and beloved First Citizen. From our hearts, we thank you and welcome you, Mr. President. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. You did that. Thank you. Thank you all very much. Thank you, Vice Chairman Lennon, those very kind words. I'm grateful to the American Conservative Union, young Americans for freedom, national review, human events for organizing this wonderful evening. When you work in the White House, you don't get to see your old friends as much as you'd like. And I always see the CPAC speech as my opportunity to dance with the one that brung you. There's so much I want to talk about tonight. I've been thinking in the week since the inauguration that we are at an especially dramatic turning point in American history. And just putting it all together in my mind, I've been reviewing the elements that have led to this moment. Ever since FDR and the New Deal, the opposition party, and particularly those of a liberal persuasion, have dominated the political debate. Their ideas were new. They had momentum. They captured the imagination of the American people. A left-held sway for a good long time. There was a right, but it was by the 40s and 50s, diffuse and scattered without a unifying voice. But in 1964 came a voice in the wilderness, Barry Goldwater, a great Barry Goldwater, the first major party candidate of our time, who was a true blue, undiluted conservative. He spoke from principle, and he offered vision. Freedom, he spoke of freedom, freedom from the government's increasing demands on the family purse, freedom from the government's increasing use or patient of individual rights and responsibilities. Freedom from the leaders who told us the price of world peace is continued acquiescence to totalitarianism. He was ahead of his time. When he ran for president, he won six states and lost 44. But his candidacy worked as a precursor of things to come. A new movement was stirring. And in the 1960s, Young Americans for Freedom is born. National Review gains readership and prestige in the intellectual community. Human events becomes a major voice on the cutting edge. In the 70s, the anti-tax movement begins. Actually, it was much more than an anti-tax movement, just as the Boston Tea Party was much more than an anti-tax initiative. In the late 70s, Proposition 13 and the Sagebrush Rebellion. In 1980, for the first time in 28 years, a Republican Senate is elected. And so may I say as a conservative president. In 1984, that conservative administration is re-elected in a 49-state sweep. And the day the votes came in, I thought of Walt Whitman. I hear America singing. This great turn from left to right was not just a case of the pendulum swinging. First, the left holds sway, and then the right, and here comes the left again. The truth is, conservative thought is no longer over here on the right. It's the mainstream now. And the tide of history is moving irresistibly in our direction. Why? Because the other side is virtually bankrupt of ideas. It has nothing more to say, nothing to add to the debate. It has spent its intellectual capital, such as it was, and it has done its deeds. Now, we're not in power now because they failed to gain electoral support over the past 50 years. They did win support, and the result was chaos, weakness, and drift. Ultimately, though, their failures yielded one great thing. Us guys, we in this room are not simply profiting from their bankruptcy. We are where we are because we're winning the contest of ideas. In fact, in the past decade, all of a sudden, rightly, mysteriously, the Republican Party has become the party of ideas. We became the party of the most brilliant and dynamic young minds. I remember them just a few years ago running around scrawling laffer curves on table napkins. Going to symposia and talking about how social programs did not eradicate poverty, but entrenched it. Writing studies on why the latest weird and unnatural idea of social engineers is weird and unnatural. You were there.  All of a sudden, Republicans were not defenders of the status quo but creators of the future. They were looking at tomorrow with all the single-mindedness of an inventor. In fact, they reminded me of the American inventors of the 19th and 20th centuries who fill the world with light and recorded sound. The new conservatives made anew the connection between economic justice and economic growth. Growth in the economy would not only create jobs and paychecks, they said. It would enhance familial stability and encourage a healthy optimism about the future. Lower those tax rates, they said, and let the economy become the engine of our dreams. Pull back regulations and encourage free and open competition. Let the men and women of the marketplace decide what they want. But along with that, perhaps the greatest triumph of modern conservatism has been to stop allowing the left to put the average American on the moral defensive. By average American, I mean the good, decent, rambunctious and creative people who raise the families, go to church, and help out when the local library holds a fundraiser. People who have a stake in the community because they are the community. These people had held true to certain beliefs and principles that for 20 years, the intelligentsia were telling us were hopelessly out of date, utterly trite and reactionary. You want prayer in the schools? How primitive, they said. You oppose abortion? How oppressive? How anti-modern? The normal was portrayed as eccentric and only the abnormal was worthy of emulation. The irreverent was celebrated, but only irreverence about certain things. Irreverence towards, say, organized religion, yes. Irreverence toward establishment, liberalism. Not too much of that. They celebrated their courage in taking on safe targets and padded each other on the back for slinging stones at a confused goliath who was too demoralized and really too good to fight back. But now one simply senses it. The American people are no longer on the defensive. I believe the conservative movement deserves some credit for this. You spoke for the permanent, against the merely prevalent, and ultimately you prevailed. I believe we conservatives have captured the moment, captured the imagination of the American people. And what now? What do we need to do with our success? Right now with conservative thought accepted as mainstream thought and with the people of our country leading the fight to freedom, now we must move. You remember your Shakespeare? There is a tide in the affairs of men which taken at the flood leads on to fortune. Omit it all, the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat as take the current when it serves or lose our ventures. I spoke in the State of... It's typical isn't it? I just quoted a great writer but as an actor I get the bow. I spoke in the State of the Union of a second American revolution and now is the time to launch that revolution and see that it takes hold. If we move decisively these years will not be just a passing era of good feeling, not just a few good years but a true golden age of freedom. The moment is ours and we must seize it. There's work to do. We must prolong and protect our growing prosperity so that it doesn't become just a passing phase, a natural adjustment between periods of recession. We must move further to provide incentive and make America the investment capital of the world. We must institute a fair tax system and turn the current one on its ear. I believe there is natural support in our country for a simplified tax system with still lower tax rates but a broader base with everyone paying their fair share and no more. We must eliminate unproductive tax shelters. Again, there is natural support among Americans because Americans are a fair-minded people. We must institute enterprise zones and a lower youth minimum wage so we can revitalize, revitalize distressed areas and teenagers can get jobs. We're going to take our revolution to the people, all of the people. We're going to go to black Americans and members of all minority groups and we're going to make our case. Part of being a revolutionary is knowing that you don't have to acquiesce to the tired old ideas of the past. One such idea is that the opposition party has black America and minority America locked up that they own black America. Well, let me tell you, they own nothing but the past. The old alignments are no longer legitimate if they ever were. We're going to reach out and we need your help. Can we conservatives were brought up to hate deficits and justifiably so? Long thought there are two things in Washington that are unbalanced, the budget and the liberals. But we cannot reduce the deficit by raising taxes. And just so that every i is dotted and every t is crossed, let me repeat tonight for the benefit of those who've never seemed to get the message, we will not reduce the deficit by raising taxes. We need more taxes like John McLaughlin needs assertiveness training. Now, whether government borrows or increases taxes, it will be taking the same amount of money from the private economy. And either way, that's too much. We must bring down government spending. We need a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget. It's something that 49 states already require. No reason the federal government should be any different. We need the line item veto, which 43 governors have. No reason the president shouldn't. And we have to cut waste. The Grace Commission has identified billions of dollars that are wasted and that we can save. But the domestic side isn't the only area where we need your help. All of us in this room grew up or came to adulthood in a time when the doctrine of Marx and Lenin was coming to divide the world. Ultimately, it came to dominate remorselessly whole parts of it. The Soviet attempt to give legitimacy to its tyranny is expressed in the infamous Brezhnev doctrine, which contends that once a country has fallen into communist darkness, it can never again be allowed to see the light of freedom. What occurs to me is that history has already begun to repeal that doctrine. It started one day in Grenada. We only did our duty as a responsible neighbor and a lover of peace the day we went in and returned the government to the people and rescued our own students. We restored that island of liberty. Yes, it's only a small island. But that's what the world is made of. Small islands yearning for freedom. There's much more to do. Throughout the world, the Soviet Union and its agents, clients, states, and satellites are on the defensive. On the moral defensive. The intellectual defensive. And the political and economic defensive. Freedom movements arise and assert themselves. They're doing so in almost every continent populated by man. In the hills of Afghanistan. In Angola. In Kampuchea. In Central America. In making mention of freedom fighters, all of us are privileged to have in our midst tonight one of the brave commanders to lead the Afghan freedom fighters, Abdul Haq. Technologies that may enable us to prevent nuclear ballistic missiles from reaching U.S. soil or that of our allies. I happen to believe logic forces me to believe that this new defense system the strategic defense initiative is the most hopeful possibility of our time. Its primary virtue is clear. If anyone ever attacked us strategic defense would be there to protect us. It could conceivably save millions of lives. SDI has been criticized on the grounds that it might upset any chance of an arms control agreement with the Soviets. But SDI is arms control. If SDI is say 80% effective, then it will make any Soviet attack folly. Even partial success in SDI would strengthen deterrence and keep the peace. And if our SDI research is successful the prospects for real reduction in U.S. and Soviet offensive nuclear forces will be greatly enhanced. It is said that SDI would deal a blow to the so-called east-west balance of power. And let's think about that. The Soviets already are investing roughly as much on strategic defenses as they are on their offensive nuclear forces. This could quickly tip the east-west balance if we had no defense of our own. Would a situation of comparable defenses threaten us? No. For we're not planning on being the first to use force. As we strive for our goal of eventual elimination of nuclear weapons each side would retain a certain amount of defensive or I should say destructive power. A certain number of missiles. But it would not be in our interest or theirs to build more and more of them. Now one would think our critics on the left would quickly embrace or