Like GreenRoads to save fuel (invested in by Virgin’s Branson, and Gore’s clean tech fund), investors know the money is not just on innovative futuristic technologies, but companies that work today to save fuel, and money.

Consider this: your electric bill has gone sky high. You suspect the air conditioner, which has been emitting a rattling noise since you fired it up in the spring. Only that’s not the culprit – how are you to know that it’s your fridge that’s not working properly and using so much power that running it constitutes 40 percent of your energy bill? Now imagine having a device that can tell you where and how your home electricity is being consumed, and that can program parts of the house – like your teenager’s room or the den – to shut down in order to save money, energy and wear and tear on your appliances when no one’s home.

With the advent of smart appliances that can communicate with your iPhone, and with the electric company offering discounts on off-peak hours, revolutions are in store in the way we consume power at home.

The only problem, explains Lupu Wittner, co-founder and CTO of Israel’s smart grid company Computerized Electricity Systems or C.E.S., is that most people are completely in the dark when it comes to how they’re using power at home.

“Most people know how to use cell phones, but they have no idea what appliances are consuming energy, and how much,” he tells ISRAEL21c. That’s where C.E.S. comes in, based on an idea that the former Ukrainian came up with to cleverly measure power use in the home via the CSDP Smart Distribution Panel.

When connected to the CSDP, people receive information about power usage, and warnings when suspicious behaviors or electricity arcs are detected. An increase in power from the air conditioner could be a sign that the filter needs changing or that the thermostat should be replaced. More often than not, Wittner says, people leave problems like these to the last minute, when something that shouldn’t have cost more than a few hundred dollars to repair ends up leaving them a couple of thousand dollars poorer.

The challenge of crossing over

Wittner says that the challenge is in marketing the new idea. The current problem in the US he says, from a sales and marketing perspective, is to find the utility companies that haven’t already signed agreements with other “smart grid” companies.

“They need our concept because what we are doing is important to them and they know it,” he tells ISRAEL21c. “Ours is a unique solution. When we introduced it to many utility companies, they knew this is the right way to manage power consumption. But they already have agreements in place with smart meters and have already invested the money. They want to work with us, the problem is the cost.”

C.E.S. is seeking to partner with green construction firms in the US, and also sells to individuals on request. The company already has a number of test sites throughout the world – including one in Israel in cooperation with the Israel Electric Company. The CSDP panel, which replaces the standard home electricity box, is being tried out in a pilot study in about 100 homes in the central coastal city of Netanya, where the company is based.

A South African builder has put in a large order for the CSDP boxes; major utility companies in the US have investigated its potential; and a green builder in Austin, Texas has installed the boxes in about 30 homes. Interested parties in the US include Duke Energy in Cincinnati and the Electric Power Research Institute.

US utilities companies are becoming more concerned about greenhouse gas emissions since President Barack Obama’s cap-and-trade proposal could put limits and a hefty price tag on companies that do not reduce these harmful emissions. However, the onus is now also on the consumer – as more and more people build ‘green’ homes. In the new context, it’s not just what’s inside the building materials that counts, but how energy-efficient a home can be for years to come.

More and more homes are being connected to renewable energy sources like solar energy and wind power that can be integrated with the core technology of the CSDP panel. It can be set to switch over to clean power seamlessly during the times of day when it makes sense to do so, to minimize greenhouse gas emissions and energy costs.

A wolf pitted against energy hogs

While switching to green from traditional energy sources may be a big leap for most Americans, there are many benefits beyond saving the planet, Wittner, whose name means ‘wolf’ in Ukrainian explains: “When I installed the unit in my home, it was able to show me that 40% of my home’s energy bill was going towards running our refrigerator. I had a problem in the fridge, and when the repairman came, I think he replaced the faulty part with the wrong kind of compressor. It was costing me a lot of money.”

For about $3,000 a unit, the CSDP system offers a number of benefits. It can be programmed with tariff rate updates and discounts supplied by the energy company; it can allow you to control your house remotely via an iPhone or web browser; it can provide precise cues to the power company which can be granted permission to switch off appliances and parts of your home during peak hours; and above all that – it protects your privacy.

