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11 Cities Most Likely to Run Out of Water, BBC

Episode Transcript

Menachem Elimelech
Take Cape Town in South Africa in 2018, in what is known as Day Zero. In that year, the water reservoirs for the city came dangerously close to their red line, which is about 13% of their capacity. If this were to happen, water would be supplied only to critical services like hospitals, and all municipal tap water would be completely shut off. This would have been the first major city in modern era to run out of water.

Tan Deleon
On behalf of the members of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering, welcome to this episode of Learning and Living STEMM in Connecticut, the podcast of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering. My name is Tanimu DeLeon, I’m an elected member of the Academy and serve on its governing council. For more information about the academy, please visit www.ctcase.org. Our guest today is Dr. Menachem Elimelech, the Sterling Professor of Chemical and Environmental Engineering at Yale University and the recipient of the 2024 Connecticut Medal of Technology. We’ll be discussing Desalination and Wastewater Reuse: Technological Solutions for Global Water Scarcity. Water scarcity is a critical issue globally with direct impact on human health, agricultural productivity, and economic development. As populations grow and climate change intensifies, the demand for freshwater increases, exacerbating the scarcity and threatening the sustainability of water resources. Welcome, Menachem; thank you for joining us today. Before we start this discussion, can you please share a bit about yourself?

Menachem Elimelech
Where to start? I mean, it’s a long story. But anyway, I am a professor of chemical and environmental engineering at Yale University. I grew up in Israel in the southern city of Israel Beersheba, which is a desert city. I always loved water. So when I, you know, decided to go to college, I wanted to study things about water. So I studied soil and water sciences, undergraduate degree, at the Hebrew University. Then I went for a master’s degree in environmental sciences, also focusing in water at the Hebrew University. And after the my masters, I went to the US for the PhD at Johns Hopkins in environmental engineering. And after graduation, I was on the faculty at UCLA for nine years, and I moved, in 1998, to Yale University to start the environmental engineering program, where I’m still in.

Tan Deleon
That’s, that’s, that’s quite the story. And thank you for sharing that with us. You are quite the accomplished gentleman. So let’s, uh, let’s – let’s get into a bit about your research here and one of the things that is so in the news right now is the climate change effect, right? So in light of climate change, and population growth, and pollution of water resources, can major cities or countries run out of water?

Menachem Elimelech
In fact, it can happen and it even happened in the past. Let’s start with the story of Cape Town. The water reservoirs for the city came dangerously close to the red line, which is about 13% of their capacity. If this were to happen, water would be supplied only to critical services like hospitals, and all municipal tap water would be completely shut off. This would have been the first major city in modern era to run out of water. But after severe water conservation and a restriction on water use, they closed all the swimming pools, avoided gardening, and much more, eventually, the city avoided day zero. So this was the city that came very, very close. At that time, again during the day zero, the BBC published an article titled, The 11 Cities Most Likely to Run Out of Drinking Water, like Cape Town. And when you look at the list in this BBC article, you’ll see quite strangely names of cities that really rainy regions like Beijing, Moscow, London, and even Miami. So let’s see what’s really happening there why the BBC claimed that they will run out of water. So for example, Beijing and Moscow have water reservoirs that are highly polluted and they will really need new treatment technologies and a lot of investment, which again, they do not have at this stage. So current treatment plant cannot read these very, very highly polluted water. Let’s look at Miami again. We heard about Miami, indeed yesterday was a lot of flooding in Miami. If you listen to the news, and you worry why they will run out of drinking water. So Miami relies on groundwater This is the water that is underground, that you need to pump. Because of sea water intrusion, sea water penetrated the groundwater and made it sulphide saline and it’s not drinkable. Another example, London. Again London in the UK draws the water from two rivers, the Thames River and the Lea Rivers, but they are already close to their allowed capacity for withdrawal. So you see that a even cities that we would never dream about that run out of the water, can run out of water. But I would like to tell you about an example, a city that one year after the Day Zero in Cape Town completely ran out of water. And this the city of Chennai in India, formerly it was known as Madras, and in that year, the four main reservoirs were completely dry and they did not have any water. So the government provide tanks, you know, government tanks, and the people were lining up to really get the water there. And the years later I mean they fix it. So again, it’s an example for, at least for the city of Chennai, that good planning and looking for new water resources years before could really prevent these kinds of cases. So indeed I kind of gave you an example of a city that ran out of water.

