New life for old oil fields? Last year Oman inaugurated a 7MW solar pilot plant that produces steam to loosen thick, stubborn oil. Petroleum Development Oman has since hailed the four acre complex of glass houses a scorching success, and the supplier GlassPoint is preparing to become the “Ikea of solar,” Forbes reports.
Abdullah al-Shehi from the United Arab Emirates has shown his worth in environmental technology by patenting his sea-borne water collector that he hopes will help deliver clean water to desert regions across the Middle East and the world.
While the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia have been outspoken about their shift to renewable energy to shore up for when oil supplies start to wane, Kuwait has largely remained in the shadows. Kuwait has the best solar irradiation along the Arabian Peninsula, which means they are well poised to bring solar energy on [...]
Turkey’s largest wind power plant has broken ground and is expected to generate enough clean energy to electrify up to 170,000 homes.
The Middle East and North Africa have faced a number of hurdles in getting what experts believe could be the greatest solar power grid in the world off the ground. From Morocco to Egypt to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), obstacles have continued to stand in the way of creating a grand solar project. Until now.
Hotter than heck and bone dry, the Middle East and North Africa have an abundance of sun, and leaders across the region are striving to make the most of it. Five North African countries and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan will receive a total of $660 million from the $7.6 billion Climate Investment Fund (CIF) [...]
The UK Green Investment Bank and the United Arab Emirates Masdar have inked a new agreement that will see the UAE-based company work toward new investment opportunities in the United Kingdom, taking their expertise in renewable energy to Britain.
Bahrain is looking to overhaul its energy management system and announced this week that it was to implement a new “radical” IT system that would help boost energy efficiency in the Gulf Kingdom.
Energy storage company Enstorage Inc. connected a 50 kW Hydrogen Bromine flow battery to the grid at their test site in southern Israel. This began the world’s first large-scale deployment of this promising new energy grid technology.
Thinking about 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit: This is how Asaf Shaltiel, the CEO of SmarTap, came up with the idea for an electronic “smart” eco-showerhead that can talk with computers and smart home devices.
Could woman’s best friend be the missing link in the diagnoses of agressive breast cancer types? Researchers at Ben Gurion University in Israel have conducted research proving that specially trained dogs can differentiate the smell of breast cancer cells from non-cancerous cells in cell cultures. The concept of using the sniffing ability of dogs to [...]
It was only a matter of time: the 3D printing revolution has officially arrived in Lebanon, where artists, architects, and designers are eager to keep pace with Europe and the United States. French Architect Guillaume Crédoz has founded the region’s first 3D printing shop in the Mar Mikhayel neighborhood of Beirut, a bustling hive of [...]
HH General Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi (left), HH Sheikh Hazza bin Zayed Al Nahyan National Security Advisor for the UAE and Vice Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council visit Masdar City’s 10 MW PV plant in 2011. Proponents of environmental reform (renewable energy, greener economy) are racing [...]
Dieter Moor of ertex solar examines the installation of his company’s solar project in Al Ain. Finally the Middle East is attuned to the numerous benefits of solar energy, and large scale Photovoltaic (PV) and Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) plants are popping up all over the region. There’s Shams 1 outside of Abu Dhabi, the largest [...]
The Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Lebanon has seen better days. Elders might recall a time when the water was clear and teeming with color and life, but for the few last years, the waters have been practically devoid of life, and scuba diving more apocalyptic than fun. Until Dr. Michel Chalhoub, a Beirut-based engineer, [...]
The world’s largest solar-powered ship has been out of commission for a while, but she’s back in business for her first 2013 Port of Call in Morocco. After leaving La Ciotat in France on 8 April, 2013, Planet Solar bobbed on the high seas for nine days. It was a challenging trip, according to Captain Gérard d’Aboville, [...]
Situated even deeper in the desert than Morocco and prone to locust swarms, Mauritania’s topography consists of the “mostly barren, flat plains of the Sahara” – as the CIA puts it. They’ve got very little water and less than half of one percent of the country’s land is arable. But they’ve got sun and they’ve [...]
Lotus flowers were once considered sacred in Egypt and parts of Asia. They hold a secret to a clean nanotechnology. Like the ancient blue pigment found in ancient Egypt, old spiritual materials like the lotus flower inspire new environmental science: As assistant professor of Environmental Sciences and Engineering at King Abdulla University of Science and [...]
Much ado has been made of the great solarization of Gulf countries such as Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi, but Turkey has made some sun-powered progress too. And the most recent development in the south is also the country’s largest. Solimpeks is in the process of installing a 500kWp photovoltaic plant on Mercan Mermer’s roof. A [...]
For ancient Egyptians blue was the color of rebirth. Today their chemical invention of artificial lapiz lazuli means new advances for lights, lasers and more. According to a new paper published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society the ancient pigment known as Egyptian blue may have important new applications in nanotechnology. Researchers at [...]
We are not alone in our awe of the Sahara Forest Project (SFP), which has already built a pilot project in Qatar that produces energy, clean water and food in the middle of the desert – all without a single drop of fossil fuel. Owned by biomimicry architect Michael Pawlyn, structural engineer Bill Watts, and the Norwegian [...]
