How Israel’s Military Secrets Translate To Clean Technology
Since its founding in 1917, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (the JTA), has been a leading international journalistic source for communicating news and projects dealing with the world-wide Jewish community. Many JTA news articles have dealt with various developments in Israel and the Middle East, including those which are beneficial to the cause of peace.
A recent JTA article on clean technology, published on October 1 by Dina Kraft (also a New York Times reporter), takes a good look at a number of projects by Israeli clean tech industries and Israel’s military branches in the realm of renewable and alternative energy.
“Beating swords into green plowshares in Israel,” the article talks about solar energy energy companies such as Bright Source Energy Inc, which is involved in building solar energy plants in California’s Mojave Desert and other locations; and Rotem, which utilizes technologies developed in Israel’s aeronautical defense industry.
Rotem (read more about their work with the solar power company Aora here) is working on a number of commercial renewable energy projects involving solar and wind power, hydrogen fuel power, and biofuels.
Some of Rotem’s many projects involving the environment and renewable energy are a hydrogen storage research center, a center for geology and hydrology applied research, a center for environmental sciences, and a thermal solar energy applications technology center.
The Bright Source solar energy plants in California, and a wind turbine “farm” located near Kibbutz Ein Zivan on the Golan Heights (pictured above and below), are utilizing technology that formerly was used in developing and manufacturing rotor blades for military helicopters.
Israel’s Aircraft Industries (IAI) is now involved in developing technology to produce “cleaner and greener” commercial aircraft that will be able taxi on the runways of commercial airports without using their jet engines, according to Kraft’s article.
This will not only be more environmentally friendly, but will result in a big fuel savings as well.
In the automotive sector, an Israeli company, Better Place, is working on more efficient batteries for electric cars, and has now entered into joint ventures with automobile companies Renault and Nissan. The technology used in developing these batteries is derived from the aerospace industry.
Mr. Meni Maor, vice president for development at Rotem commented that these kinds of projects have resulted from a need to both preserve the environment as well as due to the increasing cost of oil.
“We definitely leverage a lot of know-how in a variety of disciplines — including materials, chemistry, thermal dynamics — accumulated from our experience with military and homeland security technology for developing renewable energy technologies,” said Meni Maor to the JTA.
Former IDF military officers, including retired General Yom-Tov Samina, are involved in many of these projects, putting knowledge learned during their military careers into raising funds for these development projects as well as being involved directly in the projects themselves. An example of their direct involvement is former IDF Deputy Chief of Staff Moshe Kaplansky, who is now holding the position of CEO of Better Place’s Israel operations.
The former military generals are very enthusiastic about their new careers and are happy to be making their contribution to preserving the environment. “Our training involving the importance of learning how to follow through on a mission has contributed to being successful in these new projects,” a former intelligence unit head was quoted as saying.
This article was written by Maurice Picow, who blogs at Green Prophet www.greenprophet.com. Follow Green Prophet on Twitter: @greenprophet. These pictures of Israeli wind turbines were taken by Karin on a recent trip to the Golan Heights.
::JTA clean technology article
4 Trade Secrets For Clean Tech Entrepreneurs In Israel
A plucky little country, is how the late Princess Diana once described Israel to Shimon Peres. About the size of New Jersey, Israel has a disproportionate number of clean tech companies and investment in clean technology compared to its size. And now businessman and investor David Anthony from 21Ventures in the US is about to reveal his trade secrets and insider information about clean tech investing in Israel. If you are itching to become a clean tech entrepreneur in Israel, this is must-read information. If you’d like to know more about what makes the industry tick, read on.
Unlike Silicon Valley and the high-tech industry, the clean tech market today has no center of excellence, Anthony tells Green Prophet. In the last 50 years of venture capital investing there has been a saying: Never fly over your company –– meaning one shouldn’t invest in a company that isn’t within a 60 mile radius of the office. But without a center for clean technology, explains Anthony, a VC fund now has to dig into new territory to find the golden investment egg. Investors need to cross borders and turn over new stones.
To help Green Prophet readers better understand what American investors are looking for, we’ve asked Anthony for some tips. Compared to any other country in the Middle East, Israel is a clear and defined leader in this market, so we’ve focused on Israel. Most of Anthony’s tips could work in other non-US locales as well.
Read more
Tel Aviv’s Sh*t Mountain Gets A Green Light for Environmental Remediation
Hiria, Israel’s hard-to-miss garbage mountain located off the road that connects Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, has been trying to fix its trashy image and go green. It has set up a recycling park to be used as an educational tool for professionals, created clean energy out of the methane resulting from garbage decomposition, made biking and hiking trails, and hired eco-friendly designer Brigitte Cartier to make a beautiful visitor’s center out of trash. It also houses workshops with creative ideas for reusing items that might otherwise help the garbage moutain grow.