Tan Deleon
Yeah, I mean, that’s, yeah, as you just said, you wouldn’t consider that, you know, such large metropolises would actually run out of drinking water, but I guess it’s it’s going to become the new clear gold, like, you know, they have black gold, like with oil? So this will be the the clear gold, I guess, potentially. Do you see that on the horizon? Or is there something we can do to turn this around, potentially?

Menachem Elimelech
I mean, you know, we only say that water is the next oil, you know, in terms of you know, it’s the next gold, whatever you can call it. But again, water management and water resource management and allocation of the right water, this is the key for success, and you need to anticipate ahead of time. And again, if Madras or Chennai in India, were anticipating it, they were building some desalination plant, for example, which we’ll talk later that can really augment water supply. So there is a way to cope with it. And if you have good governance and good planning, I mean, you should not have any problem because there are engineering solutions, where you can get extra water.

Tan Deleon
Okay, so yes, so you alluded to desalination seems like one of – a potential technology solution. Can you elaborate a bit on what is desalination? And what are some of the technologies used to augment and how is it used to augment the supply of water scarce countries, please?

Menachem Elimelech
Yes, great. So let’s start first with some statement about the ocean again, we know the ocean is huge, its vast, and can provide practically unlimited water, but again to coastal cities. But they’re also what you call saline groundwater aquifer to get underground water in inland regions. And this salty water get there – not as salty as the seawater – can also be a source of water supply. But for these two waters, we cannot just treat them by the conventional water treatment plant, we need to remove salt, and we need a new technology which we call desalination. Now, let’s say a few words about desalination. So the current technology for desalination is called reverse osmosis. So this technology uses some what we call membranes and we’ll talk about them later. And these membranes can remove the salt and let water go through. So reverse osmosis technologies was technology was developed in the U.S. over 50 years ago and it replaced the other energy intensive technologies that were used before, which is namely distillation. In distillation, you boil the water, and then you condense the vapor to convert it to freshwater. But this is very, very energy intensive. Now, let’s say a few words about these membranes. So membranes are very thin polymeric fields, they look like a piece of paper, as thin as piece of paper. And they have very, very small pores. And because of the very, very small pores, they can block most of the salt – over 99% of the salt – and let only the water molecules go through. Now with this thin polymeric films, and there is a way to roll them and pack them for large surface area and put them in pressure vessels. And then you apply high pressure to these pressure vessels to push the water through the membrane and to retain the salt. And when you apply the pressure, you need the pump and the pump get electricity. So the energy consumption comes from using the pump. The saltier the water, the more pressure you need, or the more energy. So this is why the energy to desalinate seawater would be much much more than to desalinate the saline or brackish groundwater. Now, this technology is widely used to provide the water in many places in the world. Let’s have some example – the Gulf countries like we hear about Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates – they obtain most of the water from seawater desalination. And interestingly, it’s not only for coastal cities, for example, the capital of Saudi Arabia, Riyadh, get desalinated water from the Persian Gulf with a pipe that goes over 460 kilometres. Yeah, when I was in Riyadh, I mean, a few years ago, and then again, they told me about all these process. Another example, Israel, again, in the past 20 years, Israel built five very large desalination plants along the Mediterranean Sea. And these plants provide 750 million cubic meters of desalinated water per year, which is roughly enough for 75% of the water consumption in Israel. Again, it will talk about Israel later, but this is just an example again. So these are just afew success stories, but there are many more. Like countries like Cyprus, Spain, in many countries in North Africa they also use the stagnation and also in the US, but it’s not to the same extent, we have some desalination plants in Florida, we have a one big one in California, and one or two in Texas. And they’re all built to augment water supply again, in this plant, or whatever, as I mentioned, they’re relatively small compared to the plants that I mentioned in Israel and the Gulf Countries.

Tan Deleon
Okay, that’s, that’s very interesting. And at least, you know, as you said, it was, you know, developed you know, many many years ago but it’s actively in practice now, in some very well renowned countries in the world. So if this isn’t something like, you know, we need we still need to figure out. Like people are doing it, people are using it, and it’s a benefit. So, I guess with that in mind, is desalination technology a sustainable solution to the global water shortage? Like from an energy cost perspective?

