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By Karin Kloosterman, Israel 21C
June 28, 2010
Despite the latest tensions, two companies – one Palestinian and one Israeli – are integrating wind turbines together in the West Bank and beyond.
A bridge of peace: The team from Israel Wind Power and Brothers Engineering Group.
A path toward peace may be blowing in the wind, if a new wind energy project between a Palestinian and an Israeli company succeeds. The two companies, Israel Wind Power based in Ramat Gan, near Tel Aviv and Brothers Engineering Group from Bethlehem in the West Bank, have just announced their intention to cooperate in the building and selling of wind turbines in the West Bank region and beyond.
Most significant, they are undeterred by the latest tensions between Israel, the Palestinian Authority (PA) and world powers in the wake of the recent Turkish-led flotilla incident that occurred near Gaza.
Brothers Engineering Group was founded by Dr. Mohammed Salem, a pharmacist, businessman and social entrepreneur with Engineers without Borders. Salem, the company’s CEO, has been in the wind business since 2006 and employs 15 people in Bethlehem. His company supplies wind turbines and solar solutions to the West Bank region.
"Business collaboration in the area of wind energy is something which will be for the benefit of everyone. It will serve as a bridge of peace for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," Salem declares.
"We will be one company, together," Salem tells ISRAEL21c, adding that: "The plan is from yesterday not tomorrow." The two companies plan on cooperating in marketing, manufacturing and installation of wind turbines to generate electricity on a scale of 50 kW to provide wind power for factories, offices and private homes.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Air & Water, Alternative Energy, Business and Commerce, Climate Change, Middle East Report, News Articles, Recent Posts, Science and Technology on June 28, 2010 - ט"ז תמוז תש"ע at 9:32 am
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Moneycontrol.com, May 17, 2010
An Israeli consortium unveiled the world’s largest reverse osmosis desalination plant on Sunday in the coastal city of Hadera, hoping to help alleviate the arid country’s water shortage.
Israel’s H2ID, which is jointly owned by IDE Technologies and Shikun & Binui, said its plant will supply 127 million cubic metres of desalinated water a year, or about 20 percent of the yearly household consumption in Israel.
It is the third in a series of five desalination plants being built over the next few years that will eventually supply Israel with about 750 million cubic metres annually as traditional water sources dwindle with a rising population and low winter rainfalls.
The Hadera facility was the first to be funded almost entirely from foreign funds, said IDE CEO Avshalom Felber. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Air & Water, Business and Commerce, Middle East Report, News Articles, Recent Posts on May 18, 2010 - ה' סיון תש"ע at 11:10 am
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By PATRICK MOSER, AFP, May 3, 2010
The once mighty Jordan River, where Christians believe Jesus was baptized, is now little more than a polluted stream that could die next year unless the decay is halted, environmentalists say.
The famed river "has been reduced to a trickle south of the Sea of Galilee, devastated by overexploitation, pollution and lack of regional management," Friends of the Earth, Middle East said in a report.
More than 98 per cent of the river’s flow has been diverted by Israel, Syria and Jordan over the years.
"The remaining flow consists primarily of sewage, fish pond water, agricultural run-off and saline water," the environmentalists from Israel, Jordan and the West Bank said in the report to be presented in Amman today.
"Without concrete action, the LJR (lower Jordan River) is expected to run dry at the end of 2011."
The river – which runs 217 kilometres from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea – and its tributaries are shared by Israel, Jordan, Syria and the West Bank.
In 1847, a U.S. naval officer who led an expedition along the river described navigating down cascading rapids and waterfalls. Today, the Jordan is a brackish stream barely a few metres wide.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Air & Water, Climate Change, Middle East, News Articles, Recent Posts on May 5, 2010 - כ"א אייר תש"ע at 2:29 pm
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By Steven Stern, Special to CNN, April 22, 2010
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
RELATED TOPICS
(CNN) — "Carrying bottled water is on its way to being as cool as smoking while pregnant," claims the video "The Story of Bottled Water," which debuted on YouTube last month and garnered more than 450,000 views.
