Chevy’s Volt Electric Hybrid car being suspended due to poor demand
When General Motors announced its new plan to build the ultimate electric car, the Chevy Volt, blogs were a talking, and it was as though customers were lining up to buy. But with setbacks following adverse publicity involving the car’s battery pack catching fire in crash tests and extremely slow sales of the car in US dealerships GM has announced that they will suspend production of the Volt.
From protests in Turkey to everything you wanted to know about climate change, catch up on the latest green news from the region
Saudi Minister Denies Land Bridge to Egypt Plans
Following a rather mixed reaction to the news that plans were afoot to build a bridge connecting Egypt and Saudi via the Red Sea, the Saudi Minister of Transport has denied any agreement between the countries. Speaking to the Arab News, the minister said, “There is no any such agreement to the effect between the ministry and any other party concerning the project.”
SOM is behind the new Sheikh Khalifa Medical City in Abu Dhabi, which will feature all kinds of “retail therapy!”
The 2.5 million square foot Sheikh Khalifa Medical City in Abu Dhabi will combine three state of the art hospitals in one giant, green space. Aiming for two Estidama pearls, the new center designed by SOM will replace the existing Sheikh Khalifa Medical Center and will incorporate a variety of passive techniques to combat the heat.
SEHA, the Abu Dhabi Health Service company, is keen to ensure a sense of peace and comfort for both patients and visitors, so the sprawling medical center will be arranged around lobbies, cafes, courtyards, hanging gardens, and retail facilities. The idea seems to be that a little retail therapy goes a long way to help visitors avoid looking at sickness and death.
Masdar expands its solar ambitions to the South Pacific
The tiny kingdom of Tonga in the south pacific has just signed a memorandum of understanding with the Abu Dhabi based company Masdar for a 500 KW solar project to be built on the island of Vava’ in Tonga.
This will add to the 1 MW solar project that broke ground at the end of last year on the main island of Tongatapu, in collaboration with the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade to reduce the cost of electricity for the average consumer.
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 short space of time. Since its launch Carboun has moved from producing some great infographics highlighting environmental issues in the Middle East, to playing an active role in green projects in the region. As well as a growing team of representatives, they are hosting an event at the UN Conference of Parties (COP 18) at Doha in December and have also launched 24/7 Electricity, a research project that looks into energy generation challenges in Lebanon. I caught up with Karim to find out more about Carboun, the major challenges ahead and what sustainable design can do for the region.
Cold, wet and utterly miserable, this is no “dancing camel”
Regular Green Prophet readers have surely seen our articles on animal cruelty and abuse. They range from cruelty toward circus animals, to abuse towards animals in private and public zoos. Cases of wild animals like cheetahs and baby tigers being kept as pets by jaded wealthy people in various locations, including the Arab Gulf have also been widely reported. These are occurrences that happen all too frequently, unfortunately, and despite concerted efforts by animal rights activists and various public awareness groups, the practice of abusing, torturing, and killing both wild and domestic animals continues unabated all over the Middle East. Even in Israel, where animal rights laws are very advanced. On a recent trip to Jerusalem I found an abused camel, tied to an electric pole.
Yesterday a solar flare that slammed into earth did not create any of the disruptions forecasted by scientists.
Earthlings waited with bated breath yesterday as a solar flare hurled by a coronal mass ejection on the sun slammed into our planet. NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) both cautioned that this would be the worst such flare since 2006 and that it could cause “severe” disruptions to modern technology such as GPS and satellite systems and power grids. But the solar storm was far weaker than anticipated and created nary a disruption. This time.
No Dancing Camel here; but a definite example of animal abuse
We are no stranger to animal abuse: ranging from cruelty toward circus animals, to abuse towards animals in private and public zoos. Cases of wild animals like cheetahs and baby tigers being kept as pets by jaded wealthy people in various locations, including the United Arab Emirates have also been reported.
These are occurrences that happen all too frequently, unfortunately; and despite concerted efforts by animal rights activists and various public awareness groups, the practice of abusing, torturing, and killing both wild and domestic animals continues unabated all over the Middle East and the world at large.
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 Group, a Turkish firm specializing in renewable energy.
This white tip shark is found in the Red Sea, where a Polish kite surfer who for two days used a knife to fight off sharks up to 6m long.
A professional kite surfer and instructor from Poland recently survived two days of drifting in the Red Sea by fighting off sharks with a knife. With just a couple of energy bars and drinks and a small amount of water, the first kitesurfer to cross the Baltic Sea set off from El Gouna in Egypt to Duba, Saudi Arabia. But then the wind died.
