A new wind blows between Israelis and Palestinians

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.   

Start with the PA and move beyond

In fact, a year ago the Brothers Group made e-mail contact (in English, their common language) with Israel Wind Energy, a company that was founded about a year ago, which provides wind turbine solutions and has also developed its own wind turbine. "We got emails from them last year," says Yanir Avital, the Israeli company’s founder, standing at Salem’s side. "They were interested in our product. We visited their company in Bethlehem and felt they could be a good partner. We could use [Salem's] connections, and with our connections we could help their company go one or two steps ahead."

The two sides intend to first cooperate on the integration of the wind turbines in the PA and later branch out beyond the region. "We’d like to develop and install wind turbines in the territories," says Avital. "In Israel we have very few places that can use this kind of energy."

Building their own wind turbines in the Bethlehem region for about five years, the Brothers Group supplies off-grid wind energy in the West Bank based on orders from non-profit organizations that direct the energy to those who need it most. They also supply turbines to private clients who buy them to offset electricity costs.

While the PA says it plans to offer feed-in tariffs from the Palestinian energy and utilities companies to the people who invest in renewable energy, as is currently the case in Israel and the US, at the moment no working network exists, Salem explains, so that for now his customers are either NGOs, or private citizens looking to reduce their energy costs.

The Brothers Group offers university students in the West Bank courses in building wind turbines, some of which are used for treating wastewater. The company also has experience with solar energy. Salem believes that the partnership with Israel Wind Energy will be mutually beneficial: "We will be good partners for designing and building big turbines, with our technology and their technology."

Israel Wind Power’s turbines are light, quiet and aesthetic, according to the company.

Expanding into the wind

In the West Bank, the Brothers Group doesn’t import any parts, but builds everything from scratch with the help of 10 engineers and five laborers. "Our turbines are built from parts from Palestine. We are the first and only wind company in Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine that’s building turbines," Salem asserts. He says he’d like to work in the Gaza Strip as well, but it’s impossible to bring in the parts, since the Israeli government highly regulates such materials which could also be used to build missiles.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian company builds about one wind turbine a day, which can generate from 200 to 2,000 watts of power, per hour.

Israel Wind Energy is already building wind turbine solutions slated for imminent export to Europe and Russia – these are mostly turbines that can convert wind energy for heating water. In just a few months the company is expected to begin selling its ‘Dude Ruah’ (‘wind tank’) that is currently in production. Founded to coincide with attractive feed-in tariffs offered in Israel, the company has also developed its own wind turbine which works well on household roofs and sports an attractive design and low-noise output.

"The turbines we make are light, quiet and aesthetic," Avital tells ISRAEL21c, pointing to one designed with an Israeli flag. A single kilowatt unit costs about $5,000 he says and would provide about one-quarter of the energy used in a mid-sized home.

However, according to Avital there is only one location in the Golan Heights which is ideal for wind, and the next suitable place in area is in the West Bank. He believes that cooperating with the West Bank-based Brothers Group could help the Israeli company to expand into regions where there is more wind.

A blessed enterprise

Yoram Suissa, the business development manager of Israel Wind Power, says that through the collaboration his Palestinian partners will be able to display their technology in the international arena: "We will be a pipeline for our Palestinian friends and colleagues for their products to be marketed both in Israel and abroad."

With its six employees, Israel Wind Power, which was formed and is financed by the Y. Avital holding company, plans to offer technical knowledge and professional training for large capacity turbines, as well as advanced wind energy approaches.

"We see this joint business venture as a business enterprise which connects these two communities in a blessed way, setting aside the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," says Salem. "We believe that this is an example of the ability of ordinary people to bridge gaps between our communities, especially during these stormy days."

The two companies hope to have projects up and running within the next year. That is, of course, assuming that the fickle political winds don’t blow the plans off course.

Source: Israel21C.org

Israel can afford to increase its consumption and export.

