Indications that the recent find of natural gas of the coast of the Israeli city of Haifa were pointing to a pretty big find. Now it turns out that it may be huge. According to Globes: “The consortium drilling the Tamar-1 well offshore of Haifa has received encouraging news from the drilling operator, Noble Energy (NYSE:NBL), which reported today that flow test results showed that the potential size of the original estimate of 3.1 trillion cubic feet has now been increased 60% to an estimated resource potential of 5 trillion cubic feet. Noble Energy chairman and CEO Charles D. Davidson said, “The test results from the Tamar well confirm our initial analysis that the discovered reservoirs are very high quality. This discovery is clearly of a size for commercial development. We hope to extend the success in Israel by testing Dalit, our second prospect.”

This is so big for Israel, that it’s hard to comprehend. Who could imagine that a country with little in the way of natural resources is now going to be a net exporter of natural gas? Suddenly Israel will be a player, along with its’ enemies in the region, in the global energy market.

I say forget Shai Agassi and his Project Better Place. Israel should convert from gasoline to natural gas to power automobiles. If Israel could develop this technology, it would be huge, as certain parts of the US, Canada could also power their cars on natural gas.

With experts saying that these wells could go commercial in 5 years, I would expect a pick up in Israeli start-ups that are going to tackle the natural gas issue.

After the driest January on record, Israel is faced with a huge problem in the form of a multi-year drought.  While fighting wars on multiple fronts and political haranguing, it appears Israel lacks a concrete plan regarding how to address a decreasing water supply in a climate that has not been friendly the past few years.

In fact, at a meeting today, Dr. Yosef Dreizen is expected to tell the “National Investigation Committee Regarding

the Water Crisis in Israel” that there is no plan for water beyond 2010 in Israel.

According to an article in the Jerusalem Post today, Dr. Dreizen said:

“While long-term planning was considered essential, it was never considered practical.  There was never an understanding that after seven years of plenty comes years of drought.” Moreover, he charged, until the transitional plan,  the water economy had no master plan at all for 30 years.

The water crisis has been years in the making.  According to an article in Haaretz:

“The water crisis is entirely our own doing,” says water expert Dr. Peretz Dar, whose water- saving plan was shelved by the Water Authority several years ago. “The government allocated funds for desalination plants but failed to allocate the resources for conservation. We could have reduced consumption by 10 percent and covered a large part of the accumulated deficit in the Kinneret and aquifers,” he says.

Israel is quickly becoming an international destination for clean technologies, including the electric car.  It’s a shame that the same attention isn’t being paid to what’s happening in its own backyard.

Photo credit: Treehugger