What the Middle East will look like with a 9 meter raise. Play God with the online map to see what we’ll lose.
When you click around NASA’s online flood maps you can instantly view impacts on the world’s coastal communities. A single meter increase soaks Alexandria and Basra, and rattles the nerves of eastern Saudi shores. Jump sea levels 20 meters and Bahrain becomes an atoll, southern Iraq is submerged, and all of Cairo becomes beachfront property.
Excellent at recycling oil, what are the barriers to Saudi Arabia in recycling other valuables?
There are significant barriers that hinder the wide application of reverse logistics in some industries of Saudi Arabia. Let me first present the definition of the concept. Iran’s S. Dowlatshahi defined reverse logistics as the process by which a manufacturing entity systematically retrieves previously shipped products or parts from the point-of-consumption for possible recycling, remanufacturing, or disposal.
Like Egypt, Israel, and Jordan, Lebanon has been beset with energy shortages recently – a crisis that will escalate as demand grows alongside an ever-expanding population. Sidestepping these constraints and taking advantage of almost year-round sunshine, the Transportation Ministry has installed 766 solar-powered street lights on a 10km stretch of relatively unpolluted highway in Hermel. Some residents are grateful and excited about the $1,072,000 project, but others are skeptical.
Morocco’s zero-carbon car factory opening earlier this month, via NY Times.
The CEO of Renault–Nissan alliance Carlos Ghosn and Moroccan King Mohammed VI inaugerated French automaker’s one-billion-euro plant in Tangier which is set to boost Morocco’s automobile industry.The plant will build several new ‘low cost’ vehicles with an annual capacity that could reach ups 400,000 units.
Morocco has only one car plant in Casablanca and seeks to develop its car industry further with Renault Group which will be exempt from both corporate and export taxes for five years.
The 300-hectare plant, which is located 30 kilometres from the new Tanger Med port and only few kilometres away from the Spanish coast, will reach a production capacity of up to 170,000 vehicles per year at first. This capacity is then set to rise to 340,000 units in 2013 or 400,000 units if the plant operates in weekends.
Despite concern that Better Place is losing millions as it slowly brings electric vehicles to market in Israel and Denmark, some in the cleantech industry are also worried that the Israel electric vehicle (EV) company is the only one out there trying to make the business work.
A recent article titled, ‘Does Better Place Have A Monopoly On Electric Cars In Israel?,’ Business Insider analyzed Better Place’s role in the Israeli market, noting that once the company starts to sell its cars in Israel, it will have the only electric vehicle available in Israel and will control the country’s only legal EV charging network. Is this a good or bad thing?
Egyptians are among the most romantic thinkers I’ve met. Their hearts are so often tangled up in their work, resulting not only in a lot of drama, but incomparable and resplendent art. And Bassam El Okeily’s striking Narrow House in Belgium is no exception. Previously a dingy garage, the new Bilzen home now features a transparent glass facade, an expansive but minimalist interior and an exciting reverie of light and shadow play. Although he is less known in the Arab world, the Brussels and Paris based designer easily competes with any of the world’s most renowned “starchitects.” Step in to see beautiful images of this unusual home.
One of the most exciting exhibits we’ve heard about is currently on display at London’s Royal Geographic Society. What makes it so exciting? Amidst stately buildings made of brick, vernacular desert architecture is enjoying its month of fame, and dozens of websites are talking about the event.
Polish designer Sandra Piesik is curating the exhibit Arish: Palm Leaf Architecture, which is being hosted by His Excellency Abdul Rahman Ghanem Al Mutaiwee – UAE Ambassador to the United Kingdom, following three years of exploring the role that date palm leaf architecture plays in Emirati history. She has published a book by the same name.
With a rotor diameter of 100 meters and hub heights of 80 meters, GE’s 1.6-100 MW turbines have the highest power production capacity of any turbines in their category.
