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Green Prophet

Israeli Renewable Energy — Why Israel, Why Now?

renewable-energy An old Israeli joke describes how God led Moses through the desert to the Holy Land for 40 years, through hardships and dangers, only to lead the Israelite nation to the only spot in the Middle East where there isn’t a drop of oil.

Two thousand years later, things have remained pretty much the same. Today, Israel is considered an “island-state”, with over 99% of its capacity produced from imported fossil fuels.

In alignment with global trends, Israel has experienced a recent surge of new ventures in the field, comprising commercial, academic and regulatory initiatives. Although a pioneer and home to world leaders in the RE field, the post-80s low oil pricing era left the Israeli RE industry relatively dormant in comparison with its blossoming high-tech activity.

01/04/2010 3 comments

Renewable Energy

VIDEO: Blower Fans in the Cow Shed Test Vertical Wind Turbines of Coriolis

written by Green Prophet

Who would ever have thought that wind blower fans in a cow barn would spark an idea to create innovated vertical wind turbines?

It turns out that a small, clean technology startup company located in a kibbutz near Ramat Hasharon, Israel may be developing a new stackable wind turbine that could compete with the giant propeller ones currently in use around the world.

Coriolis Wind is the brain child of its 3 co-founders Dr. Rafi Gidron, an entrepreneur from Precede Technologies, an entrepreneurship and investment firm focused on high growth markets such as alternative energy; Orni Petruschka, also with Preclude; and Dr. Shuki Sheinman, formerly connected with NASA, Scitex and El Op.

12/29/2009 2 comments

Renewable Energy Water & Conservation

VIDEO: Innovative Water Technologies From Israel

written by Green Prophet

Interviewing Oded Distel from NewTech, and many others Harvey Stein from ISRAEL21c goes to the Watec conference a few weeks ago.

Here is his video on water savings technologies. Companies featured include Takadu (smart grid technology), see the poop pellets of Applied Cleantech; there is also Solaris Synergy, solar panels that float on water. Enjoy the video, meet some new companies.

12/20/2009 0 comment

Renewable Energy

A Solar Panel That Washes Itself

written by Green Prophet

self-wash-solar-panel It’s cleaning up space junk, and is giving us lab-on-chip biofilters for detecting contamination. Now nanotechnology has produced a coating for windows or solar panels that repels grime and dirt. Expanded battery storage capacities for the next electric car could be within reach too.

New Tel Aviv University research, just published in Nature Nanotechnology, details a breakthrough in assembling peptides at the nano-scale level that could make these futuristic visions come true in just a few years.

Operating in the range of 100 nanometers (roughly one-billionth of a meter) and even smaller, graduate student Lihi Adler-Abramovich and a team working under Prof. Ehud Gazit in TAU’s Department of Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology have found a novel way to control the atoms and molecules of peptides so that they “grow” to resemble small forests of grass.

12/07/2009 5 comments

Renewable Energy Water & Conservation

Dow Chemical and Saudi Arabia’s KAUST University Vow To Clean Up Environment

written by Green Prophet

greenprophet-story-on-green-chemistry-and-greenn-beakers-in-the-lab-image Dow Chemical Company, a worldwide leader in the global chemical industry, and sponsor of the 2010 Dow Live Earth Run for Water, has entered into agreements with the new Saudi Arabian King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) for developing cleaner, new routes for producing chemical derivatives.

The two are also looking into ways for carbon capture –a method which proposes to suck up and store greenhouse gas emissions.

Although many of the chemicals produced by the American chemical giant are used in the petroleum distilling and petrochemical industries, with much of the company’s “raw material” is coming from Saudi Arabia.

11/30/2009 0 comment

Green Building Renewable Energy

Middle East Turning To Alternative Energy

written by Green Prophet

It all sounds very grandiose and really too good to be true, but a number of Persian Gulf states, including Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Bahrain and Qatar are hoping to be able to satisfy a good portion of their massive energy needs through alternative and renewable energy sources, instead of relying mostly on oil.

In a part of the world that experiences some of the hottest summer temperatures, averaging above 44 degrees Celsius during at least 4 months of the year; and whose energy growth use is growing by more than 10% per annum, these countries have their work cut out for them to be able to realize 70% of their total energy needs from alternative and renewable energy by the year 2030.

11/23/2009 4 comments

Renewable Energy

SolarEdge Is Planning a Revolution — PV Systems To Become More Efficient

written by Green Prophet

GE just invested in them. Now, Guy Sella, founder and CEO of Israeli company SolarEdge, is planning a revolution. Don’t be alarmed though, this one isn’t dangerous. His goal is to transform the way photovoltaic systems are now operated, in terms of efficiency, safety and cost.

“People haven’t been looking at photovoltaic systems from a holistic point of view,” Sella tells ISRAEL21c. “Panel manufacturers care only about the panels and panel conversion efficiency. The people that develop classical inverters only care about the efficiency of the inverter. I asked: can we create a system that is better than we currently have?”

11/16/2009 8 comments

Renewable Energy

Should Al Gore Profit From Global Warming? Should Any of Us?

written by Green Prophet

Al Gore, who barely lost (or won) the US Presidential election in November 2000, and vowed never to return to US political life, appears to have come out a winner for not doing so. The former Vice President for 8 years under the Clinton Administration decided to devote his time afterwards to teaching as well as making the world aware of the dangers of global warming, a warning that has been noted several times on Green Prophet, including a more recent article tying global warming and climate change with what is happening in the Middle East.

11/09/2009 11 comments

Green Building

Green University: Saudi Arabia’s KAUST With Eco-friendly Environment

written by Green Prophet

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia may still be considered as one of the most conservative from a religious standpoint. But with the opening of the new King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, otherwise known as KAUST, a new era in academic learning, combined with new innovations in ecological architecture and design, has begun in which both men and women students will benefit jointly.

The new campus opened its doors in September, in the Red Sea city of Thuwal, 80 km north of Jeddah. It is considered to be the most environmentally innovative campus of its kind in the Kingdom. Constructed in a manner to utilize the maximum benefit of sea breezes for cooling, the buildings themselves have been constructed in order to screen out a good deal of the heat that is generated by the hot Arabian sun; making the internal environment more sustainable for the students.

11/02/2009 1 comment

Green Building

Can “Green Cities” Like Masdar Really Translate In Abu Dhabi?

written by Green Prophet

It sits in the middle of a harsh, barren desert, sweltering in searing heat. It has no clean water, its sea is polluted and there is no topsoil, just a covering of sand. It is also the biggest per capita consumer of fuel, massively reliant on cars, power-hungry desalination and air-conditioning. And with all this, can the United Arab Emirate state of Abu Dhabi really succeed in building a new “green city” in the Middle East?

If you can believe visionary people like architect Gerard Evenden (his words above), from the British architectural firm Foster & Partners, yes it can. Billions of dollars are riding on the assumption

10/26/2009 2 comments

Clean Transportation

International Electric Car Execs Meet to “Standardize” Power Sources

written by Green Prophet

The IEC forum meets in Israel to standardize electric car charging stations so electric car owners can fuel up and road trip around the world.

So you bought a new electric car and think you can go on a road trip with it from the UK to Spain, then over to France, Eastern Europe and Turkey? Well, think again because it won’t be even as easy a trying to drive a right-hand drive car from the UK in Europe or America.

In fact, it could be downright difficult as not only the electric current may be different, the “codes” for recharging a car battery and the charging infrastructures may vary from country to country – even those who all claim to have a “standardized” 220 Volt 50 cycle electric current network.

10/21/2009 0 comment