Israel is in the midst of a sharav, a scorchingly hot and dry weather front typical for this time of year.
We don’t want to waste resources or increase pollution by turning on air-conditioning. So how can we ensure that baby is cool and hydrated?
Going On A Picnic to Tel Aviv’s Garbage Mountain
(Posing for a photo in front of Tel Aviv’s old garbage dump, Hiriya, the rectum of Tel Aviv.)
That backdrop of the photo where Green Prophet’s Karin is sitting with her dog is not an archeological mound; nor is it a natural hill outside the Israeli city of Tel Aviv.
What has become one of the metropolitan area’s most noticeable landmarks, and eyesores, is none other than the former Hiriya Garbage mound, the rectum of Tel Aviv, which for half a century served as the city’s primary landfill and garbage dump, until its closure in 1998.
The area has now been under consideration to be turned into a huge national park. People are already starting to ride their bikes around the mound, and enjoy the area as though it’s a preserved nature site.
Ormat News and 9 Israel-Related Cleantech Headlines, Week of May 10, 2009
During the week of May 10, 2009, Ormat, a geothermal company, announced its plans to build a plant in Indonesia and Globes reported that major cleantech investors are planning to visit Israel in the near future.
BrightSource and PG&E agreed to the largest ever solar power deal in the United States and Better Place demonstrated its battery swapping technology. For more on these stories and the rest of this week’s 9 Israel-related headlines, check below.
Investments and Projects
1. Major cleantech investors to visit Israel
2. Ormat to build 330 MW geothermal plant in Indonesia
3. Mobile lab helps farmers practice precise agriculture
Solar
4. Aora Makes The Desert Bloom With Sunshine Flower Power
5. PG&E expands solar power plans
Vehicles
6. Better Place demonstrates battery swap technology in Japan
7. Pointer Telocation acquires Israeli carshare co stake
Around Israel
8. Arad takes a personal approach to promote itself as ‘recycling city‘
Sixth Annual Eco Cinema Festival in Jerusalem this Week
Last year fellow Green Prophet James gave us a recap of the annual Eco Cinema festival in Jerusalem, and sure enough the organizers of the festival are at it again this year for the sixth year in a row.
Beginning this Tuesday the 19th until Saturday the 23rd, the Jerusalem Cinematheque and other cinematheques around the country (such as Rosh Pina, Sderot, Haifa, Holon, Sde Boker, and Tel Aviv) will be screening films dealing with the environment from all over the world.
The festival began operating in 2004 with two main objectives. Firstly, to bring all types of environmental films to Israel, and secondly, to assist Israeli filmmakers in making such films. Israeli films about the environment are rare, but they receive the attention that they deserve through the Eco Cinema festival.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZjsJdokC0s[/youtube]
Queen Rania To Help Jordanian Farmers Go Organic
Stylish and modern, the Kuwait-born Queen Rania of Jordan is helping Jordanian farmers go organic, reports the Jordan Times.
Known for her humanitarian work on women’s rights, she is now launching a national program for organic farmers.
The plan is to convert up to 5% of Jordanian farms by 2014. She is also working to raise awareness of farmers and the public on organic production and its benefits: on health, environment and socio-economic systems.
“We are on the right track to embedding and expanding organic farming throughout Jordan,” Queen Rania said at the program launch, which included over 300 farmers.
Were Israelites the First True Environmentalists?
(Modern-day Israelites “glean” at a Tel Aviv market to help feed African refugees in Israel.)
Chapter 25 of the biblical Book of Leviticus relates how God instructed the Children of Israel on how to make of most out of the land when growing crops, and how to care for livestock, and for servants who worked on the land.
These instructions, or laws as many theologians refer to them, were given to a people who were wandering in the wilderness of Sinai – or Arabia, depending on which interpretation one wants to follow – for 40 years, and in conditions too harsh to do much farming – except in some locations such as the Oasis of Paran (now known a Firan).
But in reality, these laws were meant to be followed not just during their wandering, but for centuries – millennium to follow, make a lot of sense, especially from an environmental and hygienic standpoint.
Green Office Building Takes Off In "Energy City Qatar"
Green building is becoming a fad in Arab countries. We’ve all probably heard of the world’s first carbon neutral city Masdar being built in Abu Dhabi. Now Qatar, another UAE state — this one wealthy from natural gas –– is planning its own eco-city project.
A new, specially designed “carbon neutral” office building is being planned for the “Energy City Qatar” project. The building, being designed and planned by the Lusail development is heralded as being truly unique as well as a model and example for future developments, reports the Gulf Times.
The all-green design of Energy City Qatar will incorporate unique solar paneling which will provide lighting and other electricity needs for the project, including a special district cooling system that will provide cooling for the entire project.
Senior project construction manager Ashraf Kahlaf noted that the concept of such a building will help other projects create similar projects which will utilize renewal resources including the recycling of water, and soil that will be removed during the construction process.
Tel Aviv Has a Farm, E-I-E-I-O
If the city folk won’t come to the farm, then the farmers will come to the city.
Unfortunately, though, many times when the farm comes to the city, it comes in a yuppie, elitist form such as the slow food farmer’s market in the Tel Aviv port. Or even the farmer’s market in Jaffa.
While the intention – to bring local, organic products to city residents in order to encourage more environmentally conscious eating – is admirable, sometimes the message gets a little lost in translation.
But this time it is not the farmers who have come to Tel Aviv in order to market their goods, it is the actual farm.
