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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| Farmers in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley, where outdated irrigation systems causes water shortages despite the country’s above-average rainfall |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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Source: International Federation of Red Cross And Red Crescent Societies (IFRC)
Date: 03 Aug 2009
Full_Report (pdf* format – 580.4 Kbytes)
GLIDE DR-2009-000149-SYR
The International Federation’s Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF) is a source of un-earmarked money created by the Federation in 1985 to ensure that immediate financial support is available for Red Cross and Red Crescent response to emergencies. The DREF is a vital part of the International Federation’s disaster response system and increases the ability of national societies to respond to disasters.
CHF 320,856 (USD 300,340 or EUR 212,435) has been allocated from the International Federation’s Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF) to support the Syrian Arab Red Crescent Society (SARC) in delivering immediate assistance to some 40,000 beneficiaries (8,000 families). Unearmarked funds to repay DREF are encouraged.
Summary:
Syria is currently experiencing the dramatic effects of a drought that has been affecting the country since 2006. As a consequence of climate change, the severity of the ongoing drought has now reached a level which forces people to change their coping techniques or to leave the affected region. According to the government of Syria and United Nations assessment missions, some 1,3 million inhabitants of Eastern Syria have been affected by this disaster, out of which 803,000 have lost almost all of their livelihoods and face extreme hardship. One of the most visible effects of the drought is the large migration from the affected areas that has increased substantially over the past months. Figures for migration range from 40,000 to 60,000 families, with 36,000 of them being from the Hassakeh Governorate alone. SARC has mobilised its intervention teams and carried out assessment studies in the most affected regions. The assessment’s findings indicated that the villagers started to sell their belongings in order to buy food items. Data from the clinics of SARC indicate that children up to the age of three years are lacking proper nutrition and have a low level of protein and other nutritious agents necessary for proper growth. Many parents are withdrawing their children from elementary schools and are sending them to work to bring income to the families.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Air & Water, Climate Change, Middle East Report, News Articles, Recent Posts on August 3, 2009 - י"ג אב תשס"ט at 9:14 pm
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By NAOMI SCHWARZ, The Christian Science Monitor, July 17, 2008
Dap Dior, Senegal – D’dieme Faye’s muscular arms pump energetically as she pounds millet for her family’s lunch with an over-sized mortar and pestle.
In the past, Ms. Faye would have cooked a rich dish of rice, fish, and vegetables. But food prices are going up around the world, and West Africa has been one of the hardest-hit regions. The price of rice, alone, has doubled here in the past year.
“Life is too expensive,” she says, “too expensive.”
Her husband, Mamadou Diouf, says he hopes a new irrigation project in his village, Dap Dior, will be the answer to his family’s food problems. Villagers plan to use the project, developed by the Israeli Embassy in partnership with local and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), to drastically increase their local production.
Traditionally, farmers in Mr. Diouf’s village wait for the rainy season to plant seeds. In a semi-arid place like Senegal, the rainy season only lasts three months. And if, like last year, the rainy season falls short, entire crops can fail.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Air & Water, Middle East Report, Science and Technology on July 18, 2008 - ט"ו תמוז תשס"ח at 11:42 am
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Written by Masimba Biriwasha, Ecoworldly.com, July 9, 2008
The Middle East and North Africa is also faced with acute water shortages, a situation that will pit the countries in the region against each other.
“The only matter that could take Egypt to war is water,” the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat said tellingly in 1979.
Water security is increasingly becoming a military priority for many of the countries in the Middle East, and the threat of wars between countries is real.
There is no consensus among water analysts on whether there will be global wars over water ownership.
According to UNESCO, globally there are 262 international river basins: 59 in Africa, 52 in Asia, 73 in Europe, 61 in Latin America and the Caribbean and 17 in North America — overall, 145 countries have territories that include at least one shared river basin.
UNESCO states that between 1948 and 1999, there have been 1,831 “international interactions” recorded, including 507 conflicts, 96 neutral or non-significant events and, most importantly, 1,228 instances of cooperation around water-related issues.
As a result, some experts argue that the idea of water wars is rather farfetched given the precedent of water cooperation that has been exhibited by many of the countries around the world.
“Despite the potential problem, history has demonstrated that cooperation, rather than conflict, is likely in shared basins,” says UNESCO.
However, the fact remains that throughout the world water supplies are running dry and the situation is being compounded by inappropriate management of water resources that will likely unravel previous international cooperation around water.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Air & Water, Alternative Energy, Climate Change, Middle East, Opinion on July 11, 2008 - ח' תמוז תשס"ח at 3:43 am
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IRIN, April 16, 2008
We need a multi-level solution, including conservation and changes in use in the agriculture sector.
JERUSALEM, 16 April 2008 (IRIN) – Israel is suffering from a water crisis and immediate steps must be taken to resolve the problem, Uri Shani, the head of Israel’s Water Authority, told the cabinet on 13 April. He said there was a gap between supply and demand that needed to be closed.
Over the next five years, the country would be below the “red lines” at all water sources, and there would be a need to significantly increase the amount of water produced by desalination, he said.
The government recently issued a tender for bids to build a new desalination plant to produce 100 million cubic metres of water a year. Officials told IRIN this was only one of several new plants to be constructed in the coming years.
However, some experts say desalination is only part of a wider change needed.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Air & Water, Middle East Report, Science and Technology on April 18, 2008 - י"ג ניסן תשס"ח at 6:12 am
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By MARGARET COKER, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 04/06/08
Eilat, Israel — Old-timers in this arid city where the desert meets the Red Sea still recall a time when ice was a luxury and residents watched their gardens bake crisp most of the year.
But ask 22-year-old Einav Arush about her experience with water scarcity and she cocks her head in confusion.
“I don’t think about water. Our city solved that problem, long ago,” she said.
The solution was desalination, the process of turning seawater into fresh water by separating salty compounds and leaving pure water molecules behind.
The technology is gaining new scrutiny among policy-makers in the United States in places such as Georgia, Florida and Texas, where periodic droughts have become severe and growing cities are demanding more water.
In six decades, Eilat has grown from an army outpost to a thriving port city and resort destination. Since 1982, the local desalination plant has met all the city’s water needs.
Situated at the southern tip of the Arava Desert, Eilat has no natural fresh water supply and the barest rainfall. Tourists used to bring barrels of water with them on vacation. Residents used to launder clothes from a bucket.
Today Eilat is dotted with trees, decorated with flowerbeds and green grass and awash in swimming pools.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Air & Water, Alternative Energy, Middle East Report, Recent Posts on April 8, 2008 - ג' ניסן תשס"ח at 8:53 pm
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