This Sunday, July 19th it will go a little greener when it launches a new clean energy lighting system. Hiria’s getting the green light.
At an event that will be attended by Israeli Minister of Environmental Protection, Gilad Arden, members of Ariel Sharon’s family, representatives of environmental organizations, leaders of local municipalities, and the park’s architects, Hiria’s new lighting system will be launched for the very first time. The energy used for the lighting is generated from recycled waste.
People interested in attending the festive event can contact yamit@parksharon.co.il to see if there are any spots left!
Read more about Hiria Mountain::
Hiria: A Garbage Dump Turned Recycling Dream
Ayala Water & Ecology to Remediate Israel’s Sh*t Mountain with Aquatic Plants
Brigitte Cartier Creates Baladi Recyled Design
(This post was written by Karen Chernick, the Arts and Design editor for Green Prophet www.greenprophet.com)
Putting the Z5 to the Power and Emissions Test
Filed under: Environment, General, Technology
Since writing my first article on the Israeli-invented Z5, a small add on to your car’s air filter to save gas, there has been no shortage of skepticism and critics. I’d blogged about it on TreeHugger and the article was pulled due to all the negative feedback by readers who hadn’t tried it.
The public knows they are no fools: any mention of a “device” that sounds like a Cyclone Fuel Saver, FuelMAX or Water4Gas elicits a knee jerk response. How could a small cylinder added to your car’s air filter save gas, decrease pollution or give your car more power?
People want to believe that they can save up to 30% gas, and spare the environment from emissions, but does it work?
To test the company’s claims that the $208 mail-order Z5 can help the environmental cause, Green Prophet took Gal Luft from Set America Free to a garage in Israel to emissions test and power test cars before and after the Z5 installation.
Here’s what we found: Read more
Night Garden in Jerusalem Exhibited the Beauty of Solar Power
Sunshine helps flowers grow and now, thanks to a joint collaboration of the Israel Electric Corporation and O*GE Architects, it makes enormous steel and metal flowers grow, too.
In mid June, visitors to Jerusalem could stroll through a solar powered garden of larger-than-life sized flowers. As described by O*GE Architects, visitors could “immerse themselves in a sensual delight of magical light, bright sounds and fragrant aromas… The garden demonstrates the importance and beauty of alternative energy.”
The garden included a variety of flowers in different sizes, shapes, colors, and types of illumination. The Giant Lotus flowers, for example, towered at over 4 meters in diameter and would open and close, subtly changing colors. The tulips, on the other hand, were illuminated by a single color in varying intensities. Dewdrop flowers were bunched together in masses, creating “a poetic ambience of tranquility, sensual beauty, and pure serenity.”
The movement of the flowers was accompanied by music composed by Ravid Hang and Andy Isler. (The music can also be heard in the clip above.)
O*GE Architects hope to continue exploring issues of architecture and design, environmental protection, and social responsibility. They pursue many environmental design projects, including their Recycle Be-shikle Workshop.
Read more about solar power in the Middle East::
Phone Home with Sunbeam Power Using Lebanon’s Alfa
Solar Energy is Israel’s Best Energy Bet
Rich Oil State Dubai Plans to Power Up with Solar Energy
(This post was written by Karen Chernick, the Arts and Design editor at greenprophet.com)
Pope, Help Us Save Israel’s Jordan River
(Thousands of Christian pilgrims get baptized in Israel’s Jordan River every year. Are they risking their life by immersing in the polluted waters?)
It’s the highlight of any Christian’s trip to Israel – a dunk in the Jordan River, the way Jesus did it thousands of years ago. But with increased pollution in Israel’s waterways, Israeli activists are using the Pope’s visit to Israel tomorrow to urge action on cleaning up the Jordan.
It is Pope Benedict XVI’s first visit to Israel, and as many as 15,000 Catholic pilgrims are expected to descend on Israel to see the Pope when he is there.
According to Christian belief, the Jordan River is the site of Jesus’s baptism; when pilgrims come to Israel (including my mother), they not only immerse themselves in the water, but take samples of it home for souvenirs.
But Zalul, Israel’s water environmental association, says that the water is extremely polluted they said in an open letter to the pope on open letter to Pope.
“Water from the once-proud Jordan River is being diverted for domestic and agricultural use, leaving the lower part of the river a shrivelled stream with little to no fresh water and filled with sewage,” the letter said.
But those doing so now “risk their own health when entering the water.”
“Your Holiness, all of the Jordan River’s visitors should have the right to be baptised in water that is natural and true,” activists from Zalul urged.
On Sunday, the pope is to visit the Jordan baptismal site on the east side of the river.
::AFP [image via jocelyndursten]
This post was originally published on the environment website Green Prophet.