at least be open-minded about a system that promises to reduce the size of nuclear missile forces on both sides and to greatly enhance the prospects for real arms reductions. And yet we hear SDI belittled by some with nicknames or demagogued with charges that it will bring war to the heavens. They complain that it won't work which is odd from people who profess to believe in the perfectability of man machines after all. And man machines are so much easier to manipulate. They say it won't be 100% effective which is odd since they don't ask for 100% effectiveness in their social experiments. They they say SDI is only in the research stage and won't be realized in time to change things to which as I said last month the only reply is then let's get started. Now my point here is not to question the motive as others but it's difficult to understand how critics can object to exploring the possibility of moving away from exclusive reliance upon nuclear weapons. The truth is I believe that they find it difficult to embrace any idea that breaks with the past that breaks with consensus thinking and the common establishment wisdom. In short, they find it difficult and frightening to alter the status quo. And what are we to do when these so-called opinion leaders of an outworn philosophy are out there on television and in the newspapers with their steady drumbeat of doubt and distaste? Well, when all you have to do to win is rely on the good judgment of the American people then you're in good shape because the American people have good judgment. I know it isn't becoming of me but I like to think that maybe 49 of our 50 states displayed that judgment just a few months ago. What we have to do, all of us in this room is get out there and talk about SDI explain it debate it tell the American people the facts it may well be the most important work we do in the next few years but when we try we'll succeed so we have great work ahead of us big work but if we do it together and with complete commitment we can change our country and history forever. Once during the campaign I said this is a wonderful time to be alive and I meant that I meant that we're lucky not to live in pale and timid times we've been blessed with the opportunity for liberty and freedom and fairness and these are things worth fighting for worth devoting our lives to and we have good reason to be hopeful and optimistic we've made much progress already so let us go forth with good cheer and start hearts happy warriors out to seize back a country and a world to freedom thank you and God bless you Thank you very much Mr. President I do want to just comment on one or two things before having a little fun I do want to acknowledge the work performed by three individuals in conjunction with this event there's the Executive Director of the American Conservative Union Jay Canson the Director of Operations for Young Americans for Freedom Mr. Richard Hahn who is the CPAC coordinator who I believe will be heard from again Mr. Richard Mathias I have a structure in front of me filled with some jelly beans that Congressman Dornan said to me he said he doesn't know if the structure is going to mark it well but he thinks the things inside will do okay if they're sugarless I don't know if they're going to work as well as I joked in there Congressman but I am pleased as a new member of the Board of Directors of ACU to present to the President and Mrs. Reagan in commemoration of the 20th anniversary anniversary of the American Conservative Union a figurine filled with the President's favorite colored jelly beans why not the real White House is filled with jelly beans moving right along I'd like to ask that we all stand for the closing prayer by Monsignor McClellan Heavenly Father our national motto is in God we trust we trusted you and we're grateful for the President you gave us make us truly grateful for the blessings so great and so manifold that you've showered upon our wondrous land give us a ever greater appreciation for the greatness of our country a greatness that comes not from might and power and wealth but from goodness and generosity and respect for the dignity of individuals let us never stray from the ideals of the founding fathers so we may always be worthy of your continuing blessings bless our president and his administration bless the legislator and the judiciary and bless each one of us amen I thank you all for attending see you all next year good night and God bless you


Good morning, everyone. I'm Ibrahim Abhishek from the Water Channel. Welcome to the webinar. We are lucky to have with us today Dr. Sergio Salinas, who will be discussing with us how to turn water into wine. Sorry, I meant to say how to turn sea water into fresh water or desalination. But if you think about desalination, it is a potentially miraculous process, at least to a layman. It appears like that to a layman like me. It seems that if we are able to perfect the process of desalination, at least theoretically it will solve all the water scarcity problem of the world. And it appears to the layman that if we can tap into, if we can do this, we can tap into the vast oceans to satisfy our freshwater needs. So the question that comes to mind is what keeps us from doing that? Is it the technology? Is it the cost? Or is it something else? These are some questions that I have personally and I'm sure a lot of us have. And we hope that some of these questions will be answered at this webinar today. And Sergio is the right person to be leading the discussion today because he's a widely recognized expert in this topic. He has a PhD in desalination and water treatment from Technical University Delft. And he has a master's in water supply engineering from UNESCO IHE. He has worked as an expert consultant and as a teacher or lecturer in desalination in several countries in Latin America, Europe and the MENA region. Before I hand over the proceedings to Sergio, I would just like to request you to please put your questions and comments into this tab box here, which you have already located. I see from the introductions that have been coming in and we will keep collecting them throughout the webinar and we will discuss each one during the Q&A session, which will be after the presentation. So please keep them coming, your questions and comments, and please keep this webinar interactive. With that, Sergio, I would like to hand over the stage to you. Please go ahead. Thank you very much, Abraham.  So this is an introduction to desalination and membrane technology. My name is Sergio Salinas. I work at IHE since 2011 in the field of desalination and membrane technology and I'm part of the group of water supply engineering. I hope that by the end of this webinar you will be interested in the field and perhaps we can get in contact to collaborate together. Let's start with a question if there is a need for desalination. As we know, or we may know, there is plenty of fresh water on the earth. However, for making use of this fresh water on the earth, there are some limitations, starting with the rainfall is not evenly divided. The top right figure, it's a world map in which we are observing the regions and when there is a lot of rainwater or not. Another limitation is that population is not evenly divided. We have areas that are densely populated in brown in the middle figure, or areas which are scarcely populated. More and more we are talking about mega cities as an urban problem. And another consideration is that the water use is not evenly divided. As we are observing in the figure on the bottom right, the use we have of water is very different from depending on the country we are from. Many countries we use water for agriculture, for industry, municipal use, etc. etc. I have to use the click, I forgot. So many countries are running out of water and many more will run out of water. Why is this happening? Because we are abstracting more than available renewable resources. And this has happened already for many years. In the future this is going to get worse because of population growth. Last year the World Population Prospects report estimated by 2050, the world population will increase to 9.7 billion. In addition, the economies are influencing the water use we have. The better we have our income, the more water use we may use of it. So as a result of this exaggerated attraction of renewable resources, we come across to what is the water stress all over the world. And we are looking at here, not from water stress, from the Water Resources Institute, highlighting the areas in the world where water stress is high in colors red or reddish. There are some areas already in the world in which there is arid plant or low water use. Those are the great areas. It is expected, well, yesterday I came across to a Twitter from the United Nations World Water Assessment Report, in which they mentioned that by 2050, 40% of the population is expected to live under severe water stress. Including almost the entire population of the Middle East and South Asia, plus significant parts of China and North Africa, which is a worry in fact. And this is going to happen because of population growth, urbanization, climate change. How can we solve these local water stresses? Well, we can start by saving water, by increasing the productivity in agriculture and industry, reducing leakages in public water supply, and by applying progressive tariffs in the distribution of water. We can also transport water, large distances, and I think there are many countries with examples of this, of several hundreds of kilometers of transport from one basin to a region where there is not so much water. Another alternative is storing, for instance, the overflow in rainy season in aquifers. So this is possible, but not everywhere. It's feasible. It depends very much on the geology and the soil aquifers. And then, of course, we have water reuse. And we should increase water reuse for industry or domestic waste water in agriculture, for instance. And finally, we have desalination as an alternative to alleviate these local water stresses. And desalination not only of seawater but also of brackish water, which is present in the groundwater, and also of wastewater. So to the question, can desalination alleviate water scarcity in developing countries, we believe that seawater is considered to be a drought-proof water source. As it does not depend on river flows, rainwater, rainfall, reservoir levels, or even climate change. So it's a kind of infinite resource. And we believe that desalination may be an option to alleviate scarcity, perhaps with priority in industry, and of course in coastal cities. Let's talk about now what are the desalination technologies or the main desalination technologies that are applied in the world. There are basically three main groups, starting with distillation processes, then we have membrane processes, and then ion exchange. In the case of desalination processes, we can have two types of thermal technologies, starting with multi-stage flash evaporation and multi-effect evaporation. These thermal processes require a form of energy in the form of a steam and also electrical energy. When we talk about membrane processes, we can differentiate reverse osmosis membranes, none of insulation membranes, electrolysis, or electrodeionization, which demand a form of energy in terms of electricity. And we have ion exchange, which is mainly used for polishing water, for instance, for municipal and industrial use. And we have resins that are in charge of cationic and anionic removal of ions. The form of energy in this case, we have chemicals for regeneration. What are the applications of these technologies? If we are thinking about sea water, we have basically two options, either distillation, a thermal process, or we have a membrane-based process, which is reverse osmosis. If we have brackish water or even fresh water, we can apply mainly reverse osmosis and electrolysis. If we are interested, for instance, in polishing, in further removal and further decreasing the concentration of ions in the water, we can use ion exchange. And if we have, for instance, surface water or groundwater, that this heart would have with a high concentration of carbonate, for instance, and with high concentration of organic matter, non-concentration could be perhaps the most appropriate solution. The normal operation range of these desalination technologies is observed in this figure. In the horizontal axis, we have the total dissolved solids from 100 mg per liter up to 100,000 mg per liter. And we can start here