SOS fail
Jan Lisewski’s sail deflated when the wind stopped, forcing the 42 year old to drift with the waves. But as the swells grew larger and the sun was setting, he finally lit an SOS signal.
Saudi Arabia’s coast guard failed to reach him for another 40 hours.
Related: Egypt dive boat sinks
While drifting through the water at night, he claimed that he attacked by sharks that were up to 6 meters long, according to Vancouver Sun.
“I was stabbing them in the eyes, the nose and gills,” Lisewski told Polish state news agency PAP.
A sea full of nearly extinct sharks
Few Egyptians would attempt such a bold feat since the Red Sea is well-known for its shark population, even though conservationists point out that their danger is exaggerated.
Most shark attacks are accidental and occur when snorkelers or surfers are misidentified as prey. Sharks almost never hunt humans.
In 2010 three Russian tourists were attacked by a White Tip shark while snorkeling off the Sinai Peninsula. Their injuries were not fatal, but just one week later in 2010 an elderly woman was killed.
An apex species, the future of Red Sea sharks is uncertain. Protection legislation designed to protect them has alerted Yemini fishermen to Red Sea sharks‘ whereabouts and even locals are guilty of hunting them for their fins, which sell for a hefty sum in Asia.
Green Prophet writer Miriam Kresh reported earlier this year that “since last year’s political uprising, and consequent deterioration of law enforcement, poachers supplying restaurants with illicit shark fins have driven the Red Sea shark population down by as much as 80 percent” and put them at risk of extinction.
More on Red Sea Sharks:
Protection Legislation Endangers Red Sea Sharks
Egypt’s Red Sea Sharks Face Extinction
Three Russian Red Sea Snorkelers Attacked by White Tip Shark
Analysts believe that this benign-looking plant popular in the Middle East may be funding the Al Shabaab terrorist organization in southern Somalia.
A very popular narcotic in the Middle East, khat maybe be funding the terrorist organization Al Shabaab in Somalia, CNN reports. Chewing the red stems of Catha edulis produces mild euphoria and an alertness akin to that produced by caffeine, and it is openly and widely use in the Horn of Africa. In Yemen, growing Khat uses more water than the country can afford and takes priority over more sustaining crops.
Now Dutch officials are banning khat in the Netherlands, where a large Somali community imports large quantities of the plant from farmers in Meru County, Kenya. Government spokespeople insist that this decision was taken to protect against grave economic, health, and social concerns, but analysts believe that funds generated by the trade are funneled to Al Shabaab and that the Dutch aim to curtail that.
Two Masdar students on the 2012 “Leadership on the Edge” expedition in Antarctica share their reflections so far.
For Masdar Institute of Science and Technology students Reem Al Junaibi and Maitha Al Kaabi, traveling half way across the globe to Antarctica has provided an opportunity to reflect on the future of our planet.With respective interests in renewable energy and water issues, the pair left their warm desert environs to spend 16 days touring the frozen frontier, where they hope to gain insight that will further their research in Abu Dhabi.
After a long plane ride and a stopover in Buenos Aires, they finally landed in Ushuaia – the world’s southernmost city in Argentina, and then Reem began to reflect on their combined experience through a series of short journal entries recently published in The National.
Does an expanding renewables market in the Middle East (such as that showcased in Masdar) just mean more oil can be exported and more profit made at the expense of the world climate?
Here are GreenProphet, we have been carefully following the Middle East’s slow but steady uptake of renewables technologies. Every solar project or wind farm in the region is a small step in the right direction- away from oil and fossil fuels and towards green energy. However, some commentators state that renewables should be used to support local energy needs so that more (profit-making) oil can be exported to other countries instead.
The Al Hamra Firdous Tower in Kuwait City is the world’s 13th largest
Kuwait is now competing with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to build the biggest, baddest skyscrapers. The recently completed Al Hamra Firdous Tower also called the “Enshrouded Figure” is 412 meters tall and is ranked by the Council on Tall Buildings as the world’s 13th tallest. Only one other building in Kuwait has found a spot among the world’s 100 tallest buildings: at 300 meters tall, the Arraya Tower garnered 56th place. Step in to learn more about Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill’s (SOM) latest project in the Middle East.
Masdar Institute makes first foray into advanced lithium battery technology.
Continuing its pioneering of renewable energy technologies that have great relevance for the Middle East – such as its recent work on sand-resistant solar – the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology in the United Arab Emirates has just filed a provisional patent application with the U.S. Patents and Trademarks Office for a new solid polymer electrolyte technology for Li-ion batteries.
The idea was to increase the temperature range at which lithium batteries can work, an essential first step to the widespread adoption of electric cars in the hot Middle East where temperatures can go as high as 48 degrees C (118 degrees Fahrenheit).
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