Saudi Arabia has no intention of falling out of power when its oil runs out, which is why the kingdom has backed a potentially “game-changing” solar cell project in Canada. Already the Gulf country has diversified its energy portfolio by building solar energy projects such as the 500-kilowatt plant located on Farasan Island – a sure sign that its leaders are preparing for peak-oil, which is expected to affect the world population as soon as next year.

But if we have any chance of off-setting the worst effects of climate change and saving our species from extinction, solar technology has to outstrip the cost and convenience of fossil fuels and nuclear. Canada Research Chair in nanotechnology Ted Sargent has persuaded Saudi that his postage stamp-sized solar cells have significant potential. The kingdom is so convinced, in fact, they have given him $10 million to perfect this tiny technology, which is painted with quantum dots.

Cutting out coal

The Middle East and North Africa have enough solar energy to power the world three times over, but tapping into that energy is not so easy. At the recent Desertec Conference in Cairo, we discovered that Concentrated Solar Power technology which requires water to cool its turbines is completely inappropriate for water-scarce environments, and the cost of developing photovoltaic and other solar technology is slowing down the process of implementing these technologies quickly enough to mitigate the effects of carbon emissions in our atmosphere.

But according to the Vancouver Sun, Sargent’s solar cell could change all of that. For a maximum of $20, he and his research team can apply a special paint containing quantum dots on as much as 3.28 square feet of solar cells. When the sun hits the electrons present in this paint, it excites them, creating energy.

PhD student Illan Kramer told the paper that they are able to manipulate the cells to optimize their performance. “By changing their size, we can change the colour and type of light they absorb,” he said. Nor is the team restricted to harvesting energy from visible light, since the quantum dots are excited by energy in infrared light as well, from which half of the earth’s solar energy is sourced.

Harvesting solar contact

This project does not come without drawbacks. At present the cells are only able to capture energy from roughly 6% of the light that bounces off them. This is partly because the energy created needs an appropriate exit that is prevented by any kind of impurity or space, creating a blockage.

Although an improvement from the 0% of energy harvested when Sargent first conceived this idea several years ago, it won’t be a genuine game-changer until the postage stamp sized cell is able to use at least 10% of the energy with which it comes into contact.

Saudi’s energy hegemony

After that, the applications of this technology are nearly limitless. Sargent told the Vancouver Sun that it sees a future in which electronics, cars and rooftops will be coated with this special paint, and even wide swaths of desert. Saudi has recently announced plans to license this technology, presumably to maintain its hegemony in the energy world.

This time, they won’t be looking to fossil fuels to maintain the wealth behind such absurd projects as the world’s newest tallest tower. They’ll be peering into the sun instead.

:: Vancouver Sun

After Obama’s failure to return Jimmy Carter’s solar panels to the White House roof, the court of HH Mohammed bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan – the ruler of one of the world’s most oil-rich nations – was recently crowned with an array of active photovoltaic panels. Technically, the U.S. was ahead of the game. In 1979, after the Arab oil embargo, Jimmy Carter added solar panels to the White House roof and developed an impressive renewable energy research program in order to secure the country’s energy future.

By 1986, however, Ronald Reagan undid Carter’s vision by removing the panels and slashing funding to the Department of Energy’s R&D program. Instead of supporting green alternatives, the former president put America’s full weight behind fossil fuels.

In order to redeem Reagan’s faux pas, environmental activists led by Bill McKibben (who was since arrested for his green activism) returned the original panels to the White House in September last year. But Obama – despite his campaign promises to advance environmental initiatives – turned down the opportunity to put them back up on the roof. And now oil-rich Abu Dhabi has surpassed the United States’ symbolic support for renewable energy programs with the court’s new grid-connected solar panels – a slap in the face for the “world’s most powerful country.”

Construction Week Online reports that the Gulf International Trading Group was commissioned to undertake the Crown Prince’s photovoltaic installation. That task was completed in record time, and the panels have been connected to Abu Dhabi’s Department of Electricity and Water Authority’s main generator.

Not only did Al Nahyan install solar panels on the court’s roof as a symbolic gesture, but the array is already feeding energy back into the grid. This move is just one step the Emirate has taken to fulfill its 2030 plan to become “THE sustainable capital of the world.”