Is it true? Are liters of Evian now beyond the pale? Is Dasani déclassé? Has bottled water become the new eco-no-no?
Not quite yet. Though water sales have seen a recent downturn, plenty of folks are still paying for their daily hydration.
In fact, Annie Leonard’s video points out, Americans buy more than 500 million bottles of the stuff every week. It’s second only to soda in popularity, and some industry analysts believe that by next year water will become the most-purchased beverage in the country.
She wants to redirect the flow of water. The bottled water companies, the video insists, are "scaring us, seducing us, misleading us" into buying their products. Leonard, the writer and narrator, gives plenty of reasons why more and more people want to "take back the tap."
But the International Bottled Water Association accuses the video of "numerous false and misleading statements."
"’The Story of Bottled Water’ takes a very cynical view of the intelligence of consumers by depicting them as being dupes and victims of industry," said Tom Lauria, IBWA’s vice president of communications. "We think the opposite; that consumers are really quite thoughtful in selecting and enjoying a safe, healthy, convenient, calorie-free beverage that’s delicious, refreshing and a very smart drink choice."
However, Leonard argues that not only does tap water often beat out bottled in blind taste tests, but bottled is often less regulated than tap. Tap water is monitored by the Environmental Protection Agency, whose standards are generally stricter than the Food and Drug Administration, which oversees most bottled-water sales.
Also, she says, tap water is certainly cheaper — thousands of times cheaper. Not to mention that some of the best-selling bottled waters — Pepsi’s Aquafina and Coca-Cola’s Dasani among them — are, actually, nothing but filtered tap water. The companies themselves have spelled this out on labels after pressure from the consumer watchdog group Corporate Accountability International
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Air & Water, Climate Change, Health Sciences, Nutrition & Fitness, Recent Posts on April 23, 2010 - ט' אייר תש"ע at 8:11 am
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Press Release, Tel Aviv University, April 21, 2010
Does your drinking water smell foul, or are you worried that chemicals might be damaging your family’s health? Water treatment facilities currently use chlorine that produces carcinogenic by-products to keep your tapwater clean, but Tel Aviv University scientists have determined that ultra-violet (UV) light might be a better solution.
Dr. Hadas Mamane of Tel Aviv University‘s Porter School of Environmental Science and Faculty of Engineering, Prof. Eliora Ron of TAU’s George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences and their doctoral student Anat Lakretz of TAU’s School of Mechanical Engineering have recently determined the optimal UV wavelength for keeping water clean of microorganisms. Their approach could be used by water treatment plants as well as large-scale desalination facilities to destroy health-threatening microorganisms and make these facilities more efficient.
"UV light irradiation is being increasingly applied as a primary process for water disinfection," says Lakretz. "In our recent study, we’ve shown how this treatment can be optimized to kill free-swimming bacteria in the water — the kinds that also stick inside water distribution pipes and clog filters in desalination plants by producing bacterial biofilms."
This undesired "stickiness" of bacteria to surfaces is called "bio-fouling," which costs taxpayers and governments billions of dollars each year. "No one should be drinking microorganisms in their water. In addition, when microorganisms get stuck in the pores of the membranes of filters, they create serious problems," says Lakretz.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Air & Water, Climate Change, Middle East, News Articles, Recent Posts, Science and Technology, Solar Energy on April 22, 2010 - ח' אייר תש"ע at 2:18 pm
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Andrew Donoghue, BusinessGreen 11 Sep 2009
A Ford car plant which was recently shut down as part of cost savings by the car maker is being converted into a facility for renewable energy companies.
The facility in Wixom, Michigan, which at the height of production had about 5,000 workers, closed in 2007 with the loss of 1,000 jobs. The site will now be converted into a business park for a series of renewable energy companies, which the backers claim could generate about 4,000 jobs.
