Safed coffee factory runs on coffee
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, Environment, General, Technology
Coffee-inspired energy is only becoming increasingly fashionable. Back in June, a team at the University of Leeds experimented with the same process used for roasting coffee beans as a method of releasing energy from a host of other crops, including wheat straw and certain types of grasses. The study concluded that this method has the potential boost the energy output of biomass power by up to 20%.
But what about using coffee itself? The concept of using coffee to obtain energy is hardly a new one, and here in Israel, where new energy sources are always an especially welcome discovery, coffee – especially the iconic Elite-brand instant – is a way of life.
Recently, Strauss Elite’s 1956-inaugurated instant coffee plant in Safed implemented a series of green measures, at an estimated expenditure of NIS 10 million, Haaretz reports. The measures include extending the height of the mill’s smokestack and upgrading filtration systems, with estimated efficiency increases resulting from the measures expected to pay for themselves within four years. But perhaps the most remarkable measure is that now the factory uses coffee regs to power itself:
At the beginning of this week, large furnaces were installed to burn the coffee beans at high temperatures to create steam. According to Strauss vice president Pini Kamari, the move will cut the factory’s shale consumption in half.
“This creates a direct connection between being ‘green’ and being efficient,” Kamari explained. “Motivation for the change came from our desire to cut costs, reducing energy costs and transportation costs for both the shale and the waste. At the same time, emissions will be much lower, both from the smokestacks and from the trucks [formerly needed to bring in fuel]. We will create less waste and need to bury less garbage. Noise will also be reduced.”
Image of Israeli coffee beans courtesy gkamin from Flickr under a Creative Commons license.
Israeli Tots At 82 Kindergartens To Learn Green ABC’s
In a special ceremony, held in Bar-Ilan University earlier this month, some 48 green kindergartens located in the Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, central and southern districts of Israel were certified “green.”
An additional 34 kindergartens were certified earlier in the month, on December 3 in Haifa, 8 of which came from the Arab sector, reports the Ministry of Environmental Protection website. This is good news to our ears.
In all, 82 Israeli green kindergartens were certified in 2008, compared to 32 in 2007. But what does it take to make Israeli tots green? Do the ganenets feed them organic food? Do they learn about recycling? Maybe they plant trees?
In order to be officially certified, kindergartens must demonstrate their achievements in three areas:
- Environmental curriculum
- Rational use of resources
- Contribution to the community
According to the Ministry, kindergartens have a critical role to play in setting the educational infrastructure or basis for the understanding of basic concepts at the personal and social levels. “Cultivating environmental literacy in the kindergarten is of major importance since it is at this early age that we can try to instill positive attitudes toward the human and physical environment, in the present and in the future,” they write.
Accreditation of Green Kindergartens Come With $ Incentive
The aim of the “Green Kindergarten” program is to lead kindergartens through an educational process in which the children, kindergarten teachers, assistants and parents take part in incorporating environmental subjects into the kindergarten.
The accreditation process for Green Kindergartens was initiated in 2006 by the Ministry of Environmental Protection in cooperation with the Ministry of Education. Coming along with a cash incentive, going green can also boost enrollment (it’s a new thing moms and dads can brag about at the park). In Israel it seems that most kindergartens are privatized. So the added marketability of teaching tots to go green can be a selling point.
Recycling Corner in a Petach Tikva kindergarten
Olive you
Despite the historical connotation of the olive branch, olive harvesting season is often not a period of peace here. Clashes between Palestinian olive farmers and settlers in the West Bank regularly mar the olive harvest, and according to Israeli security sources, the situation is worsening.
However, my own personal olive harvest is going just fine, thanks. When we moved into our current home, we inherited a healthy olive tree that produces more and more green olives every year. It’s one of the few objects of vegetation in our yard we haven’t managed to kill.
Only problem is, even though I love olive oil, I hate olives. Fortunately the rest of my family is more Mediterranean oriented, and they love the little critters.
So for a week in October, they turn into people of the earth and climb the tree to fill bucket after bucket of the hard olives.
Once in a while, just like the Wilderness family, my wife will bottle the olives herself, with a precise recipe involving garlic, lemon vinegar and other tangy ingredients.
But she’s never been so happy with the results, saying the olives in the supermarket deli are tastier. So usually, we give away the olives that have been picked to anyone who wants them – neighbors, friends – we even stop people on the street asking them to please take these olives off our hands.
So, for at least one family, olive harvest season is still about holding forth the olive branch.
(Photo courtesy of Matan Brinn)
Black cloud squeal hotline
Tel Aviv gridlock is a major problem. And while the bureaucrats duke it out over the best way to fix things, the smog continues to billow.
Our official emission standards are competitive with the world’s most strict governments, but when it comes to enforcement, well, the Police sometimes seem more interested in taking photos of people speeding.
Now the government is handing matters over to the community of drivers, according to a YNet report. Who better to rat out that truck with the rusted-out exhaust line, hopefully taking it off the road and adding years of lung life to everyone who would be in its wake, than the dude two lanes over in the Prius? According to the Environmental Protection ministry, the answer is a resounding “Nobody.”
The Environmental Protection and the Transport ministries have embarked on a joint initiative recently, forming the polluting vehicles hotline, meant to allow drivers to report any cars they think might be exceeding the legal vehicular emission limits.
According to the plan, introduced by Environment Minister Gideon Ezra, people who call the hotline would be able to do so anonymously, but they would have to give a complete description of the polluting car, such as make and model, color and license plate.
….MK Dov Khenin (Hadash), who heads the Knesset’s environmental lobby, welcomed the initiative, despite its innate difficulties: “We’re bound to see some false reports, but the overall effect of the system would be a positive one,” he said.
“The mere existence of such a hotline would prompt car owners to take better care of their vehicle, in order to avoid citations.”
So from now on, if you’re driving along the highway and you see a black cloud emanating from a fellow driver’s vehicle, you’ll only have yourself and the dude two lanes over in the Prius to blame.
Image courtesy EagleXDV from Flickr under a Creative Commons license.
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