Eventually, even more municipal buildings throughout Abu Dhabi will be fitted with solar panels that can harvest energy from the sun, which burns year-round in this desert country.

Connecting the court’s solar energy supply to Abu Dhabi’s grid falls under the Masdar and ADEWA umbrella.

If oil sheikdoms are advancing their renewable energy programs at breakneck pace, then surely that should be a wakeup call for the United States? Instead of messing around with the Keystone Pipeline, which scientists believe will sign humanity’s collective death sentence, and kowtowing to big oil, just put the panels back on the roof and get on with it. For everybody’s sake.

:: Construction Week Online

More on Abu Dhabi’s renewable vision:

Abu Dhabi will be more Livable than Dubai

EXCLUSIVE: Masdar City Open House Photos

500 Solar-Powered Recycling Units Promote Abu Dhabi’s Conservation Culture

A student researcher at the University of Toronto has exposed a draconian shut-down of climate science in Canada. This is a first for Canada - an advanced democracy, but a democracy that has the resource-curse of vast oil sands potential. James Birch does research in a thirty person lab focused on climate change research and adaptations headed by Dr. Brad Bass, the co-recipient of the IPCC Nobel Prize for climate science.

Birch and his fellow student researchers have decided to go public, to get word out to voters, because climate scientists including Dr. Bass have had their jobs shut down and have been silenced.  Writing to Clean Break Birch says that the professional climate scientists heading up the climate science labs have been forbidden to speak out.

“Our scientists have been muzzled, and their ability to go to press has become tightly managed by a new “media relations office” put forth by the Harper Government” says Birch.

Dr. Bass is among many other Environment Canada scientists who have had their jobs cut by the Harper government, yet, because of the complete muzzling of Environment Canada scientists, the Canadian voter is as unaware of this fact as US voters were of the extreme silencing of US scientists under Cheney and Bush. In fact, what is happening in Canada is even worse. Even Bush did not fire our leading climate scientists. We cannot just shoot the messenger.

“Over the past several months we have seen major cuts to Environment Canada that are leaving it without any real scientific or research power. We have seen many prominent scientific jobs cut, research funding slashed, and our ability to effectively do environmental assessment and management largely neutralized”.

“The tools and researchers necessary in order to adequately measure the consequences of the Athabasca Tar Sands are presently in a questionable state of limbo,” Birch says. He is brave to come forward with this information, as it must shortchange any possible future he himself might expect in climate science, after some years invested in the university level education to get to the position he is in in a lab headed by a Nobel-prize winning IPCC scientist.

This draconian move on the part of the conservative Harper government is so extreme that it has even received censure from one of its own party members.

“Environment Canada is now “open for business” – you may now hire their award-winning scientists at will, privatize their research and keep them from working in the public interest,” says conservative MP, Tony Clement.

Under the tar-sands-friendly conservative policy of the Harper government, new budget cuts “will effectively leave Environment Canada powerless and effectively useless.”

For Israel, which recently discovered oil, the lesson is clear. Even a real democracy like Canada can be corrupted by the Resource Curse. American politics have already been corrupted, and the effects are felt worldwide, as we have covered here, for example: American Elections Are Bad For The Nile Delta

Read more on Climate Change:

Leviathan Gas Discovery Could be The Mother of All Resource Curses
Climate Change Denial and the Climate of Fear
Dear Global Clean Energy Sector, Please Truth-Bomb the US Voter

Renault and Nissan, who happen to be partner auto companies, and who both are developing electric cars the Fluence and the Leaf, came out with the same clever advertisement: “What if everything we use ran on gas?” The ads are designed to coincide with the launching of both the Renault EV series of electric cars and Nissan’s Leaf, which is currently not scheduled to be introduced into the Middle East. The Renault Fluence electric model, with the help of  the Better Place electric car technology company, is about to begin selling in Israel by late summer.

Electric car charging posts will one day replace gas pumps

The clever Nissan and Renault advertisements showed people what it would be like if items currently powered by electricity were powered by gasoline engines instead.

Watching people shaving or drying their hair with shavers or dryers powered by smoke belching gasoline motors, is enough to make you retch.

This also is true for large offices where all the computers, copy machines, telephones, and other  appliances  we take for granted as being powered by electricity were powered by fossil fuels instead. The noise and smoke is enough to drive you mad.