Menachem Elimelech
Yeah, it’s a really good question. Because this is the main concern of the public when they hear about desalination, they also will tell you, it’s energy intensive, and it’s highly costly. So now, let’s have some facts without being too technical again. Let’s see for the state of the art desalination plant that I mentioned, like the ones in Israel, in the Gulf countries, the electric energy to produce 1000 liters or 265 gallons of fresh water is equivalent to the electricity that you use air conditioning to cool one room, one room in a hotel for little over one hour, just to get an order of magnitude. Or to give another example, when you drive in the city five miles in a typical car, you burn some gasoline. In principle if you use this gasoline to produce electricity, so the gasoline to drive only about five miles will be enough to produce 1000 liters of fresh water. This will give you some idea again about the energy consumption. Now, looking forward, we all think about renewable energy, so you can think about it. We can think for example of building a wind farm near the ocean that can provide all the electricity for the desalination plant. And with the advent of renewable energy, I believe that desalination will be even a more promising solution to global water scarcity. So this is about the energy. Now let’s talk about the cost. So I will pose a question to you maybe. So now I will interview.

Tan Deleon
Sure, yeah, sure. So hopefully I can answer.

Menachem Elimelech
No, this will be just a guess. So what do you think the cost – your cost in dollars – to obtain 1000 liters or 265 gallons of water for desalination? Just a guess, again, it’s not an easy answer.

Tan Deleon
The cost in dollars?

Menachem Elimelech
Yes.

Tan Deleon
Okay, if you said the energy was, you know, heating, cooling your home or one room for an hour, then you probably have like the additional cost of like building the plant, and you know, and all that stuff. I guess maybe $10? Maybe?

Menachem Elimelech
I mean, you’re off by just a factor of 10. So anyway, so…

Tan Deleon
Oh, okay.

Menachem Elimelech
So for the state of the art desalination plant that I mentioned, in the recent ones, it cost less than $1, for 1000 liters of fresh water.

Tan Deleon
Wow!

Menachem Elimelech

Electricity, because electricity is about 50% of the costs, and the other 50% is the capital cost and operational maintenance. But again, in some countries like Saudi Arabia, the electricity is very, very cheap, and it’s only 40 cents, 40 cents per 1000 liters. And in Israel, it’s about 80 cents per 1000 liters. In California, because of some more environmental measures, it’s little over $1 per 1000 liters. So when you think about it, and we think what you pay for one bottle of water in the airport, or a restaurant is really a good deal.

Tan Deleon
Yeah. Yeah. And, and obviously, our oceans are so vast. So I mean, I don’t think you’re going to run out anytime soon, as they would say, but I guess one specific question. So, you know, how would this impact like second and third world countries, then from a cost perspective? Are they – because I because you know, some people survive on $1 a day. Right? So how does that work?

Menachem Elimelech
That’s a good question. Again, it’s still consider a technology for you know, developed countries, unfortunately. In developing countries, again, it’s very difficult. And again, it all depends on the level of the low income country again, you know, by classification, even China calls themselves a developing country, which is not the case. But that’s – for Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, I will not imagine it because again, it’s the cost. But also, I think the sustainability of any, again, when it comes to water in you know, very poor countries, many times the technology is not the problem, it’s more the other aspects, you know, the culture, you know, they used to drink water in a certain way. The sustainability of any infrastructure that is built by let’s see people from the West that come and build these… corruption, and so on. There are many cases that some water treatment plants were built by the West, and then when they left, the plants were cannibalized, they took all the parts and so on. So unfortunately, this stage, even though the cost is not very, you know, a lot, it’s still for developed countries. So it’s a good question. And then hopefully, one day with renewable energy, you know, we can think about it even for a other countries not like the developed countries yet.

Tan Deleon
Okay. Now, that’s a good point. That’s that’s definitely good. There’s always other factors, even in developed countries, as you mentioned, between, you know, the costs, the cost variance from, from Israel to California, you know, $1 to 80 cents. So that’s definitely a good point. Definitely a good point.

Menachem Elimelech
I think. It shows the sort of culture again, years ago, I visited with my graduate students in Tanzania and I saw the way they drink the water – very, very dirty water – and we told them, why don’t you add just one drop of Clorox, you know, the Clorox bleach, and if you want it very, very safe? But they told us that they don’t like the taste and this was the way they were drinking water for generations and they don’t want to change. So again, we have the technology in many places, even for such countries. But the barrier to implement them, which is more like social barriers, is much more important than the technology, you know.

Tan Deleon
Okay, so it sounds more like a training effect like there? Or do you think like training is not even going to have an effect? Because, you know, you know, we’ve been doing it this way for all this time, and we’re fine. So we don’t need training.

