Growing crops from seawater takes root in arid Jordan desert

The innovative facility brings together saltwater cooling and solar-powered desalination technology to produce both vegetables and fresh water.

Water-poor Jordan has launched a project that uses seawater coupled with clean energy to produce crops in an arid desert not far from the Red Sea.

Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Crown Prince Haakon of Norway, which contributed most of the $3.7 million cost, inaugurated the facility in the kingdom’s port city of Aqaba this week. Haakon told reporters he was “impressed by the way innovative ideas have been translated into a plant the size of four football fields.” [
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