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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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: […]
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 […]
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 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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Will this Waikiki beach front also include Better Place recharging stations? Better Place, the electric car technology company headquartered in Palo Alto California, and headed by Israeli entrepreneur Shai Agassi is now preparing to establish its first commercial battery recharging network in the American state of Hawaii. The news, as reported in the online edition […]
Matzah in the morning, as granola. Miriam shows you how. I’m not a great fan of matzah meal- based food – always excepting our delicious matzah balls. Plain matzah, spread with cottage cheese or butter, makes unexciting but predictable Passover breakfasts. Since strawberries are in season, it’s easy to make strawberry jam from our recipe […]
According to a report by the International Water Association, the low price of water is the main factor preventing water conservation in rural Jordan These days it seems that the only way to change people’s attitudes is to hit them where it hurts them most- their bank balance. Unless it makes economic sense, it’s pretty […]
A good friend of David de Rothschild’s, Treehugger founder Graham Hill takes the Plastiki helm Theirs was one of 2010’s most talked-about, scoffed-about, and dreamed-about adventures: sailing across the Pacific Ocean in a boat made from plastic. Spontaneously envisioned to save our oceans from plastic pollution created by a now global society of waste, the […]