Picture of the week – A green Yom Kippur for all the world

September 30, 2009 - 8:20 PM by Nicky · 1 Comment
Filed under: Environment, General, Holidays, Picture of the Week 

Children riding their bikes and bimbas on an empty street in Jerusalem. Photo by Nati Shohat/Flash90.

Children riding their bikes and bimbas on an empty street in Jerusalem. Photo by Nati Shohat/Flash90.


For some it’s a solemn day of fasting, prayer, and asking for forgiveness, for others – specifically children – Yom Kippur is the day they claim the streets.

Ever year, children all over the country hone their cycling skills as the traffic stops and the roads clear. Whether it’s on a bike, roller blades, scooters, bimbas, or even unicycles, the nation takes to the street in what is probably – ironically – one of the most joyous holidays of the year.

Aside from the sheer pleasure of cycling undisturbed down some of Israel’s main arteries – like route 6, or the Ayalon Freeway, the quality of undisturbed silence is unparalleled. There are no buses, no cars, no trains, no airplanes even. The only sound is the whir of bikes, and the calls of children.

And the air quality, well…

I’ve long thought that some form of Yom Kippur actually ought to be adopted by other countries as an environmental measure. This must be the greenest day in Israel.

Every year there are reports in the local press about the dramatic decline in air pollution throughout Israel’s towns and cities. It’s a chance for the country to breathe again. Imagine what would happen if London followed suit, or New York, or Beijing. Perhaps this should be the latest campaign for environmentalists.

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Safed coffee factory runs on coffee

February 3, 2009 - 8:28 PM by Harry · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, Environment, General, Technology 

Coffee power!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.

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