Ford said it has been working with energy storage system provider Xtreme Power and solar panel maker Clairvoyant Energy, who will be the first companies to take up residency in the 320-acre site and its 4.7 million square feet of plant space. The two renewable energy providers have invested about $725m (£635m) to redevelop the site, with work expected to begin early next year and clean tech manufacturing expected to get underway in 2011. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Air & Water, Alternative Energy, Biomass fuels, Climate Change, Recent Posts, Science and Technology, Solar Energy on September 12, 2009 - כ"ג אלול תשס"ט at 11:19 am
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 Photo: Hugh Macleod/IRIN  |
| Farmers in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley, where outdated irrigation systems causes water shortages despite the country’s above-average rainfall |
BEIRUT, 10 September 2009 (IRIN) – The politics of the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms, a rugged sliver of mountainside wedged between Lebanon, Israel and Syria, have long overshadowed what some Lebanese environmentalists call “the real issue” of the disputed area: its water resources.
Now activists are calling for hydro-diplomacy to take precedence over political manoeuvring as the most effective solution to one of the key stumbling blocks to Middle East peace.
Rising Temperatures Rising Tensions, a report published in June by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), funded by the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, considers water to be a major trigger for conflict in the Middle East, the world’s most water scarce region.
 There will not be enough water for our generation or the next. We will see social, economic, political and military conflicts – and in that order – within the next 20 years |
Lebanon and Syria say the Shebaa Farms, measuring just 22sqkm, is Lebanese territory, though the UN has ruled it part of the Syrian Golan Heights, which lie just to the east, across water-rich Mount Hermon.
Both the Golan and Shebaa were occupied by Israel during the Six-Day War of 1967 and the Israelis say disengagement from Shebaa can only come under a peace deal with Syria and withdrawal from the Golan.
However, Fadi Comair, director-general of Hydraulic and Electric Resources at the Lebanese Ministry of Energy and Water, argues there is more to Israel’s occupation of Shebaa than military-strategic concerns: “Israel’s occupation of the Shebaa Farms has to do with control of its water.”
Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group that fought Israel to a bloody stalemate in 2006, has the liberation of Shebaa as one of its strategic objectives.
 Photo: Hugh Macleod/IRIN  |
| UN peacekeepers patrol the Blue Line, the boundary between Lebanon and Israel, near the water-rich Shebaa Farms |
Water scarcity
Meeting the water needs of their rapidly growing populations has long been an existential challenge for the governments of the arid Middle East. Climate change is making that challenge more urgent and acute.
Israel, Jordan and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) all fall well below the internationally accepted threshold of 1,000 cubic metres of water per person per year (cmwpy). According to the IISD, Israel has natural renewable water resources of 265 cmwpy, Jordan 169, and OPT just 90. Only Lebanon and Syria have water surpluses, with Lebanon having a potential of 1,220 cmwpy and Syria 1,541.
Yet supply is dwindling rapidly. By 2025 water use in Israel is estimated to fall to 310 cmwpy, while the country’s own Environment Ministry has warned that water supply may fall by 60 percent of 2000 levels by 2100.
River Jordan
The IISD report goes even further, warning that the River Jordan, which is the key supplier of water to Israel, Jordan and OPT, could shrink as much as 80 percent by the end of the century.
Such drastic scarcity makes securing water supplies vital. The River Jordan rises in Mount Hermon, fed by tributaries in the Golan Heights and Shebaa Farms, and flows into the Sea of Galilee, also known as Lake Tiberius, before continuing south where it forms the boundary between Jordan, to the east, and the West Bank. After 320km it empties into the Dead Sea.
Major tributaries of the river include the Hasbani, which flows into Israel from Lebanon, and the Banias, which flows from Syria. The River Dan, which also supplies the River Jordan, is the only river originating in Israel.
 Photo: Hugh Macleod/IRIN |
| Women in the Shebaa Farms village of Kafr Shouba mourn the death of their son, a shepherd shot by Israeli soldiers in March 2006 after straying into the Blue Line area |
Water wars
The absence of hydro-diplomacy reflects conflict in the region. In 1965, Syria and Lebanon began the construction of channels to divert the Banias and Hasbani, preventing the rivers flowing into Israel. The Israelis attacked the diversion works, the first in a series of moves that led to a regional war two years later.