The clincher of these, of course is to tell people that since electricity plays such an important part of our lives to run all these appliances, why not use this clean quieter power source to power the cars we drive as well.

What the ad doesn’t tell you, however, is that  fossil fuels, including natural gas  still produces most electricity. Nuclear energy, another widely used electricity fuel source showed everyone  its tragic consequences by  the meltdown of three nuclear reactors at a nuclear power plant in Japan .

But this issue is not at the forefront of either Renault or Nissan’s efforts to put thousands of electric cars on the roads of Europe or Japan in the next few years. What produces that electricity will hopefully one day be coming from renewable energy sources, most likely the sun.

Watch the ads below. They are fun!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Read more on Nissan and Renault electric cars:
Turning Another Leaf in the Middle East
The Middle East Will Remain Leaf-Less
Better Place EV’s Priced at $35,623 for Summer Delivery
GM’s Volt vs the Renault-Nissan Better Place Edition

As popular uprisings continue to spread in Middle East, rising food costs for stable crops like rice and wheat cannot be ignored as underlying factors in the political unrest. In a region where Islam and anti-Westernism are usually blamed for driving populist politics, the impact of the global food crisis, combined with rising unemployment, may have surfaced unexpectedly in these countries, but not without warning.

According to Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the Arab world imports more than 50 percent of the food consumed and is the largest net importer of cereal in the world, larger than Asia. The same source reports 31 million of hungry people in the Arab countries, which translates to 10 percent of the total population.

Although the disparity in access to food among the 22 countries of the Arab League is wide and uneven, even oil-rich GCC countries are vulnerable. A study by NCB Capital, an offshoot of Saudi Arabia’s largest bank, National Commercial Bank, estimates that food imports account for more than 70 per cent of the total Arab farm imports in 2008.

The agricultural sector accounts for one to four per cent of the GCC’s gross domestic product, significantly lower than its 10–15 per cent contribution in relatively more water-rich Middle East nations such as Egypt and Turkey and 15–20 per cent in India and China.

Reports expect a surge in the food import bill by the GCC nations in the coming years because of investment in overseas farm ventures, the limited agricultural potential at home, low investment in the agricultural sector and rapid growth in the domestic population. This is exacerbated by an absence of unified Arab action to develop agricultural exports while farm subsidies to farmers have decreased as the prices of agricultural inputs have gone up.

In sum, the recent events in North Africa are a reminder that the Arab world is suffering acute food shortage and a future of increased food insecurity. Even the GCC countries are not immune. It would be very difficult to foresee a scenario that would eliminate food insecurity in the Arab countries.

However, as part of a broader regional and global food security plan, improved agricultural techniques would help contain the resulting food insecurity gap. Less than 1% of the value of agricultural production is allocated to scientific research in Arab nations, compared with 2.4% in developed countries. Relevant research into protected agriculture, solar energy for desalinization and greenhouse hydroponics for example have the potential to enhance domestic food self-sufficiency in the GCC countries.

As the Food and Agriculture Organization’s Food Price Index touched its highest level in January, the events of the Middle East are reminders of the urgent need for massive new investment in sustainable agriculture to provide adequate food for all.

More on Middle East-North Africa fragility:
Rising Food Prices Behind Riots in Algeria and Tunisia
Climate Change Killing the First Crops in the Cradle of Civilization
Egypt To Grab Sudanese Land To Meet Its Wheat Needs

Image via 770

Green software from Israel, Solergy’s Israeli CEO, Egyptian gas in Israel, and more headlines related to Israeli cleantech and the environment.

The water crisis in Israel, the Palestinian Territories, and Jordan will reach a point where they are likely to solve it together in the future, predicted an Indian think tank in a report released earlier this week . Israeli solar energy company SolarEdge was among Red Herring’s Global 100 2010 winners and Israel is planning to invest billions of dollars into testing alternatives to oil in Israel.  For these stories and the rest of this week’s headlines, see below.