Mars is red and so is the Sahara desert, but the similarities between the two run deeper than that. Which is why the Austrian Space Forum (OEWF) dispatched a crew to Morocco, where they tested a series of communication, vehicular, wearable and other technologies that may eventually be deployed on the red planet, Gizmag reports. [...]
A former sailor, Alain Thibault knows what it means to pine after fresh water, so he designed a portable desalination device that uses the sun’s power to make fresh drinking water. What’s more, he and the rest of his team have introduced the technology to Sahara nomads, who frequently struggle to find water that isn’t [...]
Futek is about to break ground on a new solar cell manufacturing plant in Egypt, which is expected to cost roughly USD 3 million to construct. This is the company’s third such plant in the solar-rich north African country, which combined with the others costs a total of USD 7.35 million to run. President of [...]
Dubai is prone to frequent dust storms. A new solar panel dust particle remover made in Israel boosts power and cleans off dust at the same time Solar voltaic panels, which at their best only have about 25 percent efficiency for converting direct sunlight into electricity, have even less efficiency than this when dust and [...]
Finding building materials that are appropriate for hot desert conditions is one of the biggest challenges facing the Middle East and North Africa region’s construction industry. While earth used in architecture found in Egypt, Libya, Yemen and elsewhere is typically considered the most effective material for keeping interior temperatures low while the sun acts like [...]
Upper Egypt, which actually lies in the southern half of the country below the Nile Delta, is preparing to build a $1 billion solar power plant with help from a suite of international donors. A particularly poor region of the large North African country that currently experiences intermittent electricity generation but plenty of solar irradiation, [...]
If Shell were to design a clever infographic with a bunch of facts, it would probably highlight the amount of fossil fuels the United States imports from “dangerous” foreign countries, how expensive those imports are, and how the company could save the world if only they had unrestricted access to the Arctic’s fossil fuel reserves [...]
When Fadi Jamaleddine decided to install a solar array on his farm in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, he wasn’t thinking of the environment or global warming, he told The Daily Star. He was simply tired of spending $50,000 a year on electricity for what is a hobby organic farm for the corporate lawyer. And while he [...]
Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation, a Japanese state-owned prospecting company says it has successfully extracted methane gas from an undersea methane hydrate deposit in the Nankai trench south of Japan’s main island of Honshu. This marks the first successful extraction of methane from such deep sea deposits. The team expects their pilot rig [...]
Anyone who loved the 3D Solar Sinter that uses the sun’s energy to turn sand into functional glass objects will love the Sun Cutter. Also designed by Markus Kayser, this homemade laser cutter carves pre-programmed industrial designs into a variety of materials – including cardboard, paper and even thin slabs of plywood - and it [...]
After months of debate about the wisdom of holding the 2022 World Cup football tournament in Qatar during the height of summer, FIFA’s medical chief has announced that he is not thrilled with the idea. Michel D’Hooghe told The Associated Press that while he has received strong assurances that the solar-powered stadiums and training facilities [...]
By appointing the Chief Executive Officer of the country’s leading renewable energy initiative as Minister of State, the oil and gas rich United Arab Emirates sends a very clear message to its own people and the world that they are serious about cleaning up their overall energy portfolio. Last week the UAE rearranged its cabinet, [...]
SunDwater’s solar powered water distiller can convert polluted water like this into clean drinking water Chronic and even acute shortages of fresh drinking water is one of the developing world’s most serious issues today; especially in areas torn by internal conflict such as Syria. A number of viable methods for making water potable have been [...]
Suntech’s financial woes may have an effect on solar energy plant projects like this one Suntech Solar, the Chinese solar panel manufacturing company that became involved in a number of Middle East solar energy projects, including deals to sell home solar panels in Israel and a bid for Abu Dhabi’s Masdar City’s Nour 1 solar energy [...]
The Shams 1 Concentrated Solar Plant (CSP) in Abu Dhabi is the largest of its kind in the world and it has finally gone live. Green Prophet visited the 100MW plant in the western region of the United Arab Emirates earlier this year as part of a Masdar-sponsored media tour during the World Future Energy [...]
Libya has long relied on its crude oil resources for revenue, but the country possesses a natural resource far more abundant and hardly tapped at all: sun. Nearly 90 percent of the country is comprised of sun-drenched desert or semi desert and only 1.03 percent of the land is arable. Match this with solar irradiation that [...]
We all had so much hope for Jordan’s Solar Mamas – two women who traveled from a dusty village to India in order to become “solar engineers.” During their six month training, they learned to install and maintain small-scale solar systems back home and proceeded, upon their return, to implement 80 of them back home. [...]
First Solar has until recently participated as an associate partner of the Dii initiative designed to develop renewable energy projects throughout the Middle East and North Africa for eventual evacuation to Europe. But now one of the world’s most prolific renewable energy producers has taken on a more serious role as shareholder. Particularly well poised [...]
Cairo’s traffic is the stuff of legends. It’s easy to spend hours in total gridlock while trying to get from one side of the city to the other, with people honking and shouting. Then there is the smog that spews from aging vehicles. But what to do about this economic, personal and social hazard? [...]