Arava Power Team: “We Are The Power!”

Israel’s Arava Power Company (APC) one of the country’s top solar energy producers, is now working towards supplying solar powered electricity to 15 Negev Desert kibbutzes and agricultural villages following the signing of an agreement with these communities, as reported in the JPost.

Arava was in the news a few months back when the German industry giant, Siemens, was reported as being interested in Arava Power. A short time later an announcement followed that Siemens had indeed purchased a 40% stake through Siemens Project Ventures for $15 million, which gave Avara about $37.5 million valuation.

This new venture with the 15 Negev region settlements will provide the communities with 100 MW of solar produced electricity — about a third of the 300 MW Public Utility Authority’s electricity quota that is being allocated for solar energy for what is known as “medium sized solar energy plants.”

Arava made its announcement to coincide with the beginning of the 2010 Eilat-Eilot Renewable Energy Conference, scheduled to open in Israel’s southernmost city next week.   Continue reading Arava Power to “Electrify” the Negev Desert After Signing 15 Solar Energy Deals

As with any good idea, it doesn’t mean a thing if you don’t find a convenient, easy, and preferably aesthetic way to bring it to the masses.  Shai Agassi, founder of the electric car company Better Place, understood this when he hired industrial designer Gadi Amit to design the company’s electric car charging ports.

And apparently this is a mode of operation that makes sense to other entrepreneurs worldwide.  Daniel Whitman, a Chicago architect and social entrepreneur, recently founded GlobalTap – a for-profit social enterprise with the dual mission of selling/installing tap water refilling stations in public places in North America and Europe, and then using the revenues to fund much needed water projects in developing countries.

Basically, using the funding coming from privileged places to fund water projects in considerably less privileged places.  “Water should be free and accessible to everybody,” Whitman says. Continue reading GlobalTap Offers Water Refilling Stations in North America, Bringing Better Water a la “Better Place”

Fresh za’atar at Ramla Open-Air Market

Chef Moshe Basson created this pungent, chunky pesto in just a few minutes, right under our eyes.

According to Wikipedia, Za’atar (Arabic: زعتر‎, also romanized as zaatar, za’tar, zatar, zatr, zahatar or satar) is a generic name for a family of related Middle Eastern herbs from the genera oregano, calamintha, thyme, and savory. It is also the name for a condiment made from the dried herbs, mixed together with sesame seeds, and often salt, as well as other spices and enjoyed as a seasoning or like salt in Middle Eastern cuisine. Used in Arab cuisine since medieval times, both the herb and spice mixture are popular throughout the Middle East and Levant. Today, Slow Food chef, Basson gives us his surprising and mouth-watering alternative: a recipe for za’atar pesto. Continue reading Za’atar Pesto Recipe From Israel’s Premiere Slow Food Chef

For the past two weekends I attended a Quran study seminar hosted by the Al-Maghrib Institute in Bradford, UK. Throughout the course the staff and speakers directed our attention to the environmental schemes that they ran.

As a representative of Green Prophet I seized the opportunity to look into the ways British citizens were contributing towards a greener secure future for Middle Eastern countries.

In between breaks a stall displayed a Muslim Hands scheme called Plant an Olive Tree in Palestine. Middle Eastern countries are mostly arid; the lack of water and rain in Palestine means the main sources of agricultural development are the rivers Rubin and al-‘Ajwa. Continue reading UK’s Al-Maghrib Institute Plants Olive Trees for Palestine

If you enjoy sweet treats from Cairo, they are about to get sweeter: Cairo sugar co is now greening its emissions by switching to natural gas.

Abu Dhabi’s Masdar energy and development company is helping to further make the Middle East more green by signing a 10 year CO2 Emissions Control Agreement with Egyptian Sugar and Integrated Industries Company (ESIIC) to reduce 57,200 tons of its CO2 gas emissions per year for a ten year period.

Masdar, a part of the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (ADFEC), and whose Masdar Clean Tech Fund recently raised more than $265 billion in funding, will replace Egyptian Sugar’s consumption of Mazut heavy fuel oil with natural gas, which is expected to reduce carbon emissions by an equivalent of 57,200 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) over 10 years.

According to Wikpedia, Mazut is a heavy, low quality fuel oil, used in generating plants and similar applications. In the United States and Western Europe mazut is blended or broken down with the end product being diesel.
Mazut may be used for heating houses in former USSR and in countries of Far East that do not have the facilities to blend or break it down into more traditional petro-chemicals. In the west, furnaces that burn Mazut are commonly called “waste oil” heaters or “waste oil” furnaces.

The agreement for the Cairo company to stop using this popular, cheap and polluting fuel could not have come too soon for a company which supplies refined sugar and other food products for much of Egypt’s 80 million population, and whose present CO2 greenhouse gas emissions help contribute to Egypt’s growing pollution problems which make its largest city, Cairo, one of the most polluted cities in the world. For a recap, we talked about the emissions problems in Cairo in the article:  Egypt Takes Smog Prize Aheard of 2009 Under 20 World Cup. Continue reading Masdar “Greens” Egyptian Sugar Co. With Fuel Switch from Mazut Oil to Natural Gas