Amiram Barkat, GLOBES, Israel

3 Jun 10 18:46

Israel’s natural gas reserves quadrupled at 6am this morning when Noble Energy (NYSE:NBL) announced the results of its seismic survey of the Leviathan gas field. Alongside the dramatic announcement by Noble Energy about the Leviathan findings, there was also the report that estimates of the gas reserves in the Tamar prospect have risen from 207 to 238 billion cubic meters. So what to do with so much gas? Israel can afford to increase its consumption and export.The increase in Tamar alone is equivalent to the entire Yam Tethys gas field, which has been the main supplier of natural gas to Israel since 2004. On the margins of the announcement, it said that the amount of gas in the Tamar prospect should supply all the needs of the Israeli economy for 35 years.

Israel’s annual natural gas consumption amounts to 5 billion cubic meters. According to the Gas Authority’s predictions, which are considered conservative, annual gas consumption in Israel will increase to 10.2 billion cubic meters by 2019 and 15.5 billion cubic meters by 2029. Analysts like Clal Finance’s Yaron Zer expect demand for natural gas in Israel to rise much faster.

The new gas discoveries enable Israel to reevaluate its energy policy planning. For example, Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) (TASE: ELEC.B22) could lift its ceiling of 40-45% of gas use in electricity production. It would be worthwhile for industry to use more natural gas. It will also be possible to use natural gas as an alternative to gasoline and diesel in public transport. In addition, the new discoveries will allow Israel to keep far larger strategic stocks for emergency use – for example by refilling the Mary prospect, which is rapidly emptying out.   

Even if only part of the findings of the Leviathan survey are realized, then it is clear that Israel will not need all the offshore gas for itself. There are potential export clients. Cyprus needs natural gas but only in small quantities. Notwithstanding the current diplomatic tensions with Turkey it would be possible to lay an underground pipeline to supply that country’s large natural gas needs. It might also be possible to then link up with a planned gas pipeline from Azerbaijan through Turkey to Southern Europe.

Perhaps the best export option would be to set up a liquid gas (LNG) infrastructure and thus open up huge markets in Japan, Korea and Taiwan which today consume two thirds of the world’s LNG production.

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news – www.globes-online.com – on June 3, 2010

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2010

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. 

A few kilometres south of the Sea of Galilee – which is actually a lake – a dam cuts off the flow of the river. Just south of the dam, raw sewage gushes from a pipe.

"This is what is today the source of the lower Jordan River," Friends of the Earth director for Israel Gidon Bromberg said, pointing to the foul-smelling water.

"No one can say this is holy water. No one can say this is an acceptable state for a river this famous worldwide."

A few metres away, saline water – diverted from salt springs to protect the nearby lake – flowed into the foaming brown mess.

About 100 kilometres downstream, a Russian clad in a white robe immersed himself in the river at a site in Jordan where many Christians believe Jesus was baptized.

Every year, thousands of pilgrims take the plunge in the biblical river despite alarmingly high pollution.

Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian communities along the lower Jordan River – about 340,000 people in all – dump raw sewage into the river.

Ironically, if the sewage stops flowing into the river – which Israel plans to ensure on its stretch – the damage could be even greater unless additional measures are taken to reduce the salinity of the water.

Friends of the Earth believes the solution lies in releasing huge amounts of fresh water into the river.

The Jordan once had a flow of 1.3 billion cubic metres a year, but now discharges only an estimated 20 million to 30 million cubic metres into the Dead Sea.

"A new study we commissioned reveals that we have lost at least 50 per cent of biodiversity in and around the river due to the near total diversion of fresh water, and that some 400 million cubic metres of water annually are urgently needed to be returned to the river to bring it back to life," said Munqeth Mehyar, Friends of the Earth’s Jordanian director.

© Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette

By Steven Stern, Special to CNN, April 22, 2010

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Advocacy video claims consumers are being scared into buying bottled water
• Bottled water industry claims it’s a smart choice to buy bottled water
• Critic Annie Leonard: Some bottled water is tap water; plastic bottles pollute
• Industry says bottled water containers are 100 percent recyclable

RELATED TOPICS

• Environmental Issues and Protection

(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  

Add the fact that, according to Leonard, the amount of petroleum used to make water bottles every year is "enough to fuel a million cars" and that 80 percent of supposedly recyclable plastic bottles end up in landfills, you have the makings a ecological crusade.