This month the Tel Aviv Municipality decided to open the agricultural farm in the Yarkon Park to the public. The farm is spread over a beautiful 70 dunam green area, and is located in the “Rosh Tsipor” area of the Yarkon Park.
True to its green form, it can be easily reached via public transportation (such as trains and buses).
Harvest Rainwater and Build Wind Turbines At Vertigo Dance Company’s Eco-Workshops
Awareness of the environment has become a way of life for members of the Eco-Art Village established by the Vertigo Dance Company in the Ella Valley.
Now they are ready to share with others their message of environmentally aware, sustainable living.
“There aren’t places where you can learn how to do these things,” says Adi Sha’al, co-founder (with Noa Wertheim) of Vertigo, “We would like to be a center for teaching and learning – a sort of alternative building center.”
A workshop on harvesting rainwater and reuse of gray water will be offered this Friday, May 15th by Amir Yechieli and Dan Goldenberg at the Village.
Teaming up Yechieli’s expertise on water conservation with Goldenberg, a member of the eco-village who designed their water system reflects Vertigo’s approach to educating the public about sustainable living.
Aora Makes The Desert Bloom With Sunshine Flower Power
Rising up, like a mirage in the middle of the desert outside Eilat, is a giant yellow tulip in whose heart lies a massive crystal. Surrounding it: a field of mirrors that slowly move back and forth, following the sun.
Hallucinatory though it may sound, this is no mirage. The tulip is actually a solar tower with an aperture that directs sunlight into a solar receiver that drives a high-powered turbine, and the 30 tracking mirrors below are called heliostats.
It’s an ambitious project initiated by Israeli company AORA to construct the world’s first solar-thermal powered gas turbine station. The plant, with its distinctive 30-meter high tulip-shaped tower, is now nearing completion at Kibbutz Samar in Israel’s southern Arava region.
As Better Place Tests Battery Replacement Technology in Japan, Is Better Place the Best Electric Car Company?
Shai Agassi’s Better Place electric car company seemed to be on the right track with their conception of a totally electric family sized car.
The Israeli company, with offices located in the Kiryat Atidim high tech park, outside of Tel Aviv, developed a prototype for an electric car, using a Renault Megane with an electric motor and a special battery that can be removed when “empty” and replaced with a fully charged one in a matter of minutes.
Users would batter for battery time, much like we pay for the use of cell phones today. And the company recently demonstrated how it makes a quick switch of batteries, in Japan.
California's PG&E Signs Historic Solar Energy Contract With BrightSource Energy, for Solar Power
The deal is to provide power to more than half a million homes: Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) announced today that it has entered into a series of contracts with BrightSource Energy for a total of 1,310 megawatts of solar thermal power.
These power purchase agreements, covering seven projects, supersede the agreements PG&E executed with BrightSource in April 2008 for up to 900 MW of solar thermal power.
The first of these solar power plants, sized at 110 MW and located in Ivanpah, Calif., is contracted to begin operation in 2012. BrightSource will build and place in commercial operation each of its plants as quickly as permitting and infrastructure allow.
All seven projects are expected to produce 3,666 gigawatt-hours of power each year, equal to the annual consumption of about 530,000 average homes.
“Through these agreements with BrightSource, we can harness the sun’s energy to meet our customers’ power requirements when they need it most – during hot summer days,” said John Conway, senior vice president of energy supply for PG&E.
Wonder why Israel isn’t using its own technology to see itself through a forecasted summer of rolling blackouts?
Seeing Water Pollution With Snake's Eyes
(Water snakes in Thailand. This new technology developed by Prof. Katzir can see through water, just like a snake.)
Although most people take the safety of their drinking water for granted, that ordinary tap water could become deadly within minutes, says Prof. Abraham Katzir of Tel Aviv University’s School of Physics and Astronomy.
To combat the threat of contamination due to industrial spillage, natural disaster or sabotage, the physicist has developed a new system to monitor the safety of a building or community’s water supply in real time.
Modifying special fibers developed in his lab, Prof. Katzir can detect “colors” in the infrared spectrum which distinguish between pure and contaminated water.
Not visible to the naked eye, this spectrum is normally only seen by certain animals, like snakes or vampire bats, to track down prey. Connected to a commercial infrared spectrometer, the fibers serve as sensors that can detect and notify authorities immediately if a contaminant has entered a water reservoir, system, building or pipeline.
Saudi Arabia Opens World's Largest Desalination Plant
Saudi Arabia has always had an acute fresh water shortage problem. The problem has been so severe that a proposal was once considered to literally tow an ice burg from Antarctica all to way to the Kingdom for use as fresh water.
The practicality of constructing desalination plants to extract salt and other minerals from sea water became a much more practical plan, and 27 have now been constructed in the Kingdom, supplying 70% of the country’s drinking water as well as more than 28 million megawatts of electricity.
A new desalination plant, hailed as being the world’s largest, has now been completed in the new Jubail II Industrial Zone in the Kingdom’s Eastern Province.
Lebanese Auto Dealer Signs On To Eliminate Its Carbon Footprint
Knowing how much carbon dioxide your company is producing is the first step to reducing it. Good news from this sphere in Lebanon: the Rasamny-Younis Motor Company (RYMCO), an exclusive dealer of Nissan Motors, GM vehicles (GMC), Renault trucks, Nissan Diesel (UD), FAW trucks, and Kawasaki in Lebanon, has taken pioneering steps in its quest to emerge as one of the country’s most environmentally-friendly automotive dealers, by signing an agreement with UK-listed EcoSecurities to audit and offset the company’s direct and indirect emissions of greenhouse gases.