Environment
‘Green’ software saves money and trees
“Offices on four continents are using Israeli company Preton’s products to reduce paper and ink use as well as their carbon footprint…”

Solar
Italy’s Solergy Headed by Israeli From the Global Village
“Reared in California by Israeli parents, and married to an Italian wife, Yoav Banin speaks to his two young sons in Hebrew while raising them in Rome. This 38-year-old trilingual Silicon Valley veteran is co-founder and chief executive officer of Solergy, founded in 2007 to create and manufacture advanced concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) technology. Using optics to focus sunlight over 500 times onto special photovoltaic cells, CPV increases solar energy conversion efficiency while reducing the amount of expensive materials that often hamper the practicality of this field…”

SolarEdge Technologies Wins the Red Herring Global 100 Award 2010
“SolarEdge Technologies, an innovative provider of distributed solar power harvesting and PV monitoring solutions, today announced that it has received the Red Herring Global 100 award. The honor recognizes the leading private companies from North America, Europe, and Asia, celebrating their innovations and technologies across their respective industries…”

Water
‘Israel in worst shape for water resources in Mideast’
“An Indian thinktank, Strategic Foresight Group, released a report Saturday that claims that Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian territories are in the worst shape in the Middle East with clean water resources, citing a 500-700 million cubic meter water deficit each. Middle Eastern counties will have no choice to cooperate as water resources in the region dwindle causing shortages, the report said…”

In Israel
Israel’s cleantech mega-plan
“”The global interest in Israel’s energy R&D and technology is out of all proportion to the size of the country,” says Dr. Eli Opper, former Chief Scientist and now chairman of the Eureka High Level Group (HLG). Israel currently holds the chairmanship of Eureka, the European R&D program, of which more than 40 countries are members…”

How Israel Will Lead The Search For Oil Substitutes (And How The Rest Of The World Is Watching)
“Long considered leaders of R&D and Clean Technology, particularly in the fields of water desalination and solar energy technology, Israel has now set firm sights on leading the shift away from oil dependence. Between now and 2020, the tiny country intends to spend NIS 14 billion (US $ 3.82 billion) to help innovators and researchers test viable alternatives to oil. And while often slow to implement their own technology, cooperation with Europe may change that…”

EGYPT’S GAS SUPPLY TO ISRAEL TO RESUME NEXT WEEK
“Egypt’s supply of natural gas to Israel will resume flowing next week, the Egyptian gas company E-gas has announced…”

Environmental Minister Choose Greening Israel Over UN Post
“Israel’s Environmental Protection Minister Gilad Erdan turned down an opportunity to represent Israel as ambassador to the United Nations, according to a Jerusalem Post report…”

Missed last week’s headlines edition? Catch up on Israel’s water crisis, its desalination production plan, ZenithSolar’s demo in Australia, and more.

Image via Wayne National Forest.

Unlike many other Gulf countries, Dubai is not blessed (or cursed, according to some) with fountains of fossil fuels. As such, the Emirate must import the power that provides customers with electricity and desalinated water.

Consumers, perhaps disconnected from the source of their energy, consume more than most countries in the world. But that is about to change since Dubai’s Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) has added an additional 15% to electricity and water bills, and will also include a new fuel charge. Though consumers are likely to feel jilted, DEWA hopes the move will cut down on unnecessary consumption and waste.

During the summer of 2010, Dubai’s electricity consumption was 9.6% higher than the previous summer, and its water consumption 5.9% higher. Residents throughout the UAE consume up to 55o liters ever day.

According to researchers, that consumption will continue to grow exponentially by 10% until 2013.

In order to offset the increased fuel charges associated with such demand, Nejib Zaafrain, CEO of Dubai’s Supreme Council of Energy, made the decision to pass on some of those costs to consumers, according to The National.

The prices will be particularly high during peak hours, in order to encourage decreased consumption during that time.

An energy and environment commentator based in Dubai, Vahid Fotuhi notes that these prices are still lower than the UK, US, France, Germany and Japan, and therefore within international standards. Nevertheless, anticipating a public outcry, he offers recommendations for reducing both water and energy consumption.

• Take shorter showers;
• Turn off the air-conditioning when outside of the home;
• Turn the refrigerator down to 2/3 or b/c setting (three degrees Celsius for the fridge and zero for the freezer);
• Use the air-dry setting on dishwashers – this will reduce consumption by 20%;
• Install energy efficient light bulbs that use 1/4 the energy and last 12 times as long as older bulbs;
• Install a smarter irrigation system for gardens, or, better yet, plant desert-friendly plants that also offer shade (such as the date palm.)