IBWA counters on its website that bottled water containers are 100 percent recyclable and the bottles are "the nation’s most recycled plastic container."

To back up its claims, the organization put its own video "Good Stewards" on YouTube.

The bottle backlash has been bubbling up for a while.

Tapping into civic pride

What the video calls "one of the dumbest moves in advertising history" happened back in 2006. High-end brand Fiji started a campaign intended to tout its expensively-imported-from-the-tropics water. "The label says Fiji because it’s not bottled in Cleveland," read the copy in a series of glossy magazine ads. This did not sit well with the good people of Cleveland, Ohio, who were rather proud of their city’s tap water.

Cleveland Public Utilities director Julius Ciaccia had the local water tested against the pricey bottled stuff. Fiji water had 6.31 micrograms of arsenic per liter; the city tap had zero. The company disputed the findings, but the first major battle of the water wars left Fiji looking less than pure.

Thou shalt not bottle

Initial organized resistance to the bottled water industry came not from the usual urban green crowd, but from Christian groups. In 2006, members of the National Coalition of American Nuns pledged to avoid bottled water unless absolutely necessary.

Later that year, the United Church of Christ partnered with the National Council of Churches to produce a documentary, "Troubled Waters," about the ethics of water use, which aired on ABC. For many progressive people of faith, the very idea of privatizing water — profiting from a shared natural resource — is abhorrent. Bottled water is not just bad for the environment; to some, it’s a sin.

Restaurants follow suit

Since Perrier started marketing its mineral water as a luxury item in the 1970s, American restaurants have made a point of offering customers bottled water with their meals. But then famed California chef Alice Waters banned bottled water at her restaurant, Chez Panisse, in 2006. The next year she started serving patrons home-engineered sparkling water.

Other Bay Area restaurants followed suit, and the idea made its way to New York, where celebrity chef Mario Batali’s fanciest joint, Del Posto, banned the bottle. The idea became fashionable enough that a 2007 article in the online magazine Slate talked about the "reverse snob appeal" of tap water.

Bottle Bans

A growing number of schools have active anti-bottled water movements. Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, was probably the first college to ban all bottled water sales on campus, back at the beginning of 2009; the University of Portland did the same a few months ago. Similar bans are being discussed at Wesleyan, American University and Evergreen State College, among other schools.

Local governments are also getting into the act. San Francisco, California, Mayor Gavin Newsom was a pioneer, forbidding the use of city money to buy bottled water back in 2007. Seattle, Washington, followed suit the next year. During the recent Winter Olympic Games, Vancouver, British Columbia, started a campaign to encourage visitors to choose free local water over the bottle — even though Dasani bottler Coca-Cola was a sponsor of the Games.

Bottles under a microscope

Journalist Michael Pollan has turned into a hero — and a best-selling author — with his eco-conscious explorations of the food system; Morgan Spurlock found fame with his anti-fast food documentary "Super Size Me." Might bottled water be the new frontier in activist journalism?

Reporter Elizabeth Royte was ahead of the curve with her 2008 book "Bottlemania," a look at the people and economies behind the water industry.

Environmental scientist Peter Gleick has just published "Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water," which includes more than 100 bottled water recalls on everything from mold contamination to algae, bacteria, glass particles and — believe or not — crickets.

Meanwhile "Tapped," a new feature-length documentary by Stephanie Soechtig, has been screening the country with a "Get Off the Bottle" tour.

Greener bottles

Bottled water companies haven’t simply ignored all the criticism. The Nestle company, which bottles several brands of water, issued a study pointing out that water has a lower environmental impact than sports drinks and other beverages.

Both Coca-Cola’s Dasani and Pepsi’s Aquafina have introduced new bottles that are supposedly "greener" than those used before. And Fiji maintains charitable and ecological campaigns to highlight the company’s awareness.