In 2002, when the Lebanese constructed a pipeline on the River Wazzani intended to supply households in southern Lebanon with water, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declared the action a causus belli. In the July War of 2006, Israeli warplanes targeted southern Lebanon’s water network.
Bassam Jaber, a water expert at Lebanon’s Ministry of Energy and Water, argues the Shebaa is critical to Israel’s water needs, “especially because fresh water is critical when all sources within Israel are salty. The flows from the area help to regulate the saltiness of Lake Tiberius”.
And it is not just the direct overland flow that the Shebaa provides Israel. According to the Lebanese Water Ministry’s Comair, 30-40 percent of the River Dan’s water flows into it through underground supplies originating in the Shebaa. “Israel is worried that if Lebanon gains control of the Shebaa, it can then control the flow to the Dan river,” said Comair.
Hydro-diplomacy
As one of only eight states to have ratified the 1997 UN Convention on the Law of Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses, Lebanon is calling on Israel to do the same.
“Israel is not a signatory to the relevant conventions on water, which is a big problem since they are at the centre of the issue of equitable use of water and reasonable sharing,” said Comair.
Israel has already shown that water can play a role in peacemaking. Its 1994 peace agreement with Jordan included a commitment to transfer 75 million cubic metres of water per year to Jordan in return for secure borders to the east.
Lebanon’s Ministry of Energy and Water is now calling for a regional water basin authority for the River Jordan, which would include Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel and OPT. “How can you reach any agreements on the equitable sharing of international watercourses if there is no cooperation?” asked Comair.
 Photo: Annasofie Flamand/IRIN |
| A view from southern Lebanon across the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights, from where the Jordan River rises |
Water solutions for all?
Not all are convinced Israel’s occupation of Shebaa is primarily about securing water.
“Water is no doubt one aspect of the socio-political conflict, but it is not the main driver,” said Mutasem el-Fadel, director of the Water Resources Center at the American University of Beirut.
He points to several projects currently being studied that could solve Israel’s water needs, without requiring continued occupation of the Shebaa, such as the Red Sea-Dead Sea Canal Project, the Mini-Peace pipeline from Turkey, wastewater reclamation plans and desalination projects.
“All combined they can be the water solution for all five countries in the area,” said el-Fadel.
But in the absence of hydro-diplomacy between Israel and Lebanon, the continued Israeli occupation of the Shebaa Farms will remain a key trigger to renewed conflict between the two countries.
“There will not be enough water for our generation or the next,” said Comair. “We will see social, economic, political and military conflicts – and in that order – within the next 20 years.”
hm/ed/cb Themes: (IRIN) Early Warning, (IRIN) Environment, (IRIN) Water & Sanitation [ENDS] Report can be found online at:
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=86092
[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Air & Water, Climate Change, Middle East Report, News Articles on September 11, 2009 - כ"ב אלול תשס"ט at 7:35 am
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If it succeeds, it will reduce the amount of brine volume in sea water to 33-50 percent of that currently generated by desalination.
The project is supported through grants provided to the team at the beginning of the year by the Middle East Desalination Research Center and the NATO Science for Peace project. A pilot unit is already under construction at Sde Boker, and is slated for completion by 2010. The team will also be working in Jordan towards the end of next year, or possibly at the beginning of 2011.
Ben-Gurion University’s technology transfer company, BGN Technologies, has established a new company ROTEC (Reverse Osmoses Technologies) to bring the technology to the commercial market. Israel’s national water company, Mekorot, has invested its own research and development funds in ROTEC to promote the technology as well. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Air & Water, Business and Commerce, Middle East Report, News Articles, Recent Posts, Science and Technology on August 26, 2009 - ו' אלול תשס"ט at 11:36 am
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By Crystal McMorris, Midland Daily News, August 6, 2009
If you think roof-top windmills, solar-powered cottages and robust manufacturing in Michigan are the stuff of fairy tales, you weren’t at Wednesday’s Alternative Energy Forum.
Leaders in several alternative energy fields updated about 100 people on the growing demand and emerging technologies for energy from wind, sun and the earth itself, and how the state is poised to benefit from public and private investment in "green energy."