Israel Celebrates “Earth Day” Today Only Tomorrow, With Lights Out, Beach Cleaning, Concerts and Green Awards
(Photographer Yuval Chen spent almost two years snapping shots of hedgehogs in Tel Aviv’s urban landscape. For more see ISRAELITY).
Celebrated since 1970, Israel is for the first time celebrating Earth Day nationally. They didn’t put their lights out for an hour a few weeks ago to mark Earth Hour (there was a big football game after all), but plan to mark Earth Day, today, with full respect. Take note that other Middle Eastern countries like Jordan did mark Earth Hour.
With most Earth Day events held in Israel tomorrow, on April 23, reports Haaretz, lights out will be the central event, where cities such as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem will turn their lights out from 8 to 9 pm in a bid to raise awareness about energy conservation.
A concert at Rabin Square featuring the Balkan Beat Box and more will celebrate Earth Day, and rumor has it the event will be powered by human cyclists and biodeisel, in a similar style to last year’s Earth Event as Karen reported.
Israel joins other cities around the world who will turn their lights off for the green cause. The United Nations has ruled that the event be marked worldwide. Read more
Fridge Voyeurism From Israel
Are you an organic food addict? Or do you insist on eating food that grown locally, but pesticide-ridden, to spare food miles (or to serve an ideology?)
As food production is a major source of greenhouse gas pollution (Read: Global Warming), eating locally, and consuming less meat is one way we can do our part.
Following a worldwide trend, where people are opening up their fridge to show people what’s in their fridge (and on their palette) today I will expose myself and show you what’s in mine. It feels a bit like opening my underwear drawer to strangers, but here goes:
CONTENTS (Door on right): Bio eggs, butter, organic strawberry jam, milk, mustard, sundried tomatoes, pomegranate concentrate, goat’s milk yogurt, V8, tehina, capers, guava juice, orange juice, batteries (not for eating!), coconut juice, goat’s yogurt, and the old Canadian maple syrup (thanks Mom!).
SOURCE: There are a number of imported items here like the V8 from North America and the juice from Egypt. The jam is from the United States. Phoeey on me, but it looked so good. And the pomegranate concentrate, I think is from Turkey, while syrup is from Canada. All the milk products are produced locally and bought at Eden Teva market or local non-organic shops. Milk costs about $1.50 a liter in Israel (non-organic), the organic yogurt about $3 a bottle.
CONTENTS: (from top to bottom, left to right) organic lentil sprouts, organic goat’s cheese, chessick fruit, soft regular white cheese 5%, organic red cabbage part of a weekly CSA veggie box delivery (choose from a list of CSAs here if you live in Israel); more cheese including a Rockfort goat’s cheese, Syrian dates, spicy lettuces, cabbage, parsley, green onions, carrots, leaks, tomatoes, radishes, cucumbers, and spinach.
SOURCE: Vegetables come from an organic farm, which delivers a box of whatever’s in season, once a week. Some of the cheese is from Eden Teva market, a health food store in Bnei Brak; some cheese is from Arab supermarket on the corner nearby my house. Reducing food miles is important to me from an environmental perspective. I try to eat locally produced food, and things which are in season.
CONTENTS: It being Passover in Israel means that a lot of the bread products you might see here other times of the year have been cleaned out, eaten or burned, as per Jewish custom. Moving on, there is some sort of white fish, hamburger organic and regular, rice (stored in freezer to keep the bugs out), and a strange kind of sheep tail fat (bottom right) for making a Bukharian food known as Osh Pollo. It is wrapped like that because someone (on their request) was supposed to “smuggle” it to the US where no such sheep tail fat can be found. It stays frozen in the meantime. (As a once a week meat-eater, Osh Pollo is very yummy and highly recommended.)
SOURCE: The frozen products come from Eden Teva Market, a health food store, a regular grocery store, and the sheep tail fat, a local market. Normally you won’t find so much meat in the freezer, as I tend to buy it when I want it. I have no idea how much meat costs per kilo, because I buy it so rarely. The organic hamburger, enough to feed 4, cost about $25 for the box, times 2 what you see above.
Want to know more about fridge voyeurism? Read this post in its original form with more details at Canada’s Israel. Or a past Green Prophet post on a fridge in Jerusalem.
We’d be happy to feature your Middle East fridge on Green Prophet, if you dare. Send us some pics and describe contents and food source, so we can know a little more about you, and what you eat. Send to contact@greenprophet.com.
Iran’s New Year “Nowruz” An Ecological Bridge To Make Peace With Israel?
Filed under: A New Reality, Environment
Jews in Israel and the world over are busy now celebrating Passover, while Christians ready themselves for Easter. Iranians, we learn had their own celebrations this time of the year, coinciding with the vernal equinox on March 21.
Iran’s political makeup and leadership may not be making many friends these days, but its annual festival Nowruz, or the Persian New Year festival, is being celebrated in a number of countries, and by several different religions as well.