"Greenwashing" is the view of many in the environmental movement, who believe that this is all nothing but PR spin.

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/homestyle/04/22/blacklash.bottled.water/index.html?hpt=C2

Press Release, Tel Aviv University,  April 21, 2010

TAU demonstrates that UV light can zap unwanted "life" in your drinking water and save taxpayer dollars

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.

Not all UV light is created equal

Dr. Hadas Mamane

Irradiation could be used as a pre-treatment to inactivate suspended microorganisms in water, with the secondary goal of preventing bio-fouling. In their study, reported in the journal Biofouling, the researchers looked at targeted UV light wavelengths on the bacteria Pseudomonas aeruginosa, commonly found in drinking water.

The TAU researchers investigated UV wavelengths within between the 220-280 nanometre (nm) scale, and found that any wavelength between 254 and 270 nm effectively cleaned the water. Those in the same region were also best for keeping membranes clear of bacterial build-up in desalination plants, they reported. Special lamps that emit a multi-wavelength UV spectrum — more advanced than the single-wavelength UV lamps found in home water systems — were used.

The UV "zap" also prevented bacterial re-growth in the water after UV inactivation. "The best way to control and kill these micro-organisms was to damage their DNA," says Lakretz. "The damage that the UV light causes has no known negative effect on the water," she adds.

In addition, the prevention of biofilm formation by bacteria was UV dose-dependent. The researchers reported less bio-fouling when a bigger dose of UV light was applied to the water around the film.

A light to save lives

Anat Lakretz

The approach is even more helpful against parasites that aren’t adversely affected by chlorine treatment, such as Giarrdia and Cryptosporidium, two harmful parasites that cause severe diarrhea and can lead to death. Children, the elderly and those in developing nations are particularly vulnerable. "Sewage leakage into water supplies poses a big problem in terms of bacterial contamination, and is something UV light could remediate," says Lakretz.

Small amounts of chorine or other oxidants will still be necessary to make sure that residual bacteria don’t enter the water further along the distribution pipeline. But Lakretz says this new approach to disinfecting water while controlling biofouling can also reduce the amount of carcinogenic by-products that chlorine produces.

The Tel Aviv University team is part of the MAGNET consortium, an Israeli research-oriented project aimed at researching and commercializing “clean” technologies.

Saving fuel and lives – simple as that

By Karin Kloosterman, Israel21C 
March 28, 2010

With Israel’s GreenRoad solution on board, fuel consumption is reduced by seven to 10 percent and the accident rate’s cut in half. Al Gore liked the idea so much, he invested in it.

Both average folk and environmentalists wait in earnest for all-electric vehicles like the Nissan LEAF, the Chevy Volt or Israel’s Better Place-Renault car to roll out of the plants, but greener transportation solutions are needed now. Bridging the gap is Israel’s GreenRoad, which has found such an efficient way to save fuel and reduce accidents that even the insurance companies are impressed.

The company hasn’t built a hybrid-electric powered turbo engine that runs for hundreds of miles. It hasn’t figured out how to power road vehicles with hydrogen or water. And you won’t find it selling a solution that will only be ready sometime down the line.

Instead, GreenRoad has an attractive tool that saves gas for trucking fleets and cuts down on accidents – simple as that.

The GreenRoad solution is a software- and technology-based tool that gives drivers and fleet managers real-time feedback and analysis of drivers’ abilities and driving patterns. The system tells drivers how to improve fuel consumption, so that managers can begin to see improvements almost immediately. Measuring such things as G-force, as drivers round the bend, GreenRoad can accurately point out where driving patterns cross the line between safe and risky.

Generation Investment Management, the investment firm chaired by former US vice president and long-term environmental activist Al Gore, liked the idea so much, that it has just pumped $10 million into the company.

Solutions for the "here and now"

Hod Fleishman, co-founder of GreenRoad, and now the company’s safety manager tells ISRAEL21c that he thinks it was the "here and now" aspect of the clean tech initiative that appealed to Generation. Although he didn’t meet Gore personally, he met regularly with the fund’s managers who consult with Gore.