The forum, sponsored by the Sierra Club and Citizens Exploring Clean Energy, was arranged by University of Michigan senior Shawn Kinkema and held at Essexville Garber High School.
"I believe Michigan has the tools to reinvent itself," said Kinkema, an environmental studies major from Essexville.
Cedric G. Currin has been involved in this reinvention since the first time "alternative" energy was a hot topic in the 1970s. His company, Currin Corp., of Midland, makes solar panels which are used, mainly, to power to rural areas beyond the grid in national parks, for example, and isolated areas of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
Currin said the solar power industry has grown about 40 percent per year for the past three years or so.
"You can’t think of a greener way of getting power," Currin said, holding up one of his company’s solar panels, about the size of a record album. "It makes no noise. Nothing is moving. It is virtually free of any maintenance. And it lasts for a long, long time — 50 to 100 years."
Solar power has its problems, however, Currin noted, which explains why so few homes in Michigan rely on solar power as their sole or primary energy source. Panels produce DC current, while our homes are set up for AC current, requiring conversion. Power needs to be stored, too, since the sun’s not always shining.
And a solar system costing $20,000 to install will save only about $200 a year in electrical costs.
But a growing desire to be energy independent — as a nation and individuals — is fueling the growth in demand for alternative energy, Currin noted. Concern for the environment is another driver, he said. Under the current energy system, each Michigan household causes five tons of carbon dioxide to be emitted from coal power plants, he said.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Air & Water, Alternative Energy, Climate Change, Recent Posts, Solar Energy on August 6, 2009 - ט"ז אב תשס"ט at 11:41 pm
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Ilan Juran, an American-Israeli specialist in urban infrastructure, is seeing to it that the residents of Gaza will be equipped with the same sanitation and sewage systems that are enjoyed by their neighbors in their sister city on the coast.
By Karin Kloosterman , Israel 21c,August 06, 2009
The concept of achieving peace through pipes may have originated with Native Americans, but today, unbeknownst to most of us, Israelis and Gazans are seeking peace through sewage pipes.
It was a wild idea back in 1997, and perhaps it is even more unrealistic today. However, against the odds – and working around their governments – the mayors of the Israeli city of Ashkelon and the Palestinian Authority’s Gaza City have taken it upon themselves to try to cooperate with each other.
Ten years ago the vehicle was an educational project in high-tech. Today, they’re coming together over waste water.
By car, the two cities are only about a 20-minute drive away from each other. But in fact, they are worlds apart. Most people in both cities have never met one another.
The only thing they can be sure that they have in common is a beautiful coastline that follows the Mediterranean Sea from Lebanon all the way down to Egypt. But that shining sea is heavily polluted, since Gaza has no water infrastructure and its raw sewage pours directly into the sea.
Thanks to one man’s vision, the two cities will soon be working together. Ilan Juran, an American-Israeli specialist in urban infrastructure, is seeing to it that the residents of Gaza will be equipped with the same sanitation and sewage systems that are enjoyed by their neighbors in their sister city on the coast.
Partners in the hoped-for project include the mayors of Ashkelon and Gaza, the Israeli water company Mekorot, the Palestinian Water Authority, the United Nations and local municipalities.
All that remains is for Hamas to approve the plan
Ashkelon Mayor Benny Vaknin is working in full cooperation with Gaza Mayor Maged Abu Ramadan to put Juran’s vision to the test. Vaknin went to Brazil to present the idea to the XVII International Media Seminar on Peace in the Middle East, a conference on Middle East peacemaking co-hosted by the United Nations’ Department of Public Information and the Brazilian government at the end of July.
The plan being presented in Brazil is to build a new recycling and water management system for Gaza City and its surrounding villages based on the existing Israeli system.
It was hoped that officials from both sides would sign the agreement in Rio de Janeiro, but despite permits to travel being arranged by the Israeli side, two days before the conference, Abu Ramadan and his officials were refused permission to travel by Hamas.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Air & Water, Health Sciences, Islam, Judaism, Middle East Report, News Articles, Recent Posts on August 6, 2009 - ט"ז אב תשס"ט at 11:32 pm
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