This combined with Abu Dhabi’s turn-it-off campaign signal a strong turn towards greater accountability and more responsible use of natural resources.

:: The National

More energy and water news from Dubai:

Dubai’s Foul Ecology At Jumeirah Islands

How to wash your car in a water scarce desert? Ecowash M.E.

Nuclear-powered Water for The UAE?

image via Frerieke

Petroleum and the refined products made from it –– gasoline and diesel fuel –– are not the only main polluters to our environment. Gas stations, including those sparkling new ones being erected in Israel, are now being seen as one of the major polluters to Israel’s soil and ground water, and are now being charged by the Environment Ministry as failing to divulge information on the amount of soil and ground water pollution being caused by leakage of petroleum based products into the earth.

According to the ministry’s investigation in the Jerusalem Post 93% of the gas stations built before 1997 were found to be contaminated, while at a third of the gas stations, the groundwater had been polluted as well.

Petroleum based fuels have been the subject of environmental studies for some time. Even though newer gas station, like those of the Dor Alon Energy Company, have tried to clean up their energy act by building more modern and less polluting gas stations, but the pollution from older ones is still in the groundwater and soil under which  many these stations still stand.

The air and ground pollution issue in a small country like Israel has reached a stage that new rules issued by the international Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) have been issued regarding pollution caused by both industrial and private factors, including that by automobiles and public transport.  In order for Israel to maintain a membership in this prestigious organization, anti pollution standards will have to be maintained; including that caused by the petroleum industry.

Israel’s military is already in the process to trying to be less polluting on army bases, as well as in the field. This is proving to be not so easy a task as the IDF’s carbon and ecological “footprint” on Israel’s environment is often said to be one of the biggest contributors to environmental damage.

US gas station in the Good Old Days

Automobile service stations got their start in America during the 1930s and by the time of the 1950s were already a large network that offered cheap fuel, full service, and even a variety of auto repairs and maintenance.

Israel’s equivalent came about much later; but also offered repairs, oil changes, and other types of services. It was the result of these “services” that much of the pollution  came about, due to dirty oil from oil changes often finding its way into sewage drains and sometimes right into the ground.

Make it electric?

Israel’s “evolution” into more modern self-service type of gas or petrol stations came about even later, compared to North America or even most European countries. Like the country’s communications networks (telephone service, internet networks, etc), Israel’s gas stations have come a long way; and Dor Alon will soon be offering battery exchange services for the Better Place electric car network.

With the inclusion of “service” for electric vehicles, the environmental upgrading of even ordinary gas stations should follow suit as cars will also use alternative fuels like hydrogen and liquefied natural gas. These new energy innovations may finally enable gas stations to clean up their environment act.

::Alon Company Ltd.

More articles on fossil fuel and other pollution issues in Israel:

Israel’s Army Makes Advances in Green, But Victory Comes First

Israel Can do More Than Clean Tech to Reduce Regional Carbon Footprint

Israel’s Polluters Face New OECD Rules

Image via trekearth

On Sunday, Israel made a public NIS2.2 billion (US$0.6 billion) commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. That announcement came just days after Rupert Murdoch and Lord Jacob Rothschild bought shares in Genie Oil & Gas Inc., whose subsidiary Israel Energy Initiatives (IEI) was granted license by the Ministry of Infrastructure to proceed with oil shale exploration.

The pair proclaimed that extracting not only Israel’s shale oil, but that of America’s Green River Formation – the world’s largest reserve – would put international energy on a new stage. A western stage, complete with powerful spotlights. This insane chicken dance – two steps forward and a mile back – underscores the challenges facing the renewable energy industry, a challenge that the Interim Director of the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) understands all too well.

The Kenyan economist Adrian Amin, who accepted his role as Interim Director of the Abu-Dhabi based agency last month, presented his immediate goals to a team of journalists on Monday.

Amidst the cautious-pessimism of Cancun’s climate change talks and unabated fossil fuel development, the agency aims to establish priorities and mid-term strategies to hasten the speed with which renewable energy programs are implemented.