And it’s not only the seven to 10 percent in fuel savings that are apparent in just six months (At about $30 a month per truck, the GreenRoad solution pays for itself and starts to save a fleet money six months into a three-year contract, according to Fleishman) that are attractive to fleet managers and owners, but also the 50% or greater reduction in accidents with its solution on board that GreenRoad boasts.

This means that insurance premiums are lower, because the system also improves driver safety, reducing the likelihood of trucking accidents followed by paralyzing lawsuits. Already insurance companies in the US such as Marsh, and the UK’s Belmont are offering to take on previously uninsurable trucking companies if they install the GreenRoad system, says Fleishman.

Fleishman has come a long way since ISRAEL21c first ran a story in 2005 on DriveDianostics, the precursor of GreenRoad, of which he was CEO.

"We were just two people and a dog back then," jokes Fleishman, whose firm has since seen $40 million in financing, and has a staff of 90 people working in Israel, the UK and the US. Research and development activities are based in central Israel in Beit Dagan, for the company that was founded in 2004, while sales and marketing operate out of the UK and US offices in San Francisco.

Superstar companies seek out GreenRoad

GreenRoad will use the capital from Generation Investment Management to deploy its GreenRoad 360 service among existing and new customers.

Fleishman tells ISRAEL21c that GreenRoad’s goals are in line with "… what Al Gore and Generation stand for," adding that Generation is the second fund that has invested in GreenRoad. The first was one has an equally sexy and impressive superstar at its helm: Richard Branson of Virgin Green Ventures.

Fleishman laughs: "I didn’t meet Richard Branson either. But it’s great to hear big names have an interest in what we do. It’s an approval. Many companies are seeing future opportunities, such as better fuel, better batteries – but not in the here and now.

"What’s been interesting for these funds is that GreenRoad is implemented easily today. It doesn’t require replacing all the engines of the world, but revolves around controlling user behavior," he explains.

"We have pretty high-profile clients," Fleishman reveals. They include the biggest bus fleet in the UK, FirstGroup and 9,000 buses, and last year the company won a contract for the UK’s Ministry of Defense, for outfitting its vans and buses with the GreenRoad solution. "No, it’s not for tanks," responds the convivial Fleishman.

Fleet risk reduced by 52 percent

The recent Gore-related investment funds will be used for marketing and continued development. Even though the product is ready for sales, there are "still many cool things we can do to help fleets achieve their objectives," Fleishman declares. He hopes to show them even more ways to benefit from the system. "We have good revenues but we want to boost development and remain the market leader in our field," he says.

Competitors offer video surveillance tapes that record drivers on the job. But watching the tapes is labor intensive and the solution contributes more to understanding what happened after a crash occurs, than to preventing accidents and saving fuel. The tapes are sent to a call center in the Philippines, where they are watched and analyzed and then a report is sent back to Cincinnati, Fleishman recounts. He says that drivers tend to find the approach invasive.

Other companies provide fleet management tools using a GPS trace to track speed limits and monitor mileage and speed. "It’s much less sophisticated than what we do," reiterating that fleet risk is reduced by up to 52 percent. Now that’s something to honk your horn about.

Israel Ministry of Environmental Protection, Updated: 03/14/2010

On March 14, 2010, Israel’s Cabinet approved a joint initiative of the Ministries of Environmental Protection and Finance to establish an interministerial committee on formulating a national plan for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

The decision comes within the framework of Israel’s preparations for combating climate change and in order to implement the emission reduction targets which were set by Israel in the Copenhagen Climate Change Convention in December 2009 (20% reduction relative to the "business as usual" scenario in 2020).

The committee will deal, inter alia, with energy efficiency, green building and the economic aspects of the subject and their impacts on Israel’s industry and export. The committee’s recommendations for an action plan will be submitted for approval to the Ministerial Committee on Environmental Protection and Climate Change in October 2010.

The interministerial committee will be chaired by the director general of the Ministry of Finance and will include the directors general of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, Ministry of National Infrastructure, Ministry of Transportation, Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Labor, Ministry of the Interior, Chairman of the Public Utility Authority ? Electricity and the Attorney General.