from the bottom right to the top, in which we see that distillation can be applied for waters starting from 25,000 mg per liter up to 100,000. Ion exchange, as we mentioned, can be used for polishing further removal of ions in the water, concentrations less than 500 mg per liter, electrolysis between 400 and 3,000 mg per liter, so fresh water and slightly brackish water. In the case of brackish water, we can use reverse osmosis membranes that are specific for sea water or specific for brackish water. The salinity of sea water is not constant all over the world. Actually, it has a wide range. The average salinity in the world is about 35,000 mg of salt per liter. Nevertheless, we can observe regions, especially in the Middle East, where the salinity of the sea water can increase up to 45,000 mg per liter. In the figure on the left, we can see the map of ocean salinity, and we can see here that the salinity of sea water depends on the location. It depends on the water bodies that are discharging in the sea, the amount of fresh water rainfall, etc. One of the oldest technologies for desalination of sea water is distillation. Perhaps the oldest technology available for sea water desalination is mainly used by the sailors when they have to travel many miles deep into the sea. In this process, the dissolved salts remain behind a fresh water, and vapor as energy is boiled away. Then we have a condensation with heat loss via air or water cooling to produce pure water. In this case, we have three products. We have the feed water, we have the distilled water, and of course, we have a highly concentrated also solution, which is the brine that can be discharged perhaps back into the sea. Nowadays, we have no sufficient processes, learning from the experiences in the past, and this is called a multi-effect distillation process, in which we have, for instance, starting from the left to the right, we will have a sea water feed that is introduced into the first effect. Into the first effect, we have a steam that is coming from a boiler that is going to be in charge of increasing the temperature of the sea water that is being fed to this first effect. The steam water is going to be produced, is going to be evaporated, and this vapor is going to be passed into a second mix effect, the second effect. And we can see here also that the brine of the first effect, which is with high temperature, is going to pass to the second effect, and we are making use of the temperature of the sea water in the first effect. We are going to make use of the vapor that was produced in the first effect to generate a second batch of vapor in the second effect, and so on. So, we will also have here a condensation happening in each effect. In the case of the first effect, the condensate is returned to the boiler side. The second effect, the condensation will be produced as freshwater product into this manifold, which is going to collect the condense freshwater of all the effects that could be present in this multi-effect distillation unit. In practice, we could have up to seven, eight effects to make use of this residual heat of previous effects. Another technology that is available for desalination, and perhaps is the dominant in the market, is reverse osmosis. In this process, we make use of membranes that have various mold pores that could have basically two configurations. As flat sheets or as capillaries. In reverse osmosis, the water is forced to flow through the pores of the membranes with the help of high pressure. So, we need a lot of energy, and we will discuss about this later. And we apply this high pressure to overcome the salinity of the water, so this is overcoming the osmotic pressure of the water, and also to overcome the hydraulic resistance of the membrane itself. And eventually, the pressure required to overcome the fouling development on the membranes. In these reverse osmosis membranes, salts cannot pass the small pores. So, they are rejected. In practice, we are talking about 99.7, 99.8 rejection of salts present in the water. In this table, we can see a comparative removal by different technologies, depending if you are talking about inorganic compounds, organic microorganisms or suspended and colloidal matter. So, for instance, reverse osmosis is a technology that is able to remove monovalent ions, divalent ions, organic compounds, microorganisms, suspended colloidal matter. Nonofiltration is also very effective for divalent ions, organic compounds, microorganisms, suspended matter, but not so much for monovalent ions. So, it's very specific, for instance, for removal of hardness in water, removal of color. Ultra-filtration, microfiltration, they are membrane processes, demand low pressure, and they are specific for removal of microorganisms and suspended and colloidal matter. And electrolysis, very specific, very efficient in the removal of ions present in the water. Nowadays, more and more, besides quantity for the production of water, we are talking about removal of specific micro pollutants. And in this case, reverse osmosis has proven to be a very robust technology, not only for producing water in quantity, but also in very high-quality product water. Briefly, and grossly, we can talk about the components in a seawater desalination plant. And we will have, from left to right, the ocean, the seawater source. We will have an intake that is going to be the first step to bring the water to the pretreatment. There is a lot of discussion about what is the best type of pretreatment for different conditions and different locations in the world. We can talk about media filtration versus membrane technology. And more and more, in case of alderblum events, the introduction of dissolved air flotation as a strategy to cope with difficult waters. After pretreatment, which is in charge of guaranteeing a certain quality, specific for the reverse osmosis membranes, we will have a high pressure pump operating at pressures from 50 up to 90 bars in charge of forcing the water to pass through the reverse osmosis membranes. In the reverse osmosis, we will have on the left side the feed water. On the right side, the fresh water. And here at the bottom, the concentrated stream for the brain discharge. We will talk about this later when we talk about environmental concerns. The fresh water quality after reverse osmosis membrane is aggressive in nature. So we need to remineralize. We need to bring back minerals. So let's remember these reverse osmosis membranes have decreased the salinity content by up to 99.7%. So the fresh water, the product water needs to be post-treated. And here we are going to correct the pH and we are going to bring back minerals like calcium, like magnesium to improve the hardness, the buffer capacity of the water, before it can be transferred into the distribution or later consumption in our houses. An example here of one of the famous plants in the United Arab Emirates, Fujairi too, is a combined power plant with a total production of energy of about 2,000 megawatts. And it makes use of two of both technologies. A multi-effect distillation with a capacity of 460,000 cubic meters per day. And the reverse osmosis capacity of about 136,000 cubic meters per day. In this plant, we have a steam that is going to be produced in the power plant and is going to be used by the multi-effect distillation. And we can see in the photo here that the large area actually is mostly used for the multi-effect distillation in comparison in the bottom left with the reverse osmosis membranes that are much more compact in the land use that they required. Another example is a plant located in Ashkelon in Israel. It was a commission in 2005 and at the time was the largest seawater reverse osmosis plant in the world. With a capacity of 330,000 cubic meters per day, it has been expanded to about 400,000 cubic meters per day. And the type of contract or this plant was a built-on operate transfer type, which is still applied. The footprint of this plant is about 70,000 square meters of an area of about 350 meters times 200 meters. The third part of my presentation is about the desalination trend worldwide. And actually there is a database accompanying in the UK called Global Water Intelligent and they compile every year a report about the desalination industry. In 2020, they reported about 25,000 desalination plants all over the world in over 180 countries with capacity over 100 million cubic meters per day. If we talk about drinking water production with reverse osmosis, we are talking about 24 million cubic meters per day produced from seawater, from brackish water about 9 million cubic meters per day, and about 3 million cubic meters per day produced from freshwater. This is an equivalent to serving over 330 million persons in the world but rendering water supplied by desalination plants at a rate of 120 liters per person per day, which perhaps is not significant but is growing more and more per year. This world map is illustrating the world desalination capacity for the three main sources that are seawater in blue color, brackish water in brown color, and wastewater with water reuse in green color. And we can see here that the region that mostly demands desalination is in the Middle East with a capacity of about 47 million cubic meters per day. Then we have North America with United States basically desalinating brackish water with a capacity of 10 million cubic meters per day. And we have other regions like Latin America with a capacity of about 4.2 million cubic meters per day. The Caribbean 1.5 cubic meters per day mainly seawater. In Europe we may use about 65% from seawater desalination. North Africa Middle East the regions that mostly demand the application and use of desalination. Sub-Saharan Africa about 2 million cubic meters per day also mainly seawater desalination. And in Asia we have more a combination of the three water sources. Seawater is present but they are also making use of wastewater for wastewater reuse. And a very good example of that is Singapore with a total capacity of about 2.1 million cubic meters per day of desalination of which 55% is seawater desalination, 43% is wastewater desalination. In the case of Australia about 3 million cubic meters per day, 60% desalination of seawater, 22% wastewater use, 15% brackish water. Japan is one of the countries that is also rapidly growing in their economy and in their use of desalination. And in this case they mainly use desalination for industry not so much for municipal or agriculture. And Japan, Korea, Taiwan, these islands or these countries make use also of desalination will equal with equal parts of seawater, brackish water and wastewater reuse. The highest capacity desalination countries in the world are presented in the table on the right. Saudi Arabia is the number one country about 19 million cubic meters per day followed by the United States, the Arab Emirates, China, Spain, Kuwait, India, etc. Other countries that are relevant or that are not in the Middle East are for instance, Mexico is growing. In their next five years they are planning to implement five desalination plants in the northern area of the country. Indonesia is also depending, Japan, Brazil, Chile is also investing a lot on desalination for industry, for the copper industry. And in the figure on the left we can see here the uses that these countries are making use. In light blue color we have for drinking water, light blue or dark blue color for industry and we can see in green color some countries, not all of them make use of desalination for irrigation like for instance Spain, Kuwait, Morocco, etc. So the main application is either production of drinking water or the use of desalination for industry. The total desalination capacity is over 100,000 cubic meters per day and soon as this year projected they expect that by 2030 the capacity all over the world is going to reach about 200 million cubic meters per day at an estimated growth rate of 6% per year for mainly use in the municipal and industry. Two-thirds of the capacity is depending on membrane-based desalination and one-third is depending on thermal processes like multi-stage flash desalation or multi-effect desalation. Reverse osmosis is dominating the market because the investment costs and energy costs are lower than for desalination. 70% of the desalination is happening in the Middle East and North Africa and in the other regions of the world they are growing more and more because of water stress, drought, climate change as catalyzers of alternative sources for alleviating scarcity. 