Menachem Elimelech
Yeah, I think eventually you need some training, but you need to ensure that eventually the training, which is done by people from outside the country, transfer to local people, and they start to do it. And in some countries, it has not been successful in this way, they still have some problems with his water now,

Tan Deleon
That definitely makes sense. For sure. Okay, so I guess, you know, you did mention wastewater, as you were discussing some of the instances before… how can wastewater reuse be used to augment the water supply in water scarce countries, similar to I guess, maybe some of the second or third world countries potentially.

Menachem Elimelech
Yeah, so in principle, municipal wastewater, or we can just call it treated sewage, can also convert to high quality water using some technologies like membrane technologies that I mentioned, and even some combination of membranes and non-membrane technologies. So, so this highly treated sewage can be added, for example, to some reservoirs. You can treat the sewage very, very highly by very sophisticated plants, and add it to a reservoir, that later is being treated by the water treatment plant for the city. And this what we call indirect potable reuse, because the water is put in the reservoir, and it’s treated by mother nature there, and then going to another water treatment plants. Another approach is to let the treated wastewater, by very advanced technologies to go directly to the water treatment plant. And we call it direct potable reuse. So let’s give you some example. Let’s take an example in Orange County, in Orange County, California, there is indirect potable reuse since 1975. So in this case, the municipal wastewater is treated by very advanced technology to high quality purified water. And then they inject the purified water into the groundwater, it mixes with the groundwater, and the groundwater is used in Orange County as a drinking water supply source. So let’s say a few words about this, what’s happening there. When you inject it, groundwater moves very, very, very slowly, maybe a few centimeters per day, 5-10 centimeters per day. But the water is pumped a few kilometres from where you inject it, and it takes a year or two even more to get there. And while the water flowing in the groundwater mixed with all these minerals, and so on, Mother Nature Father treats the water, and then when you pump it, it’s really of a very, very good quality. So now the average person in Orange County. I mean, will not know that this is the case, but this is the case there for since 1975. Now, maybe I will ask you another question. Can I ask you…

Tan Deleon
Sure, hopefully I can get this one!

Menachem Elimelech
No, no, this is just a preference. Will you be willing… would you be willing to drink a recycled sewage that came directly from your toilet?

Tan Deleon
Yeah, I mean, if it’s – as long as it doesn’t, there’s no smell or anything like that. Sure. I mean, I don’t see why not.

Menachem Elimelech
So again, I mean, I think it’s a good answer, and I hopefully that all the people will eventually will have the same answer. But believe me, that the waters would come from this treatment plant will be as good and even much better than the bottled water in Dubai from the best supermarket you know, the the best bottled water. Of course, you will not have any smell or anything because we have the technology to convert the water to amazing quality water. Indeed, in Singapore, there are private companies that purchase the wastewater. You know, in the past wastewater was a nuisance. You needed to pay people to take it but now people buy the wastewater and they use very advanced technology in Singapore to convert the water to ultra pure water and then they sell it to the electronic industry and make a lot of money. So again, basically your answer I’m glad you give such an answer, but some people will say we will never drink such water. This is what we call the “yuck factor,” you know, it’s yucky, we don’t want to drink anything. So the biggest challenge here, again, is not the technology, but the public perception, education, and all related. So let’s say for example, let’s you. So how we can overcome this “yuck factor.” So again, as engineers and water utilities, in my opinion, should work with some social scientists to educate the public, and about the safety of the water. And let’s take an example of the city of Windhoek in Namibia. So this is in Windhoek, in Namibia, is the only city in the world that use direct potable reuse, they just take the wastewater, treat it and immediately distributed to the people in Windhoek. And now why the people in Windhoek can be really happy to drink it? Because they get on a daily basis, detailed water quality parameter. They tell them on a daily basis, electronically, the quality of the water, and so they can see it in real time. And also the citizens of Windhoek develop some pride because they are the only city in the world that use direct potable reuse. So by education, indeed, you can you can move to that direction, and you can work quite well. I mean, the “yuck factor” is very, very interesting. I spoke with once with the Yale President Peter Solloway. He’s a psychologist. And he gave me an example of a very well known study in psychology. It’s by professor at the University of Pennsylvania. And they told people your comb, the way you brush your hair. And tell people when you put it in your mouth? Everyone say, of course not. So then you say, okay, boil, I will boil it for 10 minutes – will you drink it? And again, most of the people say no, because you know, this “yuck factor.” So if you can overcome that, you know, wastewater reuse can be a really, really a major source of water.