Nowruz spelled also Nowrouz or Nouruz, which means “New Day” in Persian, officially marks the first day of Spring in the Persian calendar and corresponds to the Spring Equinox which is marked on Western calendars as March 21.
The holiday is not only celebrated by the Iranians, but also by countries in Central Asia, South Asia, Western China, The Crimea, and by a number of ethnic groups in Balkan countries such as Albania, Kosovo, and Macedonia. The holiday marks the period when the sun crosses the celestial equator and creates equal day and night.
The sun and fire are important elements in the ancient Persian religion of Zoroaster and the festival is observed by this ancient monotheistic faith. In fact, Nowruz is one of the seven most important Zoroastrian festivals the festival is also observed by the much newer Bahai faith which also has its origins in Iran.
The founder of the Bahai religion, Bahalulah, placed much importance on the observance of this annual change of seasons and Bahai faith members the world over eagerly await this event.
Legend has it that this festival, which has it origins in ancient Persia around 600 BCE, is the basis for the Jewish festival of Purim which also comes around this time and is based on the lunar calendar. The festival is celebrated by a number of Muslim communities, including among the Alewite and Alevi sects.
Signifying rebirth, some of the main customs of the holiday includes spring cleaning and inter-family visitation.
As in other holidays that celebrate the New Year, it is believed that what people do on Nowruz will affect them for the remainder of the year. Certain flowers such as tulips and hycinths are placed in the home. Like before Jewish holidays, new clothing is also purchased. Another nice custom involves something sweet being hidden somewhere outside the home, and whoever finds its and brings it inside will have a better year. Families also visit the graves of loved ones on the last Thursday or Friday of the old year proceeding festival.
Faith plays an important role in spreading environmental awareness, and joint environmental concerns can unite faiths. Nowrouz and its many derivations means so much to so many people, it may yet be an excellent ecological “bridge” to unite peoples the world over.
This post was written by Maurice Picow and first appeared on the Middle East environment news site Green Prophet. To subscribe to the newsletter send an email to contact@greenprophet.com.
[Image via Hamed Saber]
Green Your Mitzvahs for the Jewish Holiday of Purim
Filed under: Environment, History and Culture, Holidays
Purim, the Jewish holiday coming up this week, is a time for Jews to cut loose.
Some people will drink until there is no tomorrow (until you have no idea of how drunk you really are). But lot of people forget that there are to-do mitzvahs (good deeds) associated with the Purim holiday. Green Prophet decided to put together a small resource guide to give you some greener ideas for your Purim celebrations.
Let’s start with the basic mitzvahs.
They are:
1. The Reading of the Megillah (Mikra Megillah)
2. The Festive Purim Meal (Seudat Purim)
3. Sending Gifts (Mishloach Manot)
4. Gifts to the poor (Matanot l’Evyonim)
Megillah Reading
It’s permitted to work and drive on Purim, but how about you go to your friend’s house or synagogue by foot to read the Megillah? There is also the bus.
Also, we suggest if you are going to buy your own Book of Esther, consider buying one at a second-hand shop. I have one from the early 1900s, and it is simply a pleasure to read, because it looks and feels like it is from an ancient time, like the story of Queen Esther.
Festive Meal
Organic and fair trade food is a plenty over here in Israel. Consider a pot luck with some of your friends, or vegewarianism, proposed by Green Prophet’s Daniella. And while plastic dishes seem like the way too convenient way to go, please try and use real dishes that you can wash.
Getting Drunk:
While the getting drunk aspect of Purim is a custom and not obligatory, if you’re going to drink, you might as well do it in a sustainable manner. How about buying beer from the Dancing Camel brewery in Tel Aviv?
How about organic wine? Because after all, wine is supposed to be best.
Sending Gifts
Reusable baskets, but not the cheap plastic kind that everybody throws out, are a good vehicle for sending your gifts, traditionally ready-to-eat foodstuffs. Now is your chance to practice baking some of the recipes that Hamutal has provided for us. (It’s recommended to give 2 food items to at least 2 different people.)
Recipe Ideas:
Winter Applesauce Muffins
Make Biscuits With All That Whey
A Tomato Confit Recipe
Try some more ideas on eco-friendly baskets from the Jew and the Carrot. Or Loli Organic Sweets.
Gifts to the poor:
This basic mitzvah is sustainable by design. You can give money to a local food charity, to your synagogue or directly to a person in need. It’s advised to give to 2 or more people before Purim.
More Purim Resources:
Have a Healthy Sustainable Purim
Eating Organic Food At Reasonable Prices
Quick Eco-Purim Tips
Dancing Camel Brewery Activities
Winter Applesauce Muffins Recipe
Be a Vegewarian Instead of a Vegetarian
What’s In Your Mischloach Manot Basket?
[Image Credit: muchnikarts]
(This post first appeared on Green Prophet)
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