A 50 MW wind farm in a town near Istanbul will be the first site in Europe to use GE’s revolutionary 1.6-100 MW wind turbines, GE announced at the European Wind Energy Association’s annual meeting last week. A project of Fina Enerji, a Turkish renewable energy firm, the Tayakadin wind farm will use 31 of GE’s super-efficient turbines. It will come online by 2013.
Are android sex workers the future of tourism or an absurd use of clean technology?
People will soon be having sex with robots as the latest in sex tourism, suggests a recent news report. This novel twist on ‘clean technology’ (the inventors point out that the androids will be made of bacteria-resistant fibers) is enough to turn us green, and not with envy. More of the puke, I’m going to be sick, let me run to the market and get some organic veggies and eat them raw kind of green. We are already living in a wired world. Do machines have to commandeer our genitals too?
That’s the con. A pro? Maybe robot hookers will offer a meaningful solution to the problem of sex slavery (a concern in the Middle East and globally). Let’s examine the wild wired world of robots for pleasure from two sides: the revolting and the revolutionary.
A fire which broke out in a Kuwaiti tire dump last week could be seen from space
Kuwait hardly has a green reputation (in fact, it’s been pretty obstructive in global efforts to set emission targets) but recent events have definitely undermined what left of its eco credentials. As well as shocking stories of animal cruelty, there are rising concerns of childhood obesity and a growing carbon footprint. A fire also broke out last week in a tire dump which was so big that it could be seen from space.
Recent images of a dead, bloody wolf and broken flamingos that young Kuwaiti men killed for sport gave the oil-rich state a dark reputation. But a new video narrated so eloquently by Dalal Al-Abdulrazzak, a Kuwaiti Phd candidate studying Gulf marine ecology at the University of British Columbia, provides a glimpse into a less-celebrated segment of society – one that we really need to support.
In fact, this battle between ignorance and education, or entitlement and accountability seems to be at the crux of our many environmental woes. Hit the jump to enjoy, for just a few minutes, the power of one woman who has taken it upon herself to help restore the Gulf’s marine ecosystem to its pre-Gulf War glory.
When we learned about Planetary Resources’ asteroid mining scheme, a well-known Cree Indian proverb came to mind: “Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realize we cannot eat money.” We knew this day would come.
Not content to change our consumer culture, which has been vastly destructive not just to the planet, but also to our very social fabric, Google billionaires are supporting a hugely expensive scheme to pull asteroids into the moon’s orbit and mine them for gold, platinum, and other rare earth metals. These will then be used to produce more unessential stuff on earth.
450 million toothbrushes wind up in landfills every year in the US alone, says sustainable-products company World Centric.
The utmost natural and biodegradable toothbrush is a twig from the Miswak shrub and about which we’ve reported.
New York-based Lebanese designer Leen Sadder has even tried to make miswak twigs available commercially (read about it here). Yet it’s unlikely that Western society will let go of its colorful toothbrushes with convenient handles in favor of Miswak.
We trash our worn-out plastic toothbrushes in a minute, but they stay in landfills just about forever. To keep your teeth in shape and serve the planet, World Centric, a US-based company selling Fair Trade and eco-friendly products for daily food service, now offers a biodegradable toothbrush.
Made from a plant-based resin called Ingeo, the used toothbrush handle and carrier case break down in commercial composting facilities within 6 months.The toothbrushes don’t biodegrade in landfills. If you don’t have access to a composting facility, World Centric even offers a pre-paid envelope for mailing their used toothbrushes and cases back for them to deal with.
The 6th electro, automation & energy event in Algiers is happening May 5 to 8.
Interested in knowing more about renewable energy opportunities in North Africa and the Arab world? Then head to Algeria this May to meet a high profile group of decision makers and companies targeting the growing Algerian energy sector. In step with the Algerian Government’s “Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Program” penned in March 2011, meet the Algerian Ministry of Energy and Mines along with market leaders and suppliers from 10 countries already confirmed.
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