act as mini cooling towers, they also reduce surface temperatures, algae and evaporation by up to 94 percent.
And that figure is not just a random guess. NeoTop’s balls have undergone extensive testing by Mekorot, Israel’s national water company. The Israeli team has been researching and developing the innovative product since 2011.
Zeev Birger, founder and CTO of the company, won the Israeli Prime Minister’s Award for Entrepreneurship & Innovation in 2014 for his TopUp Ball System.
“We are just starting to market in Israel, the UK, Australia and the US,” says Levy. “In the US market, we’re aiming mainly for California.”
“In Los Angeles, they’re using 100 balls per square meter. NeoTop needs just 10 balls per square meter. This cuts costs in assembly,” says CEO Levy.
How bobbing balls block drought
Up to 50 percent of water in reservoirs is lost to evaporation, according to NeoTop’s research. But the increase in water salinity that results from evaporation can be even more troublesome because the water can become unusable. Not to mention the growth of harmful algae, which clog pipes.
NeoTop balls are bigger than the shade balls now in the headlines and do not need to be filled with water ahead of time. In fact, the use of the reservoir’s water is a crucial part of the Israeli solution to better water quality.
The Top-Up ball has special rims and an inner float, as well as holes around its equator, at the top and bottom. The balls are tipped into a reservoir and fill up exactly half way – half the sphere is submerged and the other half is in the air.
The key here is a continual evaporation-condensation process: Water from the bottom half of the ball evaporates into the top half of the sphere and condenses, dripping water back to the bottom half.
There is no standing water in these spheres, as new water is constantly entering. This process creates thermal distillation, which kills parasites and enhances water quality.
Meanwhile, the spheres also lower water temperatures by up to six degrees Celsius. Here’s how it works: Air in the top half of the sphere is released from the upper holes and creates a difference in pressure between the two halves, allowing for a flow of cooler air from the side openings. The cooling effect reduces the temperature of the water in the ball and the water in the reservoir.
Levy says the water in the submerged part of the NeoTop sphere also acts as counterweight against wind.
The Ramat Hasharon company’s technology is also being used as a solution for the aquaculture industry for fish farming, aquariums and microalgae cultivation. The bobbing balls protect fish from birds.
In addition to drought problems, open-water reservoirs and ponds near airports are known as significant hazards to airplanes. Aviation authorities everywhere require these water sources to be covered to help eliminate bird strikes and ensure flight safety.
Bird strikes cause some $400 million in annual damages to aircraft in the US and nearly $1.2 billion to commercial aircraft globally.
The Israeli system has been approved as a bird deterrent by the Israel Air Force and by world-renowned ornithologists.
Israeli water-tech in California
Israeli industrialists, government experts and academics can already be found in California collaborating on advanced water technologies.
Israeli companies are assisting Californians with newgroundwater flow systems, seawater desalination plants and better farming methods in an attempt to lessen the effects of the state’s severe drought.
And that’s not all. The upcoming WATEC conference in Tel Aviv will host a major session on Israeli cooperation with California, which has been in an official state of drought emergency since January last year.
NeoTop Water Systems is one of 60 Israeli water-tech companies on the exhibitors’ list at the WATEC conference.
“We’re launching the second generation of the product and there’s no doubt that it will do the job even better,” says Levy.
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@ Ted Belman:
Ted, has anyone thought about the forest fires in California destroying our forest it diminishes the amount of rain. We depend on the forest to attract rain.
If Californians aggressively starts the conservation and recycling in a well coordinated way the water supply will increase in spite of increased consumption. Stopping the evaporation with Israeli technology is a good first step.
Fifty percent is better than nothing.
The difference is that Israeli leadership wanted to solve the water challenge, whereas Californian leadership agrees with Rahm Emanuel that crises exist for liberals to seize power. During his first stint as governor, Brown vetoed the infrastructure necessary to avoid water shortages, and he is now arrogating emergency powers to himself in an ostensible attempt to address the shortage that he helped create. The problem in California is philosophical, not technological.
The article provides a very broad over view of the California Water System and its problems.
Israel had very similar problems variable water supply caused by geography and weather. By combining recycling about ~85% of its water, conserving water, finding more ways to catch rain water (as opposed to LA has most if it water not used run into the ocean)and of course its desalinization plants it has become a water exporter.