60% of the desalination depends on seawater, 8% depends on wastewater, 20% of the world depends on brackish water but also freshwater and pure water can be further treated with desalination for instance for industry applications. The trend in desalination plants over time is that they are growing in size. In this figure we can see here the reverse osmosis plant capacity versus the time history and we can see here that the capacity is increasing over time. This is becoming relevant and critical because for these desalination processes, pretreatment plays a very important role and pretreatment is going to influence how frequent the reverse osmosis membranes for instance need to be cleaned. This is critical when you have thousands of elements that need to be put on hold for stopping the production because of cleaning with high risk of damaging them in the process. Okay, let's start and talk about the energy consumption in these desalination processes. In this table we can see different technologies that are applied in the production of drinking water. In the second column we can talk about the pressure that they apply in the process. The third column, the energy demand per produce cubic meter in kilowatts hour and in the case of thermal processes, the heat that they demand in the process. In the case of conventional drinking water, they demand very low energy consumption, 0.1 to 0.2. If we talk about membrane filtration with ultra-micro filtration, the pressure range between 0.5 to 2 bars with a comparable energy consumption. Normal filtration with smaller pores do demand a higher pressure to push the water through the membranes with a slightly higher energy demand, 0.3 to 0.5 kilowatts hour per cubic meter. And then we have brackage water reverse osmosis in which the pressure can be actually from 5 up to 20 bars with an energy consumption in the range 0.5 to 1 kilowatt hour per cubic meter. And in the case of seed water desalination with reverse osmosis, the pressure range that is applied is between 50 to 90 bars with an average energy consumption nowadays between 3 to 4 kilowatts hour per cubic meter. In the case of distillation, we need both electrical energy and heat. In distillation, the consumption of energy will range between 1 to 4 kilowatts hour per cubic meter, but we also need heat. Because of energy, it depends on where you are. It depends, yeah, perhaps incentives that you have for industry. Typically in the range 0.05 to 0.1 dollars per kilowatt hour. And in the case of heat, 5 to 15 dollars per giga joule. About cost, we have here in the first column technologies versus the cost in euros per cubic meter. So in the case of seed water reverse osmosis desalination, the production cost is between 0.5 to 1 dollar, 1 euro per cubic meter. Brackage water, the costs are lower, 0.25 up to 0.5. Electrodialysis comparable to brackage water, nanofiltration slightly lower, and ultrafiltration, microfiltration 0.05, 0.1 dollars per cubic meter. But ultramicofiltration do not remove salts, they will only remove microorganisms suspended colloidal matter in comparison with seed water reverse osmosis. Energy is a major cost component in seed water reversal osmosis. Now, let's put in context the cost of producing one cubic meter of drinking water from the sea. For instance, when we go to our kiosk and we buy a bottle of water or a bottle of Coca-Cola, we can pay in the Netherlands from 1 euro up to perhaps 3 euros, which is just 1 liter or even half a liter. Nowadays, of course, large-scale desalination plants have lower costs, but still the production of 1,000 liters of drinking water from the sea is less than 1 dollar, less than 1 euro. But still there is potential to optimize the energy consumption in this desalination process and in this way also reducing the cost of production. This is a representation of the consumption of energy in a seed water reversal osmosis process. And for instance, if the production cost is 1 dollar, about 40 cents of the production come from the amortization, so the payment to the bank of the loan or the construction of the plant. Another 40 cents will be spent in the energy consumption, and about 20 remaining cents will be used for the staff working in the plant, the consumption of chemicals, replacing the membranes in the plant, the cleaning of the reverse osmosis membranes and maintenance. So energy plays a major role in the cost of desalination processes. Here we can see an example of a seawater reverse osmosis plant located in Perth. It's called the southern seawater desalination plant with an average consumption of 3.6 kilowatts hour per cubic meter. This plant receives the supply of energy from a wind farm and also from a solar farm. About 55 megawatts are produced with a wind farm and about 10 megawatts are produced by a solar farm close by in the region. This is a photo of the solar plant located in the region of Perth. It's called the Moon Vida Wind Farm, and they have 22 wind towers producing each about 2.5 megawatts generated by these windmills. And of course the windmills, the solar panels do not produce energy the 24 hours of the day, but they can be used to offset the energy consumption or the energy take from the grid by the reverse osmosis plant. The use of solar parks is growing more and more all over the world. One of the first ones was in Gujarat in India, and it's the Charanka Solar Park with making use of photovoltaic cells. In the table on the right we can see, well I just took it from Wikipedia, but in the last two years there has been a very large investment, development on the implementation of solar parks for energy production all over the world. Not all these examples in this table are going to supply desalination plants, but more and more I think the industry is focusing on the need and the use of renewable energies for desalination. A very perhaps simple example of the potential of solar photovoltaic energy for decentralized desalination processes. And we can see here a photo of a photovoltaic cell at the roof of a house in the Netherlands. There are many solar panels here. In this house as an example they generated 3700 kilowatts hour over a period of one year. This amount of energy is equivalent to the energy needed for desalting about 1000 cubic meters. This considering the total energy produced divided by the average consumption to desalinate sea water. The yearly consumption of drinking water from the tap in this house equals about 120 cubic meters. So of course there is an investment cost, but the application of renewable energies can be applied at different scales from large desalination plants to also decentralized systems. Now briefly some of the environmental concerns that are related to desalination. So desalination, I quote a definition from a paper from 2008 that says, desalination is a water treatment method that is often chemically, energetically and operationally intensive, focus on large systems and thus requires considerable infusion of capital and generating expertise and infrastructure. So what are the main environmental concerns in desalination? There are many actually, starting with the concentrated discharge, marine pollution, the influence of sea water intake in marine life, the use of chemicals in the treatment of drinking water, the disposal of materials in desalination plants, land use, the impact on climate change to the energy use and the greenhouse gases emissions. So there are many concerns, but there are also many sustainable solutions that are technically feasible. If we talk about the greenhouses, we can minimize and compensate the energy use. If we talk about the concentrate disposals, we can minimize the impact through this person, concentrate through multiple diffusers in a suitable marine site. We can treat all the backwashing and cleaning waste to reduce the marine production. We can use a surface of submerged intakes with low intake velocities. We can implement low, we can minimize the consumption of chemicals, or we can just avoid the use of chemicals in the treatment of sea water. We can improve the recyclability and reuse of the materials. And we can also minimize the land use and landscape to a specific site location and perhaps by making use of technologies that are also compact in their engineering. Finally, I'd like to present to you what IHE DELF is working on and is busy in the field of desalination. We do research in desalination and membrane technology, mainly in reverse osmosis systems, and we are focusing on the problem-focused solution-oriented demand-driven research questions with the interest to translate practical problems into research projects. And we work with water quality methods and tools to quantify the folding potential of water to optimize pre-treatment efficiency. We work with the modeling of folding and scaling. We are interested in the removal of micropollutants, personal care products, medicines that are present in water, assessment of pre-treatment, and also dealing with post-treatment for the reverse osmosis permeates, working also on the development of licycle assessment, environmental impact assessment, or concentrate disposal, etc. Our Institute IHE DELF has three main pillars, working on desalination on education, institutional strengthening, and also research and innovation. And we are also busy in these three pillars in the group of desalination. We have our PhD program that is specialized in the field of desalination and membrane technology. Our Master of Science on Water Supply Engineering has a specific module on desalination, and we are also contributing to the Graduate Professional Diploma Program on Water Supply Engineering and Ways Water Treatment Technology. This year we will start our online course on desalination and membrane technology. This presentation perhaps is an introduction to what is coming ahead, the basic principles, application, design of this type of systems. We offer tailor-made training. So wherever you are, if you're working in the water sector, and you're interested in having a training for your colleagues, for your company, we are available, so please contact us. All our research is also open access, and so everybody can benefit from that. We are interested in strategic partnerships with governments, with universities, research centers, water utilities. So the aim is that our research should have an impact, should be problem-driven. And with the aiming at reducing the impact on environment, promoting circularity, et cetera. So concluding, desalination by itself cannot deliver the promise of improved water supply unless underlying weaknesses are addressed, like the reduction of non-revenue water, appropriate cold recovery, environmental impact assessment before implemented these kind of processes, the need for expertise on these technologies for a sustainable implementation of them. And it's very important to have an integrated water resources management involving all the water cycle. With that, I would like to thank you all for your attention, and I'll be happy to contribute with some answers to the many questions you may have. And if not possible during this webinar, please reach out to me through this email, and please visit our website, www.um-ihe.org, for information of all our educational capacity-building offer in all the water cycle. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Jio, for your great presentation. We have to take a lot of questions, so let's start. First of all, WikiF asks if microplastics are a concern in reverse osmosis of seawater. I think microplastics are a concern more and more in all water bodies. Not so much a concern in the production of drinking water, because results, at least in the Netherlands, have demonstrated that water treatment is able to remove microplastics. But you all are aware, I think, of the plastic pollution in the oceans, which is a big deal of a problem. In this regard, let's say, we should be concerned with pollution of our water sources, like seawater. But I think in the drinking water production process, we will be able to deal with the removal of these microplastics if they are present in the seawater. But I think it's an issue for all of us. The next question is from Dr. Sudeep Pal, who asks, how frequently reverse osmosis needs replacement? RO is the only option, or do you believe there are alternatives? That's an interesting question. Thank you very much. In practice, it is said that the replacement rate of reverse osmosis membranes is about 20% per year. So let's say in about five years, you will replace all your membranes in the plant. Nevertheless, this is just an indication. There are plants that have a lifetime of their membranes up to eight years, even cases of 10 years. What influences? It will depend very much on the type of intake. It will depend very much on the type of treatment you have in your system. And in this way, you will influence the frequency of cleaning of your membranes, which will relate to the lifetime of them. As we have seen at the moment, the two main technologies for this alienation are reverse osmosis and also thermal processes like multi-effect distillation or multi-stage flash distillation. More and more, as you might recall, the figure with the growth over time, reverse osmosis is dominating the market because of the investment costs and the lower energy consumption. There is more potential of making use of renewable energy sources that will further decrease the cost in the process. And reverse osmosis has also the advantage that has a high productivity in comparison with other membrane processes that have niche application areas like forward osmosis, microbial desalination cells, and other configurations of reverse osmosis like pressure retardant osmosis and reverse osmosis. So there is a lot of research going on, but in practice, we have these two main technologies. The next question is from Jean Lindsey, who asks if continuous drinking of freshwater produced from desalination represents a health threat in the long run. Let's talk about two things. First one, we don't drink directly the water that is produced by reverse osmosis. There is the need for post-treatment. And in this post-treatment, we correct for the aggressivity of the water, so we bring back some hardness, and we also bring back some minerals that are essential, like calcium and magnesium. And as a last stage before distribution, we will also disinfect the water, so it's free of any microorganism that could be a pathogenic nature. So in the long term, I don't think it's going to be a threat. There are many reports on this. The water quality will satisfy WHO considerations before it's used for drinking purposes. Next, I would like to put up two questions together. I just read them quickly, and I reckon they were kind of related. Let's see. First question is, would there be a table comparing capital costs, O&M costs per cubic meter treated of existing treatment plants? How does this affect water tariffs? And the second question is, any comparison of production costs between usual water treatment plants and desalination plants? So I guess the two questions are related. How does a cost compare to existing sort of regular treatment plants? And what kind of effects does it have on water tariffs? I think the first question was answered in two of the slides that I presented. So desalination is, of course, demanding a higher energy consumption in comparison with fresh water or conventional drinking water production. The average consumption is 3 to 4 kilowatts per cubic meter, while in conventional drinking water, it will be 1.2 kilowatts per cubic meter. And the second part of the question was, could you repeat the other hand, please? How does this affect water tariffs? Oh, yes. In order to achieve the lower costs that are reported in desalination plants, less than 1 euro per cubic meter, I think the record is about 50 cents dollars per cubic meter. It depends very much on the cost engineering that you have in your plant. Because the cost of energy may not be the same in nighttime that, for instance, in daytime. So depending where you are, for instance, you will want to produce most of the water during the nighttime than during the daytime. So the energy policies depend per country, depend per supply, et cetera. This will also influence the final cost. We have been getting a lot of questions on costs, and that seems to be a central concern, a central point of curiosity for a lot of the audience members, including the next question, which is from Bijimal Jose, who asks, what is the cost-effect ratio of desalination, the saline water, I suppose, is being used for irrigation? I don't think that there is most of the cost in a desalination process comes from the energy component, as you may recall. So 40% comes from the payment de-amortization cost, 40% comes from the energy cost. And the rest is staff, consumption of chemical, replacements, et cetera. So this energy consumption is not going to change if you are producing water for municipal use or if you are going to use it for agriculture. Perhaps the difference is going to be you don't need to disinfect the water for irrigation, and perhaps the requirements for post-treatment are not going to be the same as for municipal use. I don't think the cost difference is going to be significant. The next question is from Fozul Rizka, who asks, what is the best desalination technology for a small community, let's say 100 people in coastal areas, is reverse osmosis the one? There are many examples. There are many companies from many countries that deliver solutions to these kind of problems. There are decentralized reverse osmosis systems that are making use of solar energy and also wind mills, wind energy to produce the energy for the reverse osmosis desalination. The challenge in these situations is the storage of the energy for application or for continuous production of desalination, but also the frequent start and stop of these kind of systems. That's a challenge. In the Netherlands there is a company called Elemental Water Makers. It's also based in Dalt and they produce these kind of solutions. I've seen in their website, in many presentations, that they have examples for islands and in the Caribbean or in the Pacific Ocean, et cetera. So there are examples. Sorry. I thought the next three questions were kind of similar, so I grouped them together and they concerned sourcing the energy that is needed for desalination from alternative sources. So the first question is, do you see the energy from waves a possibility? The second question is, can we use thermal power plant steam to use in distillation technology to vaporize? And the third is, if brine can be utilized in the production of energy to offset the energy requirements for reverse osmosis? I think the answer to the last question says yes. More or more, we are trying to be creative with making use of the renewable energy sources that we have at hand. It much depends on the efficiency of the processes for them to be attractive. And it depends on the scale of the project. But yes, we can generate energy from the wave movement. I think there are some examples, but I don't know if there are desalination plants that are making use of this kind of energy source. In the Netherlands, there is an example of mixing two streams with different salinity content to also generate electricity. And the second question is, I think that is the basis of why desalination plants are located next to power plants. Basically, to take advantage of the steam or the heat that these power plants are producing. And the third one, can the brine be utilized? For instance, there is a process called formal osmosis. The opposite to reverse osmosis. In this case, we use the driving force, a high concentrated stream to desalinate the water. And brine could be used, but I think there are other, what they call draw solutions that could be more efficient than brine. The next question is from Rafa, who asks what do you think about eutectic freeze crystallization methods? That's a very difficult question to Rafa. Rafa is our student at IHE. And for desalination, it cannot compete in scale. For instance, with reverse osmosis or thermal processes. But it's an option, mainly used for industry. Also a company based in the Netherlands in Delft, I start up of the two Delfts, has this product as commercial product. I think it's an interesting solution. I don't know much about it, more than I already mentioned, but I would say it cannot compete with reverse osmosis or thermal processes. The next question is from Savagroup Lebanon, who asks what kind of contaminates are not allowed during the desalination processes mentioned? That is while using heat and while using RO technologies. In the case of thermal processes, scaling is one of the main limitations. So there is a lot of consumption of anti-ascaling to prevent the scaling of sparing lean soluble compounds like calcium carbonate in the process. That will decrease the efficiency in the process. So we need to control the scaling potential of the water. In the case of reverse osmosis desalination, we want to remove of course the salt to make it potable. Patsy water also contains microorganisms, it contains algae, it contains clay particles, it contains exopolymer particles, substances, etc. That will influence the lifetime, the performance of the reverse osmosis system. So for this, pre-treatment is very relevant. And it's very relevant not only because of the quality we need to produce in front of the reverse osmosis, but also the quantity that needs to treat. Reverse osmosis systems operate at about 40 to 50 percent what we call recovery or conversion. So this means that 100 percent feed water is going to produce only 50 percent product water and 50 percent will be about the brine or concentrated stream. But the pre-treatment needs to treat the 100 percent that the reverse osmosis is going to treat. So it's a high volume of water that needs to be treated. The next question is from Victoria who asks what happens to the brine produced during the desalination, knowing that depending on the source of water the brine might be polluting. I think you addressed that in some of your slides but would you like to add something to what you've already discussed? Sure, this is a very perhaps important concern when we think about desalination and perhaps two points related to that. One is the visual pollution, mainly because the brines will have a higher concentration than the water that we are discharging back. But let's analyze, we are taking seawater from the sea and then we are bringing back the same feed water with more self-concentration back into the sea. In the process of desalination the only thing that is changing is perhaps the addition of some chemicals like for coagulation process. We are talking about only cells like iron chloride, aluminum sulfate or some additives that are polyalkalite to improve the coagulation process. But these are compounds that are not foreigners to water itself. And we can minimize the environmental pollution by having diffusers that are strategically located with rapid diffusion etc. There are sustainable alternatives to control this. Thank you. And the next question which will have to be our last question which is we have gone over time is from Vishradu Mohapatra who asks whether any study has been conducted to assess the impact of reject brine disposal from desalination plants which is mostly directly disposed into surface impoundments. It's impact on groundwater quality. If there have been any studies on the impact of disposed brine on groundwater quality? I'm sure that there are studies. I think that there is scientific literature that is dealing with these specific issues. It doesn't come to my mind in this precise moment. Sorry for that. No problems. Thank you Sergio. Thanks a lot for sharing your work with us and for sharing your insights on this very important topic and a very popular topic it seems. For me personally a very valuable take away was that there is an access to desalination countries. Desalination technology varies a lot from country to country. We should not look at it as a silver bullet as we say towards in the fight to reduce water scarcity globally. For me that was a very important take away. With this we would like to close the webinar. Thank you again Sergio for your great presentation and thanks to the audience for turning up and for your great questions and comments. As I have mentioned before a recording of the webinar will be available shortly. Later today in a few hours time on www.thewaterchannel.tv slash webinars that is the page that you will be redirected to when we close the webinar. A small announcement I would like to pre-announce the next webinar that will be on September 8th. At the webinar Mr. Benson Karimba from Kenya will discuss the possibilities of small holder irrigation using sand river aquifers and semi-arid lands. So I guess we will be discussing technologies like sand dams and such. We will be posting details of that very soon on the water channel. So thanks again and see you the next time. Thank you.


