Some projects that cross my desk are blatantly not as “green” as their investors want us to believe, yet have many redeeming qualities. Take Al Hamra Real Estate’s breakout mega-development, Falcon Island. It’s slated for construction in Ras-al-Khaimah, the emirate north of Dubai, and it’s going gangbusters with solar energy.
Tesla’s Elon Musk has made serious inroads to implement widespread use of electric vehicles, but he’s also got a hand in one of the most important solar energy deals of the century. Last week SolarCity purchased Silevo in New York in order to significantly scale up production of super efficient, high quality solar panels.
Researchers from Duke University in the United States warned that planet Earth is on the brink of a mass extinction event comparable to the one that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
What’s the best way to get a nation of increasingly obese residents to embrace a healthier life? Host a World Cup and build a bunch of awesome sports clubs. Having secured 2022, the Qatar Olympic Committee has now commissioned Grimshaw Architects to install green recreational facilities throughout the emirate.
Dream of fresh organic food? Have little land in your town or city but plenty of patience? There is a new city gardening movement called aquaponics or AP. The movement is creating missionaries, new converts and maybe even some gurus, but there are also real people doing it in backyards, parks, basements or a garage near you.
Ocean acidification has reached record levels, so the deep-pocketed Board of XPRIZE are at it again – using “incentivization” to spark technological breakthroughs to “benefit humanity”. They’re holding out a pair of $1 million carrots to tempt everyone to conjure up a better sensor to measure ocean acidification – a malady caused by our continual pumping of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
A quarter of all that gas gets absorbed by the oceans, changing the water chemistry – making it more acidic, with dire consequences.
“A good number of ocean scientists say ocean acidification is the biggest threat to ocean health,” Paul Bunje, the lead scientist behind the ocean health prize, told Live Science. It threatens aquatic ecosystems, in turn harming sea-life. Seem a far-away problem? Consider the knock-on impact to our bellies and wallets, as acidification destroys fisheries and tourism sites that depend on thriving marine ecosystems.
Technology for gauging acidification is inadequate or expensive. “Because of the under-investment in ocean science and research, there aren’t enough tools present to measure what’s happening in the sea,” said Bunje. “We’ve mapped the dark side of the moon and Mars to higher resolution than the bottom of the ocean.”
Enter the folks at XPRIZE. Last September they launched the Wendy Schmidt Ocean Health XPrize to incite development of either the most accurate or the most affordable ocean pH sensors. Anyone can compete, and teams or individuals can register for the competition until June 30.
The competition has three phases. In September, teams will be allowed three months to lab-test their devices. In February, trials will be held at the Seattle Aquarium in Washington state.
Finally, in spring 2015, finalists will test their devices off the coast of Hawaii, at depths of nearly 10,000 feet – 50% deeper than any pH sensor has ever been tested.
Seventy teams from 19 countries have registered so far, ranging from academics, commercial enterprise, home tinkerers and high school clubs. You still have time to get in on the action!
XPRIZE is an innovation engine led by visionaries that include Elon Musk, James Cameron, Larry Page, Arianna Huffington, and Ratan Tata. Founded in 1996 by entrepreneur Peter Diamandis, this non-profit conducts public competitions to encourage technological development for the good of the planet.
According to their website, they believe that tapping into the “indomitable spirit of competition brings about breakthroughs and solutions that once seemed unimaginable.”
Rather than throwing money at a problem, they incentivize solutions and challenge the world to solve it. Contest themes are audacious but achievable, and tied to measurable goals.
An earlier X Challenge, prompted by the 2010 BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, was a $1.4 million competition to develop better technology for cleaning up oil spills. The winning team developed a solution that was four times better than the industry standard, Bunje said. They plan on launching more competitions focused on ocean health.
“By 2020, we could move away from an unhealthy state and be on an unstoppable path to healthy oceans,” Bunje said.
Starbucks recently announced a plan to rollout access to wireless charging technology developed by Israel’s Powermat — in all stores across the United States.
As part of an effort to rescue certain Israeli cities from urban decay, the Ayalim Association has built a series of ‘student villages’ throughout the country. The latest in the hard-scrabble city of Lod, not far from Israel’s interntional airport, has been constructed out of recycled shipping containers, and will be inaugurated on 8 July, 2014.
How green are Israeli cities, really? This question might be asked by many; especially in light of its largest city, Tel Aviv (see photo), becoming so polluted that a tiny electric vehicle rental program is being tried out in an effort to reduce air pollution. Ground water in Tel Aviv and other parts of the country is polluted as well.
A local Iranian activist group Tavana is reporting that 40 notorious hunters from Iran have publicly given up the hunt. The stunning display of “gun bashing” Middle East style was caught on TV.
Theo Jansen transforms plastic bottles and conduit into skeletal frames – complete with movable joints, wings, and bellies – that are able to walk powered only by wind.
This modern-day Frankenstein has toiled for decades to create life from the inanimate; he sources his materials from building supply stores and recycling depots, not graveyards.
Jansen’s critters have no productive function, they simply are. A philosophical question arises from his melding of art and technology: why is aimless existence oddly unsettling?
Since 1990, Jansen has been building his “strandbeests” using inexpensive plastic tubing. His first prototypes of wind-walkers have evolved into a pack of artificially intelligent machines that can respond to their natural habitat.
Over the decades, the designs have better adapted to their beachfront environment, able to survive storms and “sense” tidal changes. His machines react to the changing weather and control their own movements.They have jointed legs, which are more efficient than wheels when traversing sandy plains. They’ve developed new appendages to better harness the wind; first using simple sails to power the critters along the beachfront, next using rotating wings, now using recycled plastic bottle “stomachs” to store energy (in the form of air pressure) for days when breezes are scarce.Speaking in a BMW television commercial, Jansen (he was formally trained as a physicist) said, “The walls between art and engineering exist only in our minds.”
YouTube features video of Jansen making strandbeests, and also clips of the fully-formed figures in action on a beach near his home in Delft. (Most cameo the inventor and his sidekick white pup.)
Could these animals be domesticated? Not as pets (too enormous for human companionship – plus they could never be house-trained) – but possibly as working animals? Re-jigger them to sweep up litter from Abu Dhabi’s and Doha’s Corniche; or pop on some solar collectors so they can act as charging stations for all the tech in our Red Sea/Dead Sea beach bags.
Maybe allow these self-propelling beach critters to become part of the natural order, and quietly enjoy their presence. Their creepiness subsides. The graceful motion and quietude mesmerizes. Ever see a plastic bag dance quietly in a gust of wind? It’s magic when the weird becomes wonderful.
Israel’s dubious meat industry gets more sickening: we’ve already covered exposes of poultry fed with feces and pumped with toxic contaminants. Now it’s all about beef and how it’s frozen, treated laundry style and then resold as fresh.
Qatar Solar Energy has unveiled a massive factory that will produce high quality solar panels that make the most of the desert sun, a boon not just for the emirate, but potentially for the entire Middle East.
An important business community in Bnei Brak (Ramat Gan) outside of Tel Aviv has been made toxic by an asbestos fire that broke out last Wednesday. The asbestos fire, which ended up smouldering for days, took place in a one-story building with an asbestos roof that was used to store tires, clothing and electric bicycles.
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