Tan Deleon
Yeah, yeah. So I think, you know, to your point, as you said, like, it’s, you know, educating and providing the right information. I could totally see how, you know, like someone giving disinformation or making or putting some type of skeptical, you know, instantiation out there could could turn the public away pretty quickly. But, yeah, it’s really about giving them concrete facts and being consistent, right? Like, within what you’re telling them.

Menachem Elimelech
Yeah, exactly. Did it happen? I think years ago, in San Diego, they wanted to go to direct – indirect potable use – that you treat the wastewater input in the reservoir that farther go water treatment. And it leaks to the media, at that time, the newspaper. And the public killed this idea there. It was over I think about 15 years ago. Yeah. So, so we need a lot of education, and eventually we are moving I think, in the right direction. And I will talk more about it when I talk about California.

Tan Deleon
Sure. Sure. No, definitely. So yeah. So speaking about, you know, California and, you know, the, the example you just brought up as well. You know, what other strategies implemented in California and other water scarce states in the southwest are they using to cope with the shortages or excuse me shortages?

Menachem Elimelech
Yeah, so California built a desalination plant in Carlsbad. It’s next to San Diego in 2015. But the plant was built after 12 years of planning, discussion and negotiations because there was a very strong resistance from environmental groups. As you know, California, there is a very strong environmental lobby. And the plant that was built and eventually, you know, is used, providing 50 million gallons per day, which is less than half of any of the single plants that I mentioned in Israel, just to get your day to scale. In Israel, you have five plants, and each one of them at least twice as much as large. So there were other proposals to build other desalination plants, notably in Orange County, but they all failed. And California is now focusing on domestic wastewater reuse that I was mentioning before. So I already mentioned the reuse plant in Orange County, California since 1975. In 1975, when they build the plant, they call it Water Factory 21. Like it was 21st century technology. But since then, in this century, we completely upgraded it to be membrane based, and it provides 100 million gallons per day that is eventually injected to the groundwater and use as drinking water eventually. Now let’s go to the city of Los Angeles. So the city of Los Angeles already had a committee and they are planning to replace the large wastewater desalination plant for the city. Its one of the largest and was converted to what we call advanced wastewater use plant. You treat the sewage and then farther very, very advanced treatment with a membranes and advanced oxidation and other technology to convert it to drink the water supply. And this will treat 250 million gallons of wastewater per day. So just to imagine 250 million gallons per day, if you take 250 million gallons, it’s equivalent to covering 750 acres of land with one foot of water. So again, 750 acres one foot water this one, what just one day and this is what will the plant will produce. Now, they are pushing now wastewater reuse over seawater desalination because they don’t want to build other desalination plants. And the argument there of many of them again, the cost will be lower than desalination of seawater, and also the energy consumption will be lower than desalination because the energy consumption is proportional to the salt concentration. See what is a lot, a lot of salt, much, much more than than wastewater. Also, as I mentioned before, the environmental lobby is very, very strong in California and anyone who tries to even mention desalination is immediately you know, objecte. One of my graduate students who is now a faculty at UCLA told me that in some meetings in Los Angeles, if you mentioned the word desalination, seawater desalination, they would practically cancel you. They don’t want to hear desalination, they want all the wastewater used. So again, I think what they need now to work is about the public perception, the “yuck factor.” And once they do it, it will be great. Now, I focus on California, again, California is always leading the way to many, many other states. Let’s talk about the Arizona. Arizona, there is no ocean. So in Phoenix, they’re now expanding significantly the wastewater reuse. They are going for wastewater reuse, as a way to augment water supply because again, they run out of water, it’s a you know, climate change. And the same thing with Texas in Florida. So wastewater reuse, but in Texas, in Florida, they also have some desalination plants, but they’re not as large. So it seems that the trend nowadays and also in academia, the way we were trying to push, is to go to wastewater reuse, and we have the technology to do it.

Tan Deleon
Yeah no, that definitely sounds like, like the way to go. I have a friend, one of my good friends, actually, he lives in Tucson, Arizona, so I’m familiar with, you know, the struggles that they have, you know, with water shortages, and you know, a lot of, you know, scheduling of when you can do this, and when you can’t do that, etc. So it’s, it definitely is an important thing that we need to tackle, but to your point, I think, you know, the education, the training, like all that is very vital to, you know, having us, you know, fully turn the corner, and, you know, start embracing this technology, more like, you know how Israel is embracing it, and Riyadh, and some of those other cities around the world. So I actually just want to see if we can, I want to turn this discussion for a second. And I want to try to have some of our listeners learn just a bit about, you know, you and, you know, some of the things that you’ve had to do to try to get to where you are. Because we have some young listeners that that tune in, and you know, your career and what you’re doing is fascinating, and I’m sure they would like to get some pointers as to how they can potentially follow in your footsteps maybe. So do you have any advice for some of our younger listeners or some folks that are actually graduating high school going into college now, to follow in your footsteps?