Hey all, Dustin here. I wanted to give you a little update on July. What we're working on is we have a couple of little programs or projects we're launching. One of them is our new challenge. And this is gonna be exciting. The last transformation has been unbelievable what people are seeing, the improvements in gains, more stamina on the walks, more strength. Of course, fat loss, right? If you focus on your gains, you burn more body fat. And it's really simple. It's our core four challenge. So basically we focus on four days a week. The other three days we give some guidance. We have a lot more flexibility. We drink ketones every day. We give you nutritional advice about food. We actually have options for food being shipped to you if you'd like. We also do movement, different workouts and different guides around fitness so that you can hit the levels that you wanna hit up. And then what's most important is the accountability and being part of a team and a part of a group. So I wanna invite you to come join us with that. Just send me a message, respond back. Let me help show you what we're gonna do. And I promise you, you're gonna love it. So the next thing is that we also have a new project where we're taking people that are looking for maybe they want more in their lives. They're looking for more mentorship guidance, maybe increase their financial income or maybe a side gig or a plan B, a way to make some extra income while helping other people and while getting help themselves or getting healthier themselves. And so this is really fun. This is gonna be a little bit more coaching. We're gonna give some mindset coaching. We're gonna do some business coaching. We're gonna focus on how do you, when you focus on the community and the people you spend time with, you can create more success in your life. And so we're gonna give people the opportunity to join whatever path they want. But the most important thing is, is you lead by example, becoming the best version of yourself. You lead by getting healthy yourself. You lead by becoming and stepping into your own greatness. And when you do that, you not only start to see people's lives around you change, but you also can get rewarded for that. Reward can come in a lot of ways. It can be by helping other people. It can be by financially making some extra money. I tell you, I wouldn't be working from home anymore if it wasn't for this opportunity that I took advantage of many years ago. So I wanna give that same opportunity to you and invite you in to come join us in this journey. So let me know, just message me back. I can give you guidance. We can jump on a call and talk about the challenge. We can get on the call and talk about the opportunity. Wherever you're at, we wanna meet you where you're at and get you to fit in where we're at. So looking forward to seeing you or talking to you soon. Don't hesitate, reach out, ask questions. That's what I'm here for, is to help you get the best experience. And I don't know if you don't ask. So if you ask, I will help you out. Cheers y'all.


Second, know when it's better to use of the shelf, so AI solutions, build, customize it, the AI solution in-house or hire a company or even wait for a big tech to launch it. So I surfaced the first AI machine learning wave, which was the AI for images. And I fell a lot in the trap of developing things in-house. And then six months later, a big tech delivers the same feature. And then two more months, their solution is better than ours and we had to migrate for theirs. A good rule of thumb in this matter is the functionality is something that's general, that can be applicable for a lot of companies, regardless of their domain. Probably a big tech will launch the solution or if you build the solution, they will buy your company. That's a good strategy as well.


وما أرسلنا من قبلك إلا رجالا نحي إليهم فسألوا أهل الذكر إن كنتم لا تعلمون وما قاله أنا سأتكلم عن أمام أبو محمد بن حزم وهي بوك رسالة مراتي بالعلوم يقول أن أعاقم العلم ومعرفة عندما يتكلم عنهم ومعرفة عندما يتكلم عن المعرفة يقول أن يستكثاره من الكتب لتكلم أمامك فلا يخلو كتابه وزيادة علم يجدها فيه إذا احتاج إليه وانه يحتاج إليه فلا سبيلا إلا حفظ المرأة الجميع المي الذي يختص به لأنه ليس يمكن أن تستطيع أن تتكلم كل شيء في أسبب الدين All of it This helps you to know And the book is the best storage in which when your person wants to store something if you want to memorize and remember things and bring things together a book is the best way to do it Without books knowledge would have been what? For seiken it would be lost من من ذما anyone who rebukes or scolds a person to increase the number of books I don't buy a lot of books, forget it, it's not good anyone who does that is wrong he's saying ولو أخذ برأيه if his view was taken that person لا تلافة العلوم the knowledge would all be lost ولا جاذبهم الجهال فيها an ignorance would be striving inside knowledge and playing around with the dean ودعوا ما شاءون they would claim whatever they wanted فلو لا شهادة الكتب if it wasn't for the witnessing of these books لاستوت دعو العالم والجهين the claiming of a scholar and an ignorance would be the same the distinguishing thing is the books distinguish between who is not a scholar and who is not a scholar as the شاعر said وقائلة وفقت في الكتب ما حاوت يمينو كمن مانين فقلتوا دعيني so without no doubt that is until the poet carried on saying لعلي أرى فيها كتابا يدلني لا أخذ كتابا آمينا بيمين نعم he said وقائلة وفقت في الكتب ما حاوت يمينو كمن مانين فقلتوا دعيني لا لأرى فيها كتابا يدلني لا أخذ كتابا آمينا بيميني and now I'm going to mention some stories of the أئمة العلم the scholars how they were towards reading and the love and the passion they had for it شيخ الاسلام ابن عبدالهادي who was the student of شيخ الاسلام ابن عبدالهادي ابن عبدالهادي يمانجز في الكتاب مختصر الطبقات وعلماء الحريث and also in his كتابا العقود الدرية he said when he was talking about the characteristics of شيخ الاسلام ابن عبدالهادي he said لا تكادوا نفسه his soul was unable to تشبع من العلم to get filled up with knowledge ابن تيمين never got sufficed and thought to himself I'm full with knowledge now الحمد لله he was always hungry for more ولا تروى من المطالعة and his thirst was never quenched of reading ولا تملوا من الاشتغال and he never turned away from beasing himself in it ولا تكلوا بن البحث and he never surrendered for researching وقل it was little ويتخل في علم it was little ابن تيمين to enter into our knowledge from the knowledge that existed فيبابن from his chapters from his chapters إلا except ويستحلوا من ذلك الباب أبواب except that when he enters from that door many other doors would be open for him chapters after chapters sections after sections فصول came out for him ويستدرك and he would actually he would gather from that subject في ذلك العلم in that knowledge علا حذك علي that some of the scholars who would say are specialists in that field will not be able to get from it إبن تيمي الله will give it to him سبحانه وتعالى that's another way to show you that he's مطالع his reading was a lot ولي ذلك الشيخ سام تيمي when he came to an island the Quran is when he talked about باب الاسماء he was speaking about it he mentioned that he went through over more he stood over 70 books of تفسير or the علم and the تفسير on this island he didn't find anyone to translate it that way that's مطالع he was sitting down and researching and reading نعم also الشيخ محمد خليل الحراص he mentioned something like that about ابن تيمي إذا كان لي ابن تيمي تبصروا النافذ ونفسهم طلعه شاوسان ديبي he had a very high very insight a very strong insight ونفسهم he had a soul طلعة الله تكان تشبع من العب that never got filled and full up from reading and researching you see ولا تكلوا من البحث ولا تروح من طلعه مع التوفر على ذلك وقطعوا النفسي وصرف الهمة نحوه that he would cut off everything else and just put his aspiration and his want only for just reading حتى إنه لم ينقطع عن البحث that he did not stop reading and researching طيلة حياتي all his life when he was in Sham when he was in Egypt when he was in prison أو في البيت even when he was in his house وكن إنه كان يتوجع ألمن rather he used to become ill وحصل and regret حينما أخرج الكتب when they took his books and they took the papers from him من إني from him في خريات أيام in his last stages because he regretted a lot he hated the idea نعم ونذلك أليما ببنور قيم he mentioned in his كتاب روضة المحبين ونوسط المشتاقين in page 70 he says that book he talks about love and اشتقاء نعم he says امام ابنور قيم he says وحدثني شيخنا أو الشيخ told us he referred to him ابنور قيم قال ابتدأني مرض أبنور قيم that ابنور قيم ابنور قيم he said that illness came to him فقال لي الطبيب then the doctor said to me ابنور قيم he said إنه مطالعتك you're reading وكلامك and your lessons that you give and your speech في العلم it increases you in your illness فقلت له I then said to the doctor لا أصبروا على ذلك I can't be patient from knowledge I can't be patient or not reading I can't do that وانا حاكموا إلى علمك and