Page 692 – Green Prophet

After 30 years spent servicing Israel’s military aircraft, engineer Hugo Tour decided to redesign a car’s internal combustion engine to make it twice as efficient.

Hugo Tour spent more than 30 years servicing Israel’s high profile military aircraft and helicopters – and advising the US Air Force, too – about what went wrong when military aircraft failed.

All that time spent in the Israel Air Force (IAF) servicing jet engines and aircraft got Tour to thinking: If jet engines, air conditioners and water heaters can achieve high rates of efficiency – above 80 percent – then why not a car’s internal combustion engine, which has an extremely low efficiency rating, at 20-30%?

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Yemen’s Economic and Environmental Problems Blamed on Chewing Gat

Lifestyle

Maurice Picow

August 19, 2009

Yemen’s Economic and Environmental Problems Blamed on Chewing Gat

They chew this stuff on a daily basis, like Bolivians and other South American mountain people chew cacao leaves. It gives people in Yemen and other Arabian Peninsula countries a mild, narcotic-like effect; and unfortunately, it is ruining the economy of Yemen due to do many people getting “hooked” on it.

What is this plant that is often seen being chewed by people in Yemen, and being grown in place of food crops in this aired country’s 3% of available arable agricultural land.

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Every Day is Like Sunday Solar Energy

Tech

Karin Kloosterman

August 19, 2009

The 1980s pop icon Morrissey said that every day is like Sunday, silent and grey. But an Israeli solar energy company has taken the first day of the week in the Hebrew calendar and used it for more optimistic purposes: They named their company Sunday Energy, in appreciation of the power packed into the sun.

With less than two years in the business, Sunday is already becoming an alternative energy force in Israel and setting the stage for a solar powered Middle East and other emerging markets.

After partnering with schools, wineries and global energy companies like Ormat locally in Israel, the young company is predicting sales of about $250 million from its solar installations in the next couple of years.

The plan is not to be any old solar technology integrator – bringing together photovoltaic (PV) panels, meters and wires from different suppliers to store and direct solar power from the sun. Sunday has an ambitious plan to be a power plant provider, says Kobi Dinar, the company’s CEO.

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Tigo Energy and 8 Israel-related Cleantech Headlines, Week of August 9, 2009

Business

Lisa Damast

August 18, 2009

Tigo Energy and 8 Israel-related Cleantech Headlines, Week of August 9, 2009

During the week of August 9, 2009, talk continued about plans to revive the ailing Dead Sea. Tigo Energy became a finalist for two R&D grants from the US Department of Energy and a conceptual plan for a Globe Ecological Hub in Modiin was recently proposed. For these stories and more, check below for this week’s 8 Israel-related cleantech headlines.

Solar
1. Tigo Energy finalist in two US gov’t tenders

Electric Car
2. Shai Agassi, Israel’s Homegrown Electric Car Pioneer: On the Road to Oil Independence

Fuel-efficient Cars
3. Firing up his engine between hot and cold

Dead Sea
4. Plans to revive the Dead Sea

5. Global Warming Effects in India Hit Jordan and Israel’s Dead Sea Potash

Inside Israel
6. Globe Ecological Hub Recently Proposed for Israeli City of Modiin

7. Pioneering Israeli environmentalist, former MK Yosef Tamir, dies at 94

8. Your Taxes: Privileged-enterprise tax breaks for renewable-energy projects

Where Does Oil REALLY Come From?

Cities

Jack Reichert

August 18, 2009

Unlike popular belief, oil does not come from the remains of dinosaurs, rather from the silica based life-form called diatoms. Diatoms live in the top few meters of oceans and lakes and are able, unlike people, to convert sunlight into energy.

In order to remain afloat and to store the energy they soak in, diatoms create an oil substance. But in order to use this oil to fuel your car it needs to be condensed in the ground for millions of years. It takes about a 20 metric tons of these these guys to make one liter of gasoline for your car.

NATO Science for Peace Supports Desalination Water Project Between Jordan and Israel

Tech

Karen Chernick

August 17, 2009

NATO Science for Peace Supports Desalination Water Project Between Jordan and Israel

The NATO Science for Peace Program and the Middle East Desalination Research Center (MEDRC) recently awarded grants to researchers at Ben Gurion University of the Negev to continue working on a novel desalination method. In a region where potable water sources are so scarce, these methods are crucial to water independence and reducing reliance upon imported water sources (which require a lot of fossil fuels).

