Here in Amman, Jordan, personal mail gets delivered painfully slow to post office boxes rarely filled. My banking and bill-paying happens online and does anyone receive letters anymore? Recall those handwritten messages slipped into envelopes and slapped with a pretty stamp? There’s a paradox afoot that might bring them back from extinction.
Embracing Analog: Postcards From the Middle East
First Green-Roofed Urban Oasis Planned for Abu Dhabi
Albeit better than neighboring Dubai’s skyline of what renowned architect Frank Gehry calls “cheap” and “anonymous” architecture, Abu Dhabi has grown into a dense urban environment with precious few green spaces. The municipality aims to rectify that, however, starting with a 19,000 square foot green-roofed “urban oasis.”
Uncontrolled Garbage Threatens Lives in Syria
Amid the snipers, the rubble and the misery on many Syrian streets is another ugly phenomenon: garbage. In Adel’s* hometown of Janoub al Malaab, a district of Hama city, piles of waste give off an odour that is nearly unbearable.
If Gaza Goes Dry, Where Will All the People Go?
The United Nations has warned that the Gaza Strip, the small slice of land bordering Egypt and Israel that has been the scene of so much political tension, could be “uninhabitable” as soon as 2016 if serious action isn’t taken to address a chronic water shortage, The Independent reports. If that happens, where will its 1.6 million residents go?
My Israeli Street Cat Turns 13 – That’s Stray Longevity!
Life on the streets has never been easy for stray animals, especially in the Middle East where animals are often targets. There are stray dogs that get shot dead in Lebanon and stray dogs that kicked around in Jordan.
Ashalim is Israel’s Largest Concentrating Solar Power Plant
Spain’s super solar giant Abengoa has teamed up with Israel’s Shikun & Binui Renewable Energy (SKBN) to build a concentrating solar power plant in the Negev desert. When the company announced their win of the BOT tender of the Ashalim plant, they also claimed it will be the largest of its kind in the country.
The Negev desert comprises more than half of the entire country, which enjoys an annual solar irradiance of 2,000kWh per square meters.
That’s a lot of sun, and aside from Arava’s solar plants, a BrightSource pilot project, and a few other relatively small installations, this energy has gone largely untapped.
But now the Israeli government is stepping up its solar program with plans to ensure that by 2020, 10 percent of its overall energy mix will come from renewable sources.
Negev Energy, the new partnership between the Spanish and Israeli companies, will build and operate the 110 MW Parabolic Trough plant under a 25 year power purchase agreement. The energy they produce will sell for NIS0.76 per kilowatt hour, or $0.21.
Parabolic troughs are deployed less and less as photovoltaic cells become less costly, however the benefit of using this technology, which tracks the sun throughout the day to concentrate heat on a heat transfer fluid, is its ability to store the energy for use after dark.
Recall that Abengoa is the company behind the first solar power plant that can operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, regardless of weather conditions.
Although Israel doesn’t have much of an eco-conscience, seeing as it will do anything it can to get energy no matter how it comes, the Ashalim plant will divert 300,000 carbon dioxide emissions from the atmosphere every year once it is online.
Construction is expected to begin in 2014.
:: Bloomberg
More on Solar in the Negev:
Arava Power Signs Solar Deals with Negev Bedouins
Arava to Power One Third of Touristy Eilat
Zenith Solar Produces Dish That Concentrates the Light of a Thousand Suns
DESERTEC Leaves its Industrial Partner Dii
More setbacks for Middle East solar or the only way a big dream can move ahead? DESERTEC has canceled its commercial partnership to build a solar super-grid with Dii GmbH, according to a press release issued by DESERTEC.
World’s First ‘Tablet Cafe’ Circumvents Chronic Power Cuts
The world’s first tablet cafe has opened in Dakar and already Google’s latest experiment is turning out to be a major game changer. Bordered by Mauritania and Mali in West Africa, Senegal battles with frequent power outages and sluggish internet connections that cut into any cyber cafe’s bottom line, but tablets circumvent both problems.
Yummy Okra Stewed In Tomato Sauce Recipe
Lady’s Fingers – a poetic name for a day-to-day vegetable, also known as okra. Maybe the lovely pale yellow flower sheds a little poetry over the seed pod that grows out of its heart, and which we eat as a vegetable. In the Middle East, we call it bameeyah.
Israel’s Blue I to Detect Floating Dead Pigs in China’s Water
Pollution of fresh water supplies in large Asian countries is becoming more and more serious due to increasing populations and rapid industrialization. This is especially true in countries like India, where it’s largest river system, the Ganges, is one of the world’s most polluted. China, the world’s most populated in now in serious “water” trouble.
China’s fresh water purity problems may have a chance to be improved, thanks to a unique water analyzing device produced by an Israeli bio-technology company, Blue I Water Technologies , which was developed a device to analyze the types of impurities in water designated for drinking and other purposes.
The device, called Prizma, uses an electro-optic test strip technology to monitor the water’s chemical levels for various impurities that include mold and harmful bacteria, caustic chemicals, and even poisons caused by decomposition of dead fowl or other animals.
The device also measures water content parameters such as Chlorine, pH, conductivity, and the like.
Pollution of fresh water supplies, which only comprises 3.5% of the earth’s total water amount – the rest being salt water, is a very serious problem that affects all the earth’s inhabitants.
China stands to lose the most if its fresh water supplies are not improved.
More on fresh water environmental issues:
NASA Watches Underground Fresh Water Sea Vanish From the Middle East
ZARA Fashion Retailer Under Fire for Polluting Chinese Waterways
Water Pollution in Israel Threatens People, Animals, Plants
Israel to Help India Clean Up the Ganges River
Photo Environmental Pollution Research by Shutterstock:
Palestinian Schoolkids Green-Up Jerusalem’s Holy Valley
Imagine trash and sewage filling six Olympic-size pools. Can you smell it? Now drain them into Kidron Valley which separates East and West Jerusalem, abutting their holiest sites. It’s a revolting image and annual reality: those pools are fantasy, but the waste is not.
Student Proposes Iraq Embassy Design for Oslo a la Zaha but Greener
Zaha Hadid’s flowing architecture instantly sprung to mind when we came across Zaid Bin Talib’s design proposal for an Iraqi embassy in Oslo. Daring, futuristic, and swooping, the design appears to be influenced by Iraq’s most famous architect’s style, except the Oslo School of Architecture and Design student’s work is so much greener.
Abu Dhabi Warned of Toxic Dust Storms
Pablo Picasso once said, “The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.” So, it’s off to the art galleries all you in Abu Dhabi: your meteorological agencies are warning of epic dust storms ahead.
16-year-old Turkish Teen Makes Bioplastic from Banana Peels
Meet Elif Bilgin, the latest in a string of wunderkids from the Middle East and North Africa, who invented a bioplastic made from banana peels.
#occupygezi In-Situ Architecture Made with Scrap Materials (Photos)
Design is an often overlooked aspect of any social protest movement, but the organic nature of its occurrence is of great interest to the Turkish collective Herkes İçin Mimarlık. Translated as Architecture for All, this group collected photos of shelters built from scrap materials during Turkey’s recent uprising and then made drawings of them.