I will be judged from my knowledge ليست النفس إذا فريحت وصرت unless I am not النفس إذا فريحت وصرت قوية طبيعة ابنور قيم I find joy and happiness in reading والله I find tranquility and then he said to the doctor he said doctor isn't it if the soul of the person finds happiness and joy and excitement and tranquility in something his nature becomes strong and then that illness should go right then the doctor looked at him and he said to him yes you're right then ابنور قيم he said to him my soul finds happiness joy and excitement when I seek knowledge فتقوى بالطبيعة فأجد راحة I find calmness relaxation when I read then the doctor said to him ابنور قيم that which you mention is خارج على علاجنا what you mention is beyond our capability it's beyond our cure we don't know this type of cure we've never seen this type of thing ابنور قيم ابنور قيم also mentions in the same book same place same page page 70 he says وأعرفوا I know من أصابه مرض a person that illness hit him من صداع هرك وحمة and he became fever وكان الكتاب عند رأسي and the book was next to his head فإذا وجد إفاقة when he finds that he comes back conscious again قرأ فيه he starts reading فإذا قولي با when he becomes unconscious وضعه he puts the book aside next to his head فدقى لعليه طبيب يوم a doctor entered him on him one day he said to him and his situation was like that he said to him إن هذا لا يحلو this is not right فإنك تعمل على نفسك وتكون سبلي fought him at the public you're harming yourself like this you're killing yourself you're leading your soul to its destruction and its harm so this is to show you how these people love knowledge ابنور عقيل ابنور عقيل ابنور رجب الحمبلي he mentioned in his كتاب ديلة طبقات الحنابلة إن ترجمه ابنور عقيل الحمبلي ابنور جوزي he says أنه قال كان دائمة تشاغول ابن العلم he was always busy with knowledge حتى إني رأيته ابنور جوزي he said until I saw him بخطه he's writing إني لا يحلو لي أن أضيع ساعة ابنور عمري that it is not right for me or lawful for me to forsaken one hour of my life or time of my life No حتى إذا تعطل الإساني عن مذكرة that even if my tongue becomes unable to remember and to debate and my eyes to research أعمل تفكلي he said I don't waste time I start using my brain if my tongue is unable to move and my eyesight is unable to to read what I do is instead of just sitting there not doing anything and wasting my time I benefit from my brain and I use that أعمل تفكلي في حالة راحتي at the time that I'm resting و أنا مستطرح فلأن حضو إلا و قد خطر لي ما أسترق he said I prepare my lessons in my brain what I'm going to talk about what I'm going to do I can't talk anymore I'm tired and my eyes are too weak to read so he said I just use my brain and I make my brain I use و إني لأجد من حرسي على العم he said I find my striving in knowledge and my want في عشر ثمانين الشد من ما كنت أجدو at the age of 80 that I am right now I find joy and efforts and ability that I never used to find when I was younger than that which is when I was 20 years old ابن رجبه in his kitab he narrated from his kitab الفنون ابن عقيل رو بقود الفنون أنه قال عن نفسي that he said that ابن عقيل said this about his own self he said أنا أقصر بغاية جهدي أو قات أكري he said I shorten my time of eating as much as I can as much as I can حتى أخطاروا صفع أكاك أو تحسيه بالمأ that he gets he never gets things that take time to chew and that he has to take efforts and stuff so he gets dry bread just breaks them crumbles them up and then he throws them into his mouth straight away and then he drinks the water after it he doesn't want anything that has to go through a process of chewing because it's waste of time for him على الخبز لأجي ما بينهما من تفاوت المضر why? because the difference between my actual biting and the time that goes with it I don't want that توفرا على مطالعتين because I want to spend that time in researching and reading أو تصطيروا فايدتين or I can seal a benefit somewhere لم أدركها فيه that I've never come across before إنّا لله وإنّا للرجن الله أكبر الله أكبر they realize the importance of learning and seeking knowledge and reading إذا لم أشتغل بالعلم المام المقريزي كلام which is very well and famous from him إمام مقريزي mentions إنكتابة المقفة when he spoke about ترجمة of ابن صدقة الحماوي who died a year 599 توفية سنة تسقي وتسقي وخمسة ميام he said that he was a person who was a lot إن اشتغال العلم he used to his efforts and he's striving and knowledge was a lot دائم التحصي you're always concerned about gaining more and achieving more and gaining more this is how he was that إمام محافظ المذري he said that he mentioned دخلتو علي يومن I entered upon him one day إبن صدقة الحماوي I entered upon him وهو في سربين تحت الأرض he was on the ground السرب لأجلي شدة الحر he was under a shelter وهو at this point because of the excessive heat in which he found وهو اشتغل and he was reading فقلتو لو I said to him في هذا المكان even in here you wanna read right here are you gonna read he then said to him إذا لم اشتغل بل علم ماذا أصنع if I don't strive and I don't read and I don't busy myself with knowledge so what will I do إمام مذري سري إنه وجدة في تركتي when he died it was found بحابر ثلاثة three ma'paras were found أحدوها one of it was تسعة عشر أرباط أرطال and another one is mine this is thousands of volumes of books that he wrote and used إيمام المذري إيمام المذري also even mentioned that he used to get books that were worthless that didn't cost a lot of money they didn't work they were books that were little in quality and people would read he would take that book so much effort in writing stuff on their benefits and so much for what and extra things that that book will then become later what حتى يصير من الأمهات it becomes one of the most بحافلات books that people die to go to see and get efforts of striving and seeking knowledge and not even belittling the small books he will put his time in reading those books as well إيمام أبو طاهر إبن أبي سكر إنه منطفم لبن الجوزي he mentions إبن جوزي he mentions in his ترجمة لحافظ أبو طاهر إبن أبي سكر he says كان من الجوالين في الأفاق يجب أن يشهد العالم والمكسترينة من الشيوك الأمصار and he was one of the people who had a lot of teachers that he learned from all the cities وكان يقولوا he used to say هاذي يكوطو بي these books that I have right now here right now with me أحب إليه من وزنيها to have it it's more beloved to me than a weight of gold if a weight of gold was given to me now of my books and I was given these books are more beloved to me I love my books more and when they said this they didn't just say it but they really meant it nothing in the world meant more to them than books nothing meant more to them in their one and this is why they strive they used to give every minute in every second of their time in just making sure that they sit down and they read read read read to get their mind ولي دالك السخاوي الحافظ السخاوي رحمه الله ينس كتوب ضوء اللامع ينس كتوب ضوء اللامع ينس ترجمض أحمد يبنو سليمان يبنو نسط البلقاسي who was a scholar who lived in Cairo who was a chef in his madhab he mentions who died a year 1852 1752 هجرية this man was young في ريعان الشباب he wasn't old in age very young and youth and I would advise sisters and I would advise brothers as well to buy this book written by Sheikh Ali Amrani Ali Muhammad Amrani he wrote a book called the scholars who have not passed age of youthness he wrote a whole book all the scholars that were youth and he mentions their names and their ترجم and their biography they were all young they were all young in that book he mentions all the علماء he comes across in which who were young and how how they were in terms of knowledge in that book he forgot to scholar he forgot to add the scholar to it نعم he forgot to edit his name he's one to it he says وكان إماما علامة قوية الحافظة حسن حسن الفاهمة مشاركا في فنون طلق للساني محبا في العلم والمذاكرة والمباحث والمباحث غير منفكن عن التحسين بحيث إنه كان يطالع في مشه ويقرأ القراءات في حال أكله خوفا من ضيع وقته في غيره عجوبة في هذا المعنى لا علم في وقته من يوازيه فيه طارحة للتقلو فيه كثير التوابع مع الفقراء سحما على غيرهم سريع القراءة جدا he says that كان إمام and he was an imam علامة قوية he was an intense, strong illustrious scholar حافظة his memorization was strong حسن الفاهمة فهم his understanding was great مشاركا في فنون he participated in fields of the religion that were lot طلق للسان he was open mouth مشالله eloquent speech basically محبا في العلم he loved knowledge excessively والمذاكرة research sorry revising and researching غير مفكن عن تحسيه he was never distance from researching and learning and seeking and reading بحيث أنه كان يوطاليا that it was that he mentioned that he used to even read في مشه when he used to walk ويقرأ القراءات and he used to read different of the Quran في حال أكله when he used to eat even when he used to eat he used to read the different قراءات of the Quran why خوف من ضيع وقت he was scared that he would waste his time whilst eating if he didn't read something or he might forget it عجون في هذا يعني he was amazing in that way