According to Environmental Protection Minister Gilad Erdan, "This is a significant step in the country’s attitude toward greenhouse gas emissions reductions and air pollution. The interministerial committee, headed by the director general of the Ministry of Finance, will provide the necessary operative tools to implement the ambitious targets which Israel set in the Copenhagen Climate Change Convention and will create an opportunity for a significant change in the economy by means of such steps as energy efficiency, green building, advancement of environmental technology, and more."

Haim Shani, Director General of the Ministry of Finance noted: "The committee was established in recognition of the importance of greenhouse gas emissions reduction in order to promote green growth which will contribute both to environmental improvement and to the development of Israel’s cleantech industry."
More Links:

Climate Change

Climate Change Mitigation

By Or Kashti and Zafrir Rinat, Haaretz Correspondent, February 21, 2010

The Education Ministry’s chief scientist sparked a furor among environmental activists and scholars Saturday with remarks questioning the reliability of evolution and global warming theory. The comments from Dr. Gavriel Avital, the latest in a series of written and oral statements casting doubts on the fundamental tenets of modern science, led several environmentalists to call for his dismissal.

“If textbooks state explicitly that human beings’ origins are to be found with monkeys, I would want students to pursue and grapple with other opinions. There are many people who don’t believe the evolutionary account is correct,” Avital said yesterday.

“There are those for whom evolution is a religion and are unwilling to hear about anything else. Part of my responsibility, in light of my position with the Education Ministry, is to examine textbooks and curricula,” he said. “If they keep writing in textbooks that the Earth is growing warmer because of carbon dioxide emissions, I’ll insist that isn’t the case.”

Prof. Hava Yablonka of Tel Aviv University said Avital’s statements are tantamount “to saying that space should be given in textbooks to the view that the earth is flat and the sun revolves around it. It’s astonishing that the chief scientist of a government ministry can say such bizarre things.”

Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar (Likud) appointed Avital the ministry’s chief scientist three months ago. Avital, who received bachelor’s and advanced degrees from Haifa’s Technion Institute of Technology, previously directed the aeromechanical arm of electronic-systems manufacturer Elbit.

Avital is the ministry’s first chief scientist to be drawn from outside the community of education scholars. A 20-year Likud member, he represented the party in an unsuccessful 2006 Knesset run.

In a November 2009 article in the journal B’sheva (published by the national-religious media network Arutz Sheva), Avital wrote, “A ‘green crusade’ has taken place around the world over the past few years, part of a broader phenomenon that could indeed be called ‘green religion.’

“Why are environmental organizations pressuring the government over alternative energy that is both unattainable and probably very costly? These questions cannot be avoided,” Avital wrote. “The answers to them are likely to surprise and possibly disappoint. But the moment science is enlisted for political ends – that is, in the name of ideology – questions arise as to the scientific basis of environmental organizations.”

Prior to his appointment, Avital said in a video interview with Machon Meir, a religious-Zionist Jewish studies institute, “Another scientific field that is problematic is biology, or life and environmental sciences. When your doctrine is based on Darwin’s theory of evolution and its implications, you are standing on unreliable foundations – that is, there is no God, there was only something primeval, and then there are certain random developments which led to the apex of all creation, the human being.

“Today I am pleased that more and more scientists engaged in pure science, rather than being employed in the name of an ideology, are reaching the conclusion that the world must have a master. Nothing is given to chance,” he said. “These are my opinions and I won’t deny them just because I was appointed to an Education Ministry position.”

In an article published last year in the newspaper Israel Hayom and other media outlets, Avital wrote, “There is no scientific proof that the rise in carbon dioxide leads to a rise in temperatures – I would recommend to scientists not to join this intimidation campaign, which is entirely predicated on the basis of dubious science.”

A large portion of Avital’s early statements appeared on an Israeli Web log dedicated to covering climate changes associated with global warming. The blog editor, Eyal Morag, wrote to the education minister this week that Avital “doesn’t understand what science is, and should therefore be removed from any position related to it.”

