Electric SuperbusTested in Abu Dhabi’s Masdar City
The Superbus can carry well-to-do passengers in comfort and speed With the “whish” of a passing Formula 1 race car, and an almost silent “whrr” of its rear mounted electric engine, the new Dutch engineered 23 passenger Superbus amazed spectators during a test run at Abu Dhabi’s futuristic Masdar City, reports The National. The 15 […]
New Arabian Humpback Whale Species Located in Oman
An Arabian humpback whale: newly discovered and already imperiled? The Arabian and Persian Gulf waters off countries like Abu Dhabi, Iran, and Oman are home to a number of different types of marine animals. These include dolphins, at least 600 dugongs, several species of sharks, and sea turtles living in and around the Bu Tinah […]
Dimona Silica To Ship The Negev Desert To China
Within the next four months, Dimona Silica plans to build a factory in Nahal Zin Wadi in order to supply China with high-quality asphalt. Since its inception, Dimona Silica Industries Ltd. has been plagued with a dodgy reputation. After its involvement with the 2004 Investment Promotions Center scandal, where it was found that then Minister […]
BrightSource Energy’s Earth Day Public Debut
BrightSource vs. the desert tortoise. Is BSE too big to fail? Shortly after Google announced its largest investment to date in BrightSource Energy’s gargantuan solar thermal project, the Californian company filed its first $250 million public offering on Earth Day. Forbes calls this an initial test of the market’s appetite for utility-scale solar energy. A […]
Solaris Synergy Eyes California’s Aqueduct for its Floating Solar Farms
California’s gigantic aqueduct that snakes through the entire state to irrigate farms is probably the world’s best site for developing solar on bodies of water. According to Todd Woody at the New York Times, who asks, Could the California Aqueduct serve as a solar farm? Israel’s Solaris Synergy estimates that its floating solar system could […]
2011 Global Water Awards Go to MENA Nations
Unsurprisingly, since water scarcity is at the forefront of the cause of most of the troubles in the Middle East, MENA nations dominated the 2011 Global Water Awards held in Berlin this week. Almost half of the international winners were from the Middle East, but surprisingly, traditional fossil-fueled water projects dominated the awardees. Advanced cleantech […]
Major Turkish Cities Fail Sustainability Survey
Eskişehir, a center of industrial production in Turkey, is the country’s most sustainable city, according to a recent survey. When businesspeople from 29 different cities in Turkey were asked to rank their country’s provinces and cities in terms of sustainability, quality of life, social opportunities, and economic environment, the biggest cities in Turkey — Istanbul, […]
World-Renowned Author Dishes on GINKS, Green Sex and Making Love to Planet Earth
Stefanie Iris Weiss advocates for a greener shade of love and intimacy in her 2010 book, Eco-Sex: Go Green Between the Sheets and Make your Love Life Sustainable. For the past few years, Earth Day has turned a racier shade of green thanks to the work of eco-sexuality advocates, such as Stefanie Iris Weiss, author […]
Israeli Designer Creates a Green Toilet for India’s Slum Dwellers
This green toilet by Noa Lerner will be a boon for third world countries that lack sanitary public waste facilities. While other industrial designers merely tweak the appearance of the latest electronic gadget to make minor improvements to trivial point-of-sale appeal, Israel’s Noa Lerner, a Berlin-based industrial engineer, is developing a much more crucial necessity: […]
Japanese Risk All to Save Nuclear Zone Strays
Abandoned dogs near Fukushima forced to roam in packs to find food Despite the sad tragedy of what are now being called the “Fukushima Dead Zone Pets” all is not completely lost for these poor animals: a number of concerned Japanese citizens are willing to risk radiation exposure to themselves in order to save and […]
How Math Can Make Greener Cities
Climatology models applied to urban planning could yield greener cities. If you have ever walked down the street in a city full of high rises and felt a sudden blast of cold air, or witnessed a swirling mass of dried leaves, chances are you experienced an artificial microclimate created by the surrounding buildings. It turns […]
Ethiopia Can’t Afford The New Nile Dam
Ethiopia insists it will build the Grand Millennium Dam, but there is no money behind the words Defiant Ethiopia is proceeding with its plan to build the Grand Millennium Dam on the Nile river, but what kind of dam can they build without cash flow? Following the formation of the Entebbe Treaty, which gives the […]
Luxurious Chiseled Desert Lodge In Jordan Is Also Sustainable
This beautiful eco-lodge is chiseled into the side of Wadi Rum’s dramatic red sandstone walls. Chad Oppenheim’s design for an eco lodge in Jordan’s desert is absolutely breathtaking. Also called the Valley of the Moon, Wadi Rum resembles a martian landscape with its high red sandstone and granite walls. The downside is that this beauty […]
Egypt Moving to Shore Up Delta Cities Against Sea Level Rise
In Alexandria, climate change threatens tourism From London and Rotterdam to Egypt’s Alexandria, most of the world’s great old cities were settled in river deltas. Because of the ease of shipping heavy loads by water in ancient times, river deltas developed as trading posts, and grew over the centuries from villages to become the major […]