Me too.
It might be worth it to find out exactly where in Israel these plastic ball water savers are being used. My guess? Nowhere.
Would anyone want to see them in the Dead Sea? The Dead Sea is also drying up. Which is to say, the water level is lowering dramatically.
@ ppksky:I give up.
Ted, I understand the difference between conservation of resources and the creation of resources.
The water problems of California cannot be solved by conservation. The source of water in California, our rivers, is breaking down. Our rivers are drying up.
Hoping to solve California’s water problems by covering up the reservoirs with plastic balls is a really, really stupid idea.
@ ppksky:
Once again you are failing to understand. Let us assume the supply of water is fixed. But half of that water is lost to evaporation. What is actually used is wasted because drip irrigation is not employed. This system requires much less water to water plants than the usual way. Finally we use water for personal use. It all goes down the drain so to speak. Assume then that is water that goes down the drain can be captured and recycled then one’s finite supply of water services more agriculture and more people then originally.
I got this from an article:
According to the National Weather Service, California experienced three day of heavy rains in late July. Additional reservoirs would have captured some of that water, thereby alleviating a small percentage of the shortfall. With each successful rainfall, the problem would gradually lessen. This process should have been at work for decades.
But Brown has always been a reductionist – even during the 1970s he was insisting upon “lower expectations” and “modesty of consumption”. Now, he has the pretext to coerce citizens into compliance.
babushka Said:
The problem is that the existing dams and reservoirs have not been filling up to capacity for years. The rivers are drying out. There is no point in building dams and resevoirs if there is nothing to dam up.
California suffers from super bad planning on water resources and the lack of rain for years now.
Example years ago San Diego started a desalinization plant and then El Nino started (heavy rain season) and they stopped the building of the plant. Now they restarted what will become the worlds biggest desalination plant with the help of an Israeli company.
This is unbelievably cool. These Jews are brilliant.
The water shortage in California is contrived. There has not been a dam, reservoir, or aqueduct built in recent history. The result is an artificial shortage that provides the perfect excuse for liberals like Jerry Brown to impose draconian nanny laws which empowers them to micromanage the lives of Californians.
Brown has no interest in solving the water “crisis”. Like mythological global warming, it serves to further the liberal agenda of state control over the individual.
Nevertheless, the sphere approach represents the innovative genius of simplicity, which is a function of the human mind being liberated from centralized control. How many brilliant ideas emerge from state run economies? Where are all of the magnificent innovations from the Muslim world?
Jewish tradition provides incomparable intellectual freedom, which is why Jews have been so disproportionately successful in academic, artistic, and technological pursuits.
I love these stories, Ted. Keep’em coming.
Ted, once again you are confusing supply with usage. If you recycle water, you are not increasing the supply of water. If you are conserving water, you are not increasing the supply of water.
If you desalinate seawater you are creating a source of water.
Desalination isn’t even going to scratch the surface in California’s declining water supply.
If you cannot understand the difference between conserving resources and creating resources, you cannot defend the claims made by the backers of this utterly idiotic idea.
ppksky Said:
You couldn’t be more wrong. Israel solved their water shortage by desalinating much more water and by reusing all their water and other efficiencies.
http://www.jta.org/2015/04/21/news-opinion/united-states/recycling-toilet-water-and-4-other-israeli-answers-to-californias-drought
@ Ted Belman:
Ted, it doesn’t matter what percentage of what is supplied is lost, no strategy to decrease what is lost after supply is going to increase supply.
Reservoirs are not supplies of water. Rivers are the supply and snow pack and precipitation draining into the rivers supply the rivers.
Band-aids on the reservoirs are not going to compensate for increasing demand.
We are running out of water and because of the “growth” economy, increased demand is part of the problem.
It’s not just California.
@ ppksky:The article said that 50% of the water supply is lost due to evaporation. Thus this system will almost double the supply by cutting down on evaporation.
This is, without a doubt, the dumbest thing I have ever heard to come out of Israel or anywhere else.
California’s water supply problem has nothing to do with evaporation. The problem is a diminishing supply and increased demand.