“Avital must resign from his position,” said Dr. Lia Ettinger, academic supervisor of the Heschel Center for Environmental Learning and Leadership in Tel Aviv. The chief scientist’s remarks, she said, “are similar to the Health Ministry’s chief scientist declaring that all the research linking cigarettes with cancer are nonsense. It’s clear that given the nature of science, there is never complete consensus, and that disputes bring us closer to the truth. But this has nothing to do with the things Avital said. If these are his positions, he cannot promote the kind of education necessary for the environment and sustainable ecology. Avital has removed himself from the consensus,” she said.

Dr. Shahar Dolev of the Israel Energy Forum added, “Scientists are always finding additional proof for the global warming theory. It is good that there are scientists raising questions and counterarguments – it’s healthy for scientific debate. But if people in positions of authority, such as the Education Ministry’s chief scientist, adopt and then promulgate the scientific community’s minority view, it causes tremendous damage, and confuses both decision makers and the public.”

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This is a schematic diagram of the light-trapping elements used to optimize absorption within a polymer-embedded silicon wire array. (Credit: Caltech/Michael Kelzenberg)

ScienceDaily (Feb. 17, 2010) — Using arrays of long, thin silicon wires embedded in a polymer substrate, a team of scientists from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has created a new type of flexible solar cell that enhances the absorption of sunlight and efficiently converts its photons into electrons. The solar cell does all this using only a fraction of the expensive semiconductor materials required by conventional solar cells.

“These solar cells have, for the first time, surpassed the conventional light-trapping limit for absorbing materials,” says Harry Atwater, Howard Hughes Professor, professor of applied physics and materials science, and director of Caltech’s Resnick Institute, which focuses on sustainability research.

The light-trapping limit of a material refers to how much sunlight it is able to absorb. The silicon-wire arrays absorb up to 96 percent of incident sunlight at a single wavelength and 85 percent of total collectible sunlight. “We’ve surpassed previous optical microstructures developed to trap light,” he says.

Atwater and his colleagues — including Nathan Lewis, the George L. Argyros Professor and professor of chemistry at Caltech, and graduate student Michael Kelzenberg — assessed the performance of these arrays in a paper appearing in the February 14 advance online edition of the journal Nature Materials.

Atwater notes that the solar cells’ enhanced absorption is “useful absorption.”

“Many materials can absorb light quite well but not generate electricity — like, for instance, black paint,” he explains. “What’s most important in a solar cell is whether that absorption leads to the creation of charge carriers.”

The silicon wire arrays created by Atwater and his colleagues are able to convert between 90 and 100 percent of the photons they absorb into electrons — in technical terms, the wires have a near-perfect internal quantum efficiency. “High absorption plus good conversion makes for a high-quality solar cell,” says Atwater. “It’s an important advance.”

The key to the success of these solar cells is their silicon wires, each of which, says Atwater, “is independently a high-efficiency, high-quality solar cell.” When brought together in an array, however, they’re even more effective, because they interact to increase the cell’s ability to absorb light.

“Light comes into each wire, and a portion is absorbed and another portion scatters. The collective scattering interactions between the wires makes the array very absorbing,” he says.

This effect occurs despite the sparseness of the wires in the array — they cover only between 2 and 10 percent of the cell’s surface area.

“When we first considered silicon wire-array solar cells, we assumed that sunlight would be wasted on the space between wires,” explains Kelzenberg. “So our initial plan was to grow the wires as close together as possible. But when we started quantifying their absorption, we realized that more light could be absorbed than predicted by the wire-packing fraction alone. By developing light-trapping techniques for relatively sparse wire arrays, not only did we achieve suitable absorption, we also demonstrated effective optical concentration — an exciting prospect for further enhancing the efficiency of silicon-wire-array solar cells.”

Each wire measures between 30 and 100 microns in length and only 1 micron in diameter. “The entire thickness of the array is the length of the wire,” notes Atwater. “But in terms of area or volume, just 2 percent of it is silicon, and 98 percent is polymer.”