Menachem Elimelech
Yeah, you know, in my case, I’ll be honest, when I started, I mean, I really wanted to be a farmer and live in a kibbutz in Israel. You know, the kibbutz is communal settlement. You know, in this way, I went to study soil and water sciences, but then I really fell in love in research and I liked the science and I got deeper into it. And then I say, after the undergraduate degree, maybe I need to go further do a master’s degree in that I really loved it and eventually say why not for a PhD? So you know, it always goes… I liked the research and then I always wanted to make a change after it. And again, being in academia, you can educate the next generation of engineers and scientists. So I said, let’s try and go to academia, and I was lucky fortunate to get my first faculty position at UCLA. And I think my advice is really follow your passion, and you need to work hard again, to like anything in life. To be successful, you need to work hard, it’s not an eight to four job to be a scientist, or a professor, or even a graduate student, you know, if you go for a PhD, but again, if you have, you know, work life balance, and you work hard, but also play hard, I mean, you have other interests in life, I think you can, you can do whatever you dream. So again, the United States with all the water here, it’s still the land of unlimited opportunities. For me, I came here from Israel, and I really loved every moment when I was in graduate school. I was fortunate to get accepted, to get stipend, to do get paid to do some research for the PhD. There is hard work and passion, you can do it.

Tan Deleon
Well, well said, well said. Absolutely spot on. So you did mention fun. So you know, balance. So what do you so what do you like to do for fun? Like, what are, what are some things you…

Menachem Elimelech
Yeah, it’s, it’s a tough question. Again, when I get when I was younger, I have kids, so I really enjoy, you know, raising the kids, playing with the kids and so on. And that, but, you know, eventually they go to college, and so on. So I, but also, I would like to be honest, also, that I also love research and love, mentoring graduate students. So in a way, for me, sometimes I don’t see it as work or chore, I see it as fun. But I like I like reading you know, books. I like hiking. I like going to the gym, doing some gym, you know, on a daily basis. And now that I have grandchildren, I like to see them even though they’re really far away in Rochester, New York. So I ty to combine all this and again, have some fun with my wife. So sometimes new ideas for cooking, you know, you know, like experimentalist, you can try new things. So, these are roughly I mean, again, and try again, in my job, in our job again, we go to a lot of conferences, a lot of travel. So again, I explore many cultures again, next week, I’m going to a conference in Palermo in Sicily. It’s my first time there and I want to go to many exotic places. So when you go to a conference, you only spend one or two days extra to see the place. So again, it’s a fun job to be a professional. Again, it’s hard work, if you want to be good in your field. But there are many, many other things that you can do, you know, corporators, you know, salary, you can, you know, less busy, you can, you know, do some more reading, or hiking or traveling.

Tan Deleon
Yeah no, it’s the work life balance is definitely important. And obviously, you know, going to some really fascinating places is, is definitely something to do as well. It’s all about learning, right? You’re you know, an eternal student, right? So you’re either learning from the travel, you’re learning from nature, you’re learning from, you know, from interactions with other people.

Menachem Elimelech
Indeed, I mean, you find also for my PhD students, the deeper you get to the science or the same thing, the more realized how you know, you know, nothing. So we always in a learning process, and I always learn all the time. And working with my students, I learned so much. So it’s an endless learning in science and anything in life, even when you get to my age.

Tan Deleon
Well, well, Menachem, thank you so much for this opportunity.

Menachem Elimelech
So great. Great. So it was my pleasure and I look forward to seeing the podcast.

Tan Deleon
Indeed, indeed. On behalf of CASE, thank you for sharing what you’re learning from your research, encouraging others to engage in science and technology and inspiring all of us with your achievements. I encourage you to subscribe to this podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Amazon music, or YouTube, and visit the Academy’s website at www.ctcase.org. That’s ctcase.org to learn more about our guests, read the episode transcript ,and access additional resources as well as to sign up for the CASE Bulletin. Again, Menachem, thank you so much. This has been a blast and I really have learned a lot and I hope our listeners learn a thing or two as well.

Menachem Elimelech
It was my pleasure, Tan. Thank you.