Waking up this morning was a struggle. Sleep deprived and still devastated by the cavs loss (I’m still All In), I didn’t think the day could get much worse. But to my dismay, I soon found out it could. It was my turn to write the blog. Even worse, I was writing about an unfinished hydroelectric plant.
As we approached the plant, I’ll admit, I wasn’t excited and had a negative mindset. I didn’t think I could possibly write an interesting blog on the plant, yet, as our tour came to an end, I realized something very important. As Amnon put it, this plant represented Zionism in its purest form as it relates to the twenty first century.
The plant, surprisingly, is quite interesting. The production of electricity is very inefficient for multiple reasons. First, power plants work 24 hours a day because they require a lot of energy to shut off and then turn on. But perhaps the most important inefficiency of power plants is that electricity can’t be stored. The hydroelectric plant efficiently solved this problem by storing water, which upon command is converted into electricity. In other words, the stored water is potential electricity.
A better way to describe the plant is as a storage system. It holds up to 700 million gallons of water and is 500 yards deep. This can be converted into 300 megawatts in just 30 seconds. To put this into perspective, this is 3% of the country’s need for electricity.
Despite the efficiency of the storage system in comparison to power plants, the storage only serves as a backup, in case of certain emergencies that call for a large supply of electricity. The storage system is almost the generator of Israel. Though costly, up to half a billion dollars in total cost, the government has seen the importance of this plant. And just as the government has seen the importance of the plant so have I.
To reiterate an earlier point, this plant truly represents modern Zionism. For the early settlers, their Zionist vision was building the agriculture of Israel. It was their way of staying in touch with the land of their forefathers and building a strong future for their children. Just as society evolves so does this vision. The hydroelectric plant builders have used their genius innovation to secure Israel’s dominance in the world. They aren’t hoping for an effect in the present but rather one in the future. Though modernized, the Zionist vision is the same. Through the Jewish mind for innovation, a strong future is almost inevitable.
Signing off,Barak Spector
Cavs in four next year