In other words, while these arrays have the thickness of a conventional crystalline solar cell, their volume is equivalent to that of a two-micron-thick film.

Since the silicon material is an expensive component of a conventional solar cell, a cell that requires just one-fiftieth of the amount of this semiconductor will be much cheaper to produce.

The composite nature of these solar cells, Atwater adds, means that they are also flexible. “Having these be complete flexible sheets of material ends up being important,” he says, “because flexible thin films can be manufactured in a roll-to-roll process, an inherently lower-cost process than one that involves brittle wafers, like those used to make conventional solar cells.”

Atwater, Lewis, and their colleagues had earlier demonstrated that it was possible to create these innovative solar cells. “They were visually striking,” says Atwater. “But it wasn’t until now that we could show that they are both highly efficient at carrier collection and highly absorbing.”

The next steps, Atwater says, are to increase the operating voltage and the overall size of the solar cell. “The structures we’ve made are square centimeters in size,” he explains. “We’re now scaling up to make cells that will be hundreds of square centimeters — the size of a normal cell.”

Atwater says that the team is already “on its way” to showing that large-area cells work just as well as these smaller versions.

Their research was supported by BP and the Energy Frontier Research Center program of the Department of Energy, and made use of facilities supported by the Center for Science and Engineering of Materials, a National Science Foundation Materials Research Science and Engineering Center at Caltech. In addition, Boettcher received fellowship support from the Kavli Neuroscience Institute at Caltech.

Adapted from materials provided by California Institute of Technology.

1. Kelzenberg et al. Enhanced absorption and carrier collection in Si wire arrays for photovoltaic applications. Nature Materials, 2010; DOI: 10.1038/nmat2635

Amidst the crisis, Dubai is keeping its date to create history by opening the Burj Dubai, the world’s tallest building, tomorrow, even as it is keeping the whole world guessing about the final height of the magnificent tower whose parent is fighting for survival.

Though the final height of the super-scrapper is not known, the 1-billion pound Burj Dubai is at least 2,683 ft from its base to the tip of its spire—-equivalent of three-and-a-half Canary Wharf towers or two Empire State Buildings stacked up.

Its final height is being kept a secret until tomorrow, but architects who have worked on the building have hinted it could break the 2,700-ft mark. The tower is more than 1,000 foot higher than its nearest inhabited rival, Taiwan’s 1,671-ft Taipei 101.

The Burj Dubai, which is not just the tallest building on the planet but also the world’s tallest man-made structure, surpassing even the 2,063-ft KVLY-TV mast in North Dakota, America, will be opened by the the Emirate ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum tomorrow.

Meanwhile, online news site ArabianBusiness.Com said the “inauguration of the Burj Dubai, developed by Emaar Properties, (it parent Dubai World is fighting a USD59-billion debit crisi) will feature a spectacular display of sound, light, water and fireworks”.

A combination of 10,000 fireworks, light beams, choreographed water displays, and sound & music effects on Monday will describe the evolution of the world’s most iconic new building.

The 169-floor building passes through different climatic zones as the temperature at the top is up to 10 Celsius cooler than that at the bottom.

It has the highest swimming pool in the world, on the 76th floor, and the most elevated place of worship with plans for a mosque on the 158th floor.

However, after the economic downturn ripped through Dubai, critics are already dismissing the tower as a gaudy memorial to a lost decade of uncontrolled speculation.

There are 900 studios and one- to four-bedroom flats and 144 apartments in the Burj Dubai, designed by Giorgio Armani. The tower also houses the Italian designer’s first hotel.

The building has, however, received flak from various sectors. Human rights groups and workers’ organisations say the tower has been built using “slave labour”, the Sunday Times said, adding that construction workers, mainly from India and Pakistan, toiled round the clock for $5 a day.

Besides, environmentalists have criticised the building’s power consumption. Its air-conditioning system is the equivalent of melting 12,500 tonnes of ice a day, and it will consume millions of gallons of desalinated water — in a city that already has the world’s highest per capita carbon footprint.