The team, lead by Dr. Jack Gilron (Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research) and Professor Eli Korin (Department of Chemical Engineering), has developed a desalination method by reverse osmosis that exploits “the finite kinetics of membrane fouling processes by periodically changing the conditions leading to membrane fouling before it can occur.”

The Ben Gurion team will be working in collaboration with colleagues at the Hashemite University of Jordan and the University of Colorady in order to further develop the technology and set up pilot desalination sites in Israel and Jordan.

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Jordanian Ministry of Environment to Amend the Country's Environmental Laws within Five Months

Business

Karen Chernick

August 15, 2009

Jordanian Ministry of Environment to Amend the Country's Environmental Laws within Five Months

Jordanian Minister of the Environment, Khalid Irani

After reviewing Jordan’s current environmental laws and discovering that there were many loopholes that enabled violators to avoid punishment, the Jordanian Ministry of Environment has decided to amend their laws. And they’ve decided to do it fast, within the next five months.

Jordan currently has 21 legislations protecting the environment, but since they often contradict each other it is almost impossible for a judge to issue a verdict without some kind of loophole.

According to Environment Minister Khalid Irani, “We will review the environment laws in cooperation with the European Union, as many loopholes were discovered in the laws after they came into force.”Irani added that “such loopholes affect regulations governing the issuance of and determining the value of fines, therefore the laws will be amended in cooperation with EU experts who helped draft many environment laws.”

With all these loopholes in the laws protecting the environment, the environment inevitably suffers.

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Tshuva's Yam Tethys Gas Company Wins In Natural Gas, But The Environment Loses

Business

Maurice Picow

August 14, 2009

Tshuva's Yam Tethys Gas Company Wins In Natural Gas, But The Environment Loses

He’s interested in Dead Sea development. Now Israeli billionaire Yitzhak Tshuva appears to have done it again after his Delek Energy subsidiary Yam Tethys won a $1 billion contract recently to furnish natural gas to the Israeli Electric Company (IEC).

The gas, according to the Jerusalem Post, will power new electric power plants instead of fuel oil and coal.

Tshuva’s company won out over its main rival, Egyptian-based Mediterranean Gas Company, a company that in the past won out with the Israeli government over the British gas exploration, BG Group, otherwise known as British Gas, to supply Israel with natural gas from a large off-shore gas field located in the Eastern Mediterranean, off the coast of Gaza.

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Global Warming Effects in India Hit Jordan and Israel's Dead Sea Potash

Tech

Maurice Picow

August 13, 2009

Global Warming Effects in India Hit Jordan and Israel's Dead Sea Potash

A recent article in Israel’s Globes financial newspaper, explores how Israel’s valuable exports of Dead Sea mined potash to India will be reduced this year due to the weakest monsoon season in India in five years.

The article Weak Monsoon Dries up Israel Chemicals Ltd (ICL) Potash Exports may result in a reduction of Israeli potash exports to India by nearly 12% as compared to the amount shipped in 2008. And it could save the depleting face of the Dead Sea, heavily mined for this resource used in the fertilizer business.

At an amount of 2.42 million tons of the salt and potassium based chemicals, at a price of $460 US per ton, the prices that Israel and Jordan are seeing is a 26% drop from 2008.

China, another big potash producer, has also seen a reduction in its exports of the chemicals, and plans to reduce its prices to between $400 – 450 US per ton.

What does all this have to do with the environment; especially in regards to a product that comes from one of the driest spots on earth?

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Hakfar Hayarok Experimental School of Excellence and Environmental Leadership in Israel Hosting "Green Summer Camp" This Week

Lifestyle

Karen Chernick

August 13, 2009

Hakfar Hayarok Experimental School of Excellence and Environmental Leadership in Israel Hosting "Green Summer Camp" This Week

green village israel Hakfar Hayarok (or, in Hebrew, the “green village”) is a small village located in central Israel. Founded in 1950 by Gershon Zack, the village currently houses 400 boarding school students and 800 foreign students in a warm and friendly atmosphere. It is considered to be a youth village with an experimental approach to excellence.

This week the Hakfar Hayarok Experimental School of Excellence and Environmental Leadership in Israel has expanded its dedication to educating today’s youth by hosting an international “Green Summer Camp” with an emphasis on global environmental leadership. The participants are all adolescents between the ages of 15 – 18.

As the organizers of the camp have written, the camp “offers the opportunity of getting acquainted with different traditions and cultures of the representatives and to build bridges of friendship between them. We believe that this camp will bring successful cooperation between the young people.”