If a customer prefers, personal power usage behavior need not be revealed to the power company. Currently, smart grid decisions remain on the power companies’ servers, which he believes may be one of the reasons why people are hesitant to get connected.

The CSDP can also predict fires, by recording electrical arcs, overheating parameters and traces of other electricity events – things most ‘dumb’ systems couldn’t detect until the fire started and it was already too late, Wittner says.

With a two-hour installation time and the potential of thousands of dollars of savings within a couple of years, the CSDP seems like a sound investment for the homeowner and small business owner.

With its base in Netanya, and a marketing and sales office in the US, C.E.S. employs 24 people, mostly engineers. The company, which has been active in the electronics industry since its establishment in 1989, switched focus in 2000 from turnkey electronics solutions in communications and avionics.

Gaon Holdings has invested an undisclosed amount of money in C.E.S., via its fund Aqua Agro.

While everyone in marketing seems to encourage us to think ‘outside the box,’ C.E.S. is one clean tech company suggesting that we think in the opposite direction – inside the (electricity) box.

More smart grid stories:
Lebanon Looks to Smart Grid and Renewable Energy Technologies
Ten Clean Tech Companies from Israel Head to California, 2010

Harnessing wind energy has never been a priority endeavor in Israel, compared to projects dealing with solar energy. In fact, the only large size wind energy project there has been the Mei Golan wind farm, composed of ten large wind turbines on a hill near the cease-fire border with Syria on the Golan Heights.

The Golan, a windy plateau that was captured from Syria by Israel in the June 1967 Six Day War, is one of the few places in Israel that has enough constant wind velocity to warrant the use of wind power over other forms of renewable energy. past Green Prophet article in which new Golan Heights solar energy projects appeared to be upstaging the Mei Golan wind farm which uses already outdated technology to run a the wind turbines on Tel Asiniya, which generate about 6 megawatts of electricity.

But now, according to an article published in Reuters, the idea of using wind energy is about to get a big boost in a deal involving an Israeli company Multimatrix, which is in the process of buying half of Mei Golan (a subsidiary of the Mei Eden water company), the company operating the wind turbines.

The deal, which is said to be costing between 20 and 25 million US Dollars, will involve the initial construction of seven new wind turbines to be built in 2011 at a cost of around $27 million. Mulitmatrix, together with the U.S.-based AES Corp,  hopes to build a total of 160 wind turbines that will generate about 450 megawatts of electricity – considerably than that presently generated by the outdated Mei Golan turbines.

Since the total cost of this project is estimated to coast in the neighborhood of $800 million, it gives an indication of the importance being given by Israeli Energy Minister Uzi Landau on using wind energy as a source of power for generating electricity.

This and other renewable energy projects go along with governmental plans to have at least 10 percent of the country’s total energy needs furnished by renewable energy by the year 2020. Solar energy is still an expensive way to produce electricity, according to Energy Ministry officials. This explains why the use of wind energy is now being given more emphasis; and future wind energy farms are being planned in the southern Negev region, as well as along Israel’s border with Jordan.

The future of the Golan Heights, which is being disputed between Israel and Syria, will be an important factor in constructing such a large wind energy project there. Energy Minister Landau notes that these projects will have to be considered as part of a final negotiated settlement with Syria.

Wind energy technology has progressed considerably since the first Mei Golan turbines were erected back in 1992.

Another Israeli company, Coriolis Wind, is developing a series of vertical turbines which they say can generate more power while taking up much less space than the conventional propeller shaped wind turbines that can be as large as a jumbo commercial airliner.

Whatever method is used, the future of wind energy in Israel has definitely been given a needed shot in the arm by such government endorsed projects as the Multrimatrix/AES one; making wind energy a very viable energy option in Israel and elsewhere as well.

::Reuters

More articles on wind power as a  renewable energy:

Coriolis Scales up for the Wind

Israel Plans Wind Powered Lighting for Coastal Highway

Israel’s First Wind Energy Developer Mei Eden Gets Windier on the Golan

Image by Green Prophet

While the previous MENASOL speaker profiled here (Nasser Majali) is a relative newcomer to the field of solar energy, Dr. Antoine Bittar, the Engineering Director for Solar Power at RES Mediterranean, is a leading expert in this field.