لا علم في وقته من يوازي I don't know anyone that was like him at his era the time he lived طارحة للتكلف كثير طلوع عمال فقراء he was a person who was very على غير يم أضنهم the people arrogant and who were سريع القراءة he was reading was very very fast الإمام السخاوية رحمة للسكتاب أضبوع اللامة هي أوسو من جد ترجم أفن بس قولك محمد ابن أحمد ابن محمد العمري الصغاني الصغاني محمد ابن أحمد ابن محمد العمري الصغاني الصغاني he says كان إمام اللامة متقدمة في الفق والاصلين حسن التقييد حسن التقييد عريم الرقبة في المطالعة والانتقائي بحيث بلغني أن أبي الخير بالن عبد القوي أنه قال أعرفه أزيد من خمسين سنة وما دخلت إلي قرطن إلا ووجدت ويطالع أو يكتو he mentions that he was a scholar he was he was put forward in fiq أن أصلين كتابنا سنة in the Arabic language he participated all the fields of the religion he had a very powerful and strong way of combining knowledge in his with him عريم الرقبة في المطالعة he had a very big passion for reading and researching you see بحيث بلغني عن أبي الخير إمام عبد القوي that he said reach me from this man the scholar أبي الخير إمام عبد القوي أنه قال أنه قال أعرفه أزيد من خمسين سنة I've known him for 50 over 50 years وما دخل I never entered over on him إلا وجدت I found him يطالع he was reading or he was writing that's all his life was not only that's not amazing look what's even more amazing إمام ابن القيب in this كتاب روض المحبين when he was talking about the عشق of love the love for knowledge he said حدثني أخي أخو شيخنا the brother of our sheikh who referred to ابن القيب his brother told him who was عبد رحمان ابن القيب was the brother of he told ابن القيب what أبيه his father so the father of who ابن القيب the father of ابن القيب عبد الحليم mentioned to him that he's grandfather so ابن القيب his grandfather أبو البركات he's the guy who wrote المتقى which ابن القيب he came later and he done he's he's he done the he done the the ابن البركات جد ابن باري إذا دخل القلاء if he entered to the toilet he went to the toilet يقول لي he would say to me اقرأ في هذا الكتاب ورفع صوتك حتى أسمع when he went to the toilet he wouldn't stop reading he would say to he's he would say to me عبد الحليم saying this his dad would read for his granddad and he would say to him read on me and put your voice up so I can hear you so these people were people who loved reading they never left reading whatsoever whether it's at times of eating at times where they do call of nature they just wanted to learn and read and read ولي ذلك that's where the person's greatness comes from على قدر القراءة according to his reading ذابي رحمه الله لمام والذهبي منشز نصير علامي نبلا من عبد الله المبارك يكتروا الجلوس في بيتي he used to sit in his house a lot فقيل لو ألا تستوحش they said don't you find loneliness that you don't feel you don't feel lonely by saying at home by yourself all the time فقال هيدنسن كيف أستوحش how am I going to find loneliness وانا معاني بصعصة I'm with the prophet of Allah and his companions وصحابي what does he mean I'm reading about them and their narrations I live with them الامام الخطيب البغدان في كتاب تقيد العلم he also narrated from عبد الله he used to say من أحبه anyone who wants يستفيده anyone who wants to benefit فليونظر في كتبه let him look into his books let him look into his books and also تاريخ بغداد الامام تاريخ بغداد it's narrated that يحيا بن محمد يبري يحيا الزوهلي he said دخلت على أبي I entered upon my father الصائف ووقت القائلة وهو في بيتي كتب I entered my father upon the time ووقت القائلة وبين يديه السراج and in front of him was what he had a candle وهو يُصَنِّفُ when he was authoring I entered when he was authoring فقلت أعيلان and said to him يا أبتي my father هذا الوقت هذا الوقت of صلاة this is the time of prayer this is the time of prayer it's salat time والدخار وهذا السراج بالنهار and the light of this candle is for the daytime تقولوا لي هذا you say this to me وأنا مع رسول الله and I'm with the messengers صلى الله عليه وسلم وصحابه and his companions والتابعين and the great companions the students of the companions so the people before sisters and brothers they learned the importance and how it meant to read and I can go on and on and read and read and read and read and read and read and I can go on and on and bring a lot of and a lot of biographies of the scholars how they were in regards to reading stories one after the other فيطيلوا بنا المقام they sit and will become long


I'm almost sure that many of you might be familiar with the 10,000 hours rule which was debunked. This outlines that there is a minimum number of hours required to become an expert in any field.  Someone who just started playing chess will only think in terms of individual moves. You start with the pawn, then you move the knight, maybe your castle? And probably you don't even know why. But for a professional player, these moves barely manifest in an individual manner. The grandmasters will project their plays into the future in their head, and sort of work out the plays by using an unperceivable instinct that will get them closer to the actual win. So instead of playing with individual moves, they play with high level patterns. They have the English opening, the Indian defense, the Queens gambit. The skill they practiced for so long allows them to see into the future. And they are always ready to improvise and switch the patterns when needed. But this comes through years and years of practice and there is also talent and context and luck to consider as well. And for an inexperienced layman such as myself, this sounds like improvisation. Writing and speaking feels a lot of time like improvisation as well. Each one of us probably had a moment when we heard a rather specific sentence and we suddenly realized that we had the same idea. But if we had to put it on paper, the way we would outline it would probably be different from the one we previously heard or read. But the one who can improvise will always have an edge. The ability to adapt to changing circumstances, either you talk about social integration on comfortable conditions, but also those actions of the non-physical variety is indeed a valuable skill one can have in the back pocket. And in many cultures, being predictable, especially as a man, was considered a flaw. Lack of imagination was not permitted. And if you go deeper into something like the music industry, you can look at something like the early jazz scene which was heavily dominated by the scent of blood pumping competition and improv. And there are of course many unusual levels of reasoning to any skill. And practicing the actual skill is the process of training your brain to think of these unusual levels of abstraction. Which will then allow you to add the art of improv into the mix.  When you're writing something such as a casual text message to someone you are imagining the way the conversation will move forward.  You then rapidly pick the best set of words and work combination that sounds the best and you hit send. You have your own library of words and subtle meanings you assign to these specific words and you swiftly pick them up and tie them together, creating your unique style. You are not patiently analyzing the true meaning of each word in each specific sentence because you already know what you want to say. But as a quick personal note I think that one should pay careful attention to how the terms are being used as I find that words have life and meaning. Practicing is another example of high-level individual actions one performs that are mixed together and end up creating a style. The dancer doesn't spend time actively thinking about how to move the hand or the head. Through practice they have eliminated the need to do it. Their step, their stride is longer and allows for information compression. And what practice will eventually do for you is allow you to think in terms of high-level strides so that you can have space to improvise when needed. And practice will also give you the confidence to improvise.  One who doesn't want to use a lighter when lighting up a candle and having no matches around for setting purposes and uses a toothpick to film three seconds of b-roll carries a decent advantage. Having new ways to fix something, either by performing some physical trickery or choosing that particular word to say to someone in distress or even figure out a decent way to diffuse an emotional dispute between friends. By practicing stuff you learn to read the patterns surrounding you. Either we are talking about learning how to read social cues or when to talk and when to listen when to stay silent, it can really feel like playing with blocks of Legos. The blocks representing patterns and the patterns are being filled with tiny beats and pieces of moments of practice and actively paying attention to what you're doing creates a toolset and intensifies your ability to seize an unforeseen opportunity, allowing you to embrace risk, serendipity, become anti-fragile and ultimately create an adventure out of each life experience.