He notes that Irena will not necessarily implement renewable energy projects, but will rather create a forum for sharing ideas, and even map international solar and wind resources so that countries well-endowed will be empowered to capitalize on their nature-given resources.

Already he has held discussions with the World Meteorological Organization that maintains an exhaustive compilation of one hundreds years of wind velocity and solar radiation data, according to The National.

He lamented that international subsidies to the global tune of $500 billion lavished on the fossil-fuel industry creates the largest impediment to an internationally competitive renewable energy program. This despite the urgent knowledge that energy is responsible for 60% of Greenhouse Gas Emissions.

By doling out such subsidies, renewable programs can barely break ground to compete with artificially low energy prices. The oil industry has such a powerful hold on governments – and it’s an understandable hold given a planet accustomed to round the clock light and mobility – but it is folly to stab at the dark with half-hearted emissions cuts while still pursuing a relentless carbon addiction.

Irena will examine all kinds of energy alternatives, including nuclear, which Mr. Amin said has become a safer alternative. In the meantime, governments should create a regulatory environment that no longer awards oil-nosers, but lets in a little wind as well!

:: image and story via The National

More about the International Renewable Energy Agency:

Saudi Arabia Seeks to Join International Renewable Energy Group

Reporting An Obvious Absence from the World Future Energy Summit

Israeli Minister Heads to Abu Dhabi Renewable Energy IRENA Meeting

Despite Bill McKibben’s pleas to reduce the amount of carbon in our atmosphere to 350 parts per million, or face serious consequences, and despite the myriad innovations worldwide aimed at shrinking our dependence on fossil fuels, Saudi Aramco’s President and CEO insists that not only are fossil-fuels here to stay, but he intends to increase production. Khalid A. Al Falih claims lifestyle changes coupled with population surges will ensure an increase of the world’s energy needs of nearly 40% by 2030. However, a separate report leaked from one of their military thinktanks reveals that the Germans are preparing themselves for “peak oil,” and a resulting cascade of dramatic world changes.

World Energy Conference

Mr. Al-Falih explained at the 21st World Energy Conference held in Montreal that Saudi Aramco has 80 years production under its belt.

“He further added that Aramco’s capability went even beyond, as it was expecting to increase its current reserves of 260 billion barrels by an additional 40 percent and was endeavoring to raise the rate of recovery from its major existing fields to 70 percent -– twice the world average,” according to Arab News.

But Mr. Al-Falih laments that the annual growth of coal consumption has grown by 4.5% whereas oil consumption has only grown by 1.5%. This demonstrates to him an unfair and illogical disposition towards coal despite climate change and growing energy demands.

In an effort to mitigate harmful emissions, Saudi Aramco has invested heavily in a technology that pushes CO2 back into reservoirs.

“This technology not only protects the environment through carbon capture, but also boosts energy by enhancing ultimate recovery rates from (existing) oil reservoirs,” said the company’s CEO.

At the same conference, “IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates chairperson, Daniel Yergin, said global energy demand would rise as much as 40% in the next 20 years,” according to Arab News.

In that same time frame, he said the global economy will double.

Bundeswehr

Meanwhile, an internal draft leaked from the Future Analysis Department of the Bundeswehr Transformation Center paints a much bleaker picture.

They expect “peak oil” – a term that describes the point at which global supplies of oil reach their peak and then begin to decline thereafter – to happen as early this year by some accounts. If that were to occur, the thinktank authors led by Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Will expect some of the following consequences to ensue:

A decline of the importance of the West

Irreversible depletion of raw materials

A global shift of the balance of power

Total collapse of the markets

New inter-dependencies based on energy requirements

These two separate reports show remarkably different scenarios; even if Saudi Arabia still has a strong supply, the German report warns of an overall decline.

Perhaps the Shell representative at the World Energy Congress said it best:

“In a world of surging demand, we need to mobilize the world’s entire mix of energy resources, unless indeed we want to risk condemning billions of people to energy poverty, underlined Peter Voser, the CEO of the Royal Dutch Shell plc.”

:: Arab News and Der Spiegel

image via gas 2.0

More energy news in the Middle East:

Dubai Gas Stations Running Out of Gas

Barge Sinks In The Nile, Releasing 110 Tonnes Of Diesel Fuel

Egypt’s Long Path to Nuclear Power