The dead sea awaits!

For the fourth day of the YEP field trip, we finally had the pleasure of exploring two of the wonders of the world: Masada and the dead Sea!

The day began at 5:00 am, as we decided to make the 300 meter long climb up to the ancient city of Masada. It was a city where the last refugees of Jewish nationalists fought against the romans, and in the end, decided to rather die than live as slaves. As such, the entire ruin of the castle was a wonder of history to explore. After making the climb, we watched the sunrise and explored the ruins, after returning to the bus to explore the next wonder: The dead sea, and the dead sea works.

The dead sea works, is a venture that previously was of the Israel goverment, where they have established a factory to use the resource that is the dead sea. Here they manufacture magnesium, potash, and many other resources that are used across the globe (aswell as many health products).

The plant, like many others in Israel was driven by its own gas/steam turbine cycle, which soon will have a capacity of 290MW in total. This is needed due to the energy consuming process of the dead sea works, but also because of the large amount of steam that they need to manufacture. With a USP system that can last for 30-60 minutes in event of a failure, the entire plant is one of engineering brilliance.

We then left the plant and finally went to the conference: Electricity 2017! Here we are gonna participating in workshops for the coming two days, discussing the future of the electrical grid and the problems and opportunities that come with it. While we were split up into groups, which concerned many different subjects (from power saving, sustainable socities etc) I was placed in a group which discussed how microgrids can be used in our future society. I will be excited to present to you followers just exactly what our conclusions will be in the following days.

Finally, I hope you enjoyed another post of the YEP field trip, as we are about to draw to the conclusion of this short trip.

Best regards

Anton ter Vehn
Student ambassador SER