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Is Israel's Haifa Bay Mermaid Frolicking In Pollution?

Travel

Karin Kloosterman

August 12, 2009

Is Israel's Haifa Bay Mermaid Frolicking In Pollution?

According to Canada’s National Post and Britain’s Sky News Israel has a mermaid and she is causing quite a stir. The reported half female human, half dolphin creature has been sighted by sources independent of each other off the coast of Kiryat Yam in the Haifa Bay. There is a $1 million reward for anyone who can offer solid proof (the creature in their arms?).

Locals and tourists who’ve ‘seen’ her say she’s friendly and likes to frolic, and they swear it is not a hoax. It’s been a boon for tourism apparently.

My guess is that the toxic pollution in the Haifa Bay – some of the worst in Israel – has created some mutant form of dolphin.

And hey, if you do manage to get proof of the creature, consider donating the prize booty to cleaning up the Bay.

(Image via sallisoham)

Voltaire's Switching Computers Onto Green Power

Tech

Karin Kloosterman

August 12, 2009

Voltaire's Switching Computers Onto Green Power

Computers need resources. Whether it’s logging on at work, sending Tweets from the train station or powering big laboratory ideas, firing up all those communications devices requires juice. In the language of “green,” energy savings equal increased efficiency, and efficiency means less carbon-based pollution.

Israel’s Voltaire works with the top companies in the business, such as Oracle, Sun and IBM, to make servers and super-computers more energy efficient. Some 1,100 clients around the world use InfiniBand, Voltaire’s “switching” product that lets them connect together small servers so that they can scale up in accordance with their business and computing power needs.

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Globe Ecological Hub Recently Proposed for Israeli City of Modiin

Cities

Karen Chernick

August 12, 2009

Globe Ecological Hub Recently Proposed for Israeli City of Modiin

Israeli architect Zvika Tamari (of TeaM Architects) recently proposed a conceptual plan for a Globe Ecological Hub in Modiin, a city in the center of Israel between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

What is a Globe Ecological Hub?

In Tamari’s conception, it is an organically shaped, grass-roofed eco-dome located in the center of the city and surrounded by green spaces. If completed, the hub would function as a museum and multifunctional urban center that promotes sustainable living.

Many green building strategies would be used in the construction of the hub, such as natural ventilation, daylighting, water reuse, and active solar systems.

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Sewage Pipes and 8 Israel-related Cleantech Headlines, Week of August 2, 2009

Business

Lisa Damast

August 12, 2009

Sewage Pipes and 8 Israel-related Cleantech Headlines, Week of August 2, 2009

The Dead Sea on Israel’s side is drying up. The path to peace might be in the sewage. An Australian-Israeli team is working together to try to rescue rainwater runoff. For these stories and the rest of this week’s 8 Israel-related cleantech headlines, check below.

Solar
eSolar Shows Off Its Solar Thermal Tower

Arison unit to install solar panels on new projects

Investment
MoneyTree: VC investment lowest in decade

In Israel
5 Must-See Green & Tech Travel Stops at Israeli Kibbutzes

Smoking the Sewage Pipe

Water
Dry land of the Dead

Australian-Israeli team hoping to rescue rainwater runoff

Miscellaneous
The ‘other Israel’

Israel's Army Makes Advances In Green, But Victory Comes First

Business

Maurice Picow

August 11, 2009

Israel's Army Makes Advances In Green, But Victory Comes First

Does the Israeli Army read Green Prophet?

Following our recent May 26 article , Israel’s Ministry of Environmental Protection: IDF Bases Pollute Land and Water, it now appears that the Israel Defense Forces, otherwise known as the IDF, may now be trying to “clean up their act” in regards to protecting the environment.

Is this another case of greenwash or something that’s true?

An article on August 4 in the Jerusalem Post, IDF joins environmental revolution, notes a number of things being done by the IDF to prevent damage done to the environment by various military related activities, including the use of electric powered vehicles on military bases for moving army personnel and supplies around. The article also points out cleaning septic tanks and other sewage storage and treatment facilities on army bases (until now a big cause of ground water pollution), and even introducing special bacteria that consume the explosive material from disused bombs and other explosives.

The efforts are being made to help reduce the IDF’s carbon and ecological “footprint” on Israel’s environment, often said to be one of the biggest contributors to environmental damage. It’s a contentious issue.

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