Crazy idea keeping you up at night? Are you a solver of problems with worldwide impact? Would your innovation benefit from expert mentoring? Join the Innovation Tournament If so, grab your entrepreneurial lance and take aim at this opportunity to participate in a worldwide challenge; gain guidance from international business experts; attract elusive project funding; and […]
Israeli students won a prestigious award for designing a portable, solar-powered water treatment system that anyone can use. Confronted with dire shortages that are shared by Jordan, the Palestinian territories, and just about every other nation in the MENA region, Israeli scientists are considered to be among the top producers of water treatment and saving […]
Eventually the paper you write on could come from a loo near you thanks to the company Applied Clean Tech. We’ve reported earlier than Applied Clean Tech is creating fuel with every flush. Now the same company has developed a system that makes paper from sewage, Ynet News reports. Dr. Refeal Aharon from Applied Clean Tech […]
Saudi researchers have produced a potato-powered battery that could be commercially available within the next year! Taking cues from a 2010 paper published by Israeli and American researchers that showed the benefits of potato-powered batteries in rural areas, a Saudi researcher produced an even more efficient potato cell that could be commercially available within the next year. Professor of […]
Daniella Dimitrova Russo from the Plastic Pollution Coalition warns that bioplastics will not solve plastic pollution. Plastic pollution is one of the major issues facing our planet today. Plastic bags festoon trees in Ras Al Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates, and along the streets of New York, USA. Plastic washes up on the beaches […]
Spectrums: CFL (top) has mercury’s characteristic violet and green. Incandescent (middle) spectrum is smooth with strong reds (warm). LED (bottom) has a bright peak in blue. If only there were a light bulb as efficient as a compact fluorescent light (CFL), but without the ghastly green light and brain-eating toxic mercury. Am I asking too […]
Food miles explained: I know the best option is to grow and buy locally. But when that isn’t possible, what is the least worse option? It was like one of those weird trivia quizzes, What do these places have in common: Israel, Egypt, Chile and the United States? The answer is that berries from these countries were […]
We speak to Karim Elgendy, founder of the Middle East sustainability initiative ‘Carboun’ about what motivates his work and why green ratings for buildings aren’t a silver bullet Last month, Carboun an advocacy initiative promoting sustainability in the Middle East celebrated its second anniversary. Headed by Karim Elgendy they have certainly come a long way in very […]
German wind turbine manufacturer Nordex will construct eleven 2.5 MW turbines for the Tektuğ Elektrik Group’s first wind project. This autumn, on a mountain ridge in southeastern Turkey’s Adiyaman province, construction will begin on the 27.5 MW “Sincik” wind energy farm, Nordex announced today. It will be the flagship wind energy project of the Tektuğ Elektrik […]
Egyptians researchers believe that sugar beets like those pictured above can help to clear the country’s stockpile of land mines. 20% of the world’s land mines are planted in Egypt, where they have killed or maimed a total of more than 7,000 people in the last 25 years. They are scattered in the western desert […]
Water from air! AC water conversion and treatment unit illustration. Photo: Watergen Ltd A while ago I wrote about the possibility of creating drinking or agricultural usage water from the cooling coil condensation from air conditioners. This idea has been around for years, and has in the past been met with more than its share of […]
People who live in Mideastern coastal cities might understand the despair expressed in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner: “Water, water every where, and nor any drop to drink.” The poem details the effects of saltwater and thirst on marooned sailors. The ancient mariner hangs an albatross around his neck as an act […]
A town in the Jezreel Valley, Israel prefers its weather sunny, and not only for clear blue skies and golden sunshine. Over 70 percent of the rooftops in Ram-On, a small picturesque town in Israel’s north, are covered in Germany-based Aleo Solar photovoltaic panels for a total capacity of 1,250 kW that both powers the town […]
Israel’s vast and dry southern Negev desert may actually help the country go green and just in time for the country’s 2020 10% renewables goal. At the Eilat-Eilot Forum for Renewable Energy Policy last week, energy experts discussed a recent report, still in draft form, of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, called Cleantech […]
This machine cleans waste water and generates energy at the same time. Researchers from Pennsylvania State University have developed technology that treats waste water and generates energy at the same time – two priorities for Middle Eastern municipalities. Combining Reverse Electrodialysis (RED) technology developed in the Netherlands and Norway, which harvests energy where fresh water […]
Israel tops the global clean tech charts once again! A recent report compiled by Cleantech Group and the World Wildlife Fund shows that Israel is only behind Denmark in terms of its clean tech prowess. The tiny country beat out Sweden, Finland, the United States and other leading national innovators. Called “Coming Clean: The Global Cleantech […]
10,000 years after inventing agriculture, will we 7 billion take this strange next step?
Do you keep a covered bucket in the kitchen for the organic garbage? If you do, you know only too well how awful it can smell. Hamamit, an Israeli supplier of greenhouses and composters, offers an odor-free home composter that turns kitchen scraps into dry compost in 18 hours.
Two fertilizer companies are funding R&D of cutting edge agricultural and energy innovations at a new pilot plant in Qatar. The Sahara Forest Project was borne out of a dire necessity to ensure the long term survival of residents living in the Middle East’s desert regions. 60 People from 12 countries have contributed research to […]
A solar-powered goat farm in Lebanon now enjoys clean energy around the clock while the rest of the country sits in darkness for up to 18 hours a day. Hasan Istaytiyyah was lucky to have six hours of state-run energy a day before he decided to install a solar photovoltaic system and ditch his dirty […]
Smart sockets explained. Lewis Strauss, Chairman of the US Atomic Energy Commission said this to a group of science writers in 1954: “Our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter…” While this comment is often given as an example of overly-optimistic technological predictions, electricity is incredibly inexpensive. Just look at […]
Sweat and Sahara sand had forced my eyes closed so that, even as I stood in front of one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, I saw nothing. My eyelids were a back-lit sandy-orange in the sun’s glare. I pried them open and squinted up at the shapes the pharaohs and their slaves had […]
The Stars of Science reality TV show would be so much more exciting if it spurred sustainable ideas. Perhaps we shouldn’t begrudge the Arab World’s first serious reality TV show, particularly since Stars of Science was designed to encourage more youth in the region to pursue science and technology. But it’s hard to turn a […]
Dubai-based couple develop proven green technologies guide for like-minded architects. There are more than 60 proven ways to harvest nature’s power and convert it into clean, renewable energy, but knowing where to find information about these various applications isn’t always so easy. Enter Robert Ferry and Elizabeth Monoian from the Land Art Generator Initiative. The […]
Palestinians living in Masafer Yatta who do not have access to the electrical grid have been developing home grown renewable energy plants. Palestinians living in the Masafer Yatta village have been secretly pursuing wind and solar energy projects in order to mitigate a serious shortfall of energy in the village. But the 150,000 residents that […]