For the soft-spoken scientist, the conference in Cairo was a homecoming of sorts: Though now based in France, he was born in the neighborhood where the conference took place. Fittingly, he notes, the neighborhood is called Heliopolis – “sun city.”

In the early 1960s, Bittar’s family emigrated to New Zealand. Why New Zealand of all places? “It’s a long story,” he says with a smile. “Conditions were difficult in Egypt, and my family applied to several places. It was indeed unusual in those days for people from Egypt, or anyone in the Middle East, to go to New Zealand as immigrants.”

After earning degrees in Physics and Material Sciences in New Zealand, he won a scholarship to do his PhD in Paris. Bittar’s career in the solar field developed from his early work on selective surfaces – “the black surfaces on pipes and tubes used in solar thermal conversion,” he explains.” This led to my collaboration with people in the business, including in Australia and in France.”

His collaboration in Australia with David Mills, a pioneer in Compact Linear Fresnel Reflector (CLFR) technology, led him to California, where they founded the Ausra CSP startup. Bittar served as Ausra’s vice president for R&D.

Expanding the MENA portfolio

Now at RES Mediterranean, Bittar hopes to expand the solar portfolio of the group, whose main projects to date have been wind ventures in France and in Turkey.

“Working in the Middle East market is not always straightforward,” he says with a grin. But he is optimistic about the prospects for renewable energy in the MENA area and notes that the company has made good progress in wind energy projects in Egypt – “and this is not because I was born in Egypt.”

More MENASOL-related posts:
Cautious Optimisim at MENASOL Solar Energy Conference in Cairo
DESERTEC Opportunities for Mideast Countries

Solar energy has traditionally been a land or “area-intensive” form of alternative energy. Solar energy generation required massive, land-hungry solar power farms in order to compete with conventional equivalents, or large areas of roof space to accommodate photovoltaic panels that were not known for their efficiency at converting sunlight.

This requirement for extensive areas of roof space left the inhabitants of high-rise apartment building out in the cold, so to speak.

A joint venture between Israeli start-up Tigo Energy Ltd and US-based Architectural Glass & Aluminum Company Inc. (AGA) will eventually offer apartment dwellers the opportunity to reduce their green footprint by making solar energy technology more widely available for this difficult environment.Although not spelled out in the press releases and other media coverage, it appears that the apartments’ windows and other external glass surfaces will become the buildings’ solar receptors.

As well as allowing residents to reduce their draw on the power grid, it may also give the most energy-thrifty the ability to feed their excess back into the grid.

According to Globes:

The project is important, because until now there have been no mass market solar energy solutions, but only for industrial, commercial, and public buildings, as well as for owners of large tracts of land or farming communities. People who live in apartment buildings have not been able to participate in the new energy world, which is based in large part on solar infrastructures. If the Tigo-AGA project succeeds, apartment residents will also be able to generate solar energy, with its inherent benefits (the sale of electricity to the national grid at higher than normal prices).

Like all good joint ventures, the one between Tigo and AGA allows the partners to bring their strengths to the relationship, with AGA supplying the glass and silicon coatings for the photovoltaic panels, while Tigo will supply the electronics that turn the glass into solar receptors. The possibilities of the venture have been recognised by others:

The venture obtained a grant from the US Department of Energy and Israel-United States Binational Industrial Research and Development Foundation (BIRD-F). Tigo’s flagship product, the Energy Maximizer System will be integrated into solar panels used by AGA, a leading US glazing contractor for glass and aluminum buildings.

In order to be the liberating technology it was intended to be, solar energy needs to be freed up from the demand for land-hungry solar power farms. Each building or structure should ideally generate sufficient power through renewable energy sources to cover all except peak needs, and feed any excess back into the grid. Joint ventures such as the one between Tigo and AGA may help to make this a real possibility.

Tigo Energy has headlined on the pages of Green Prophet several times:

Tigo Solar Energy Secures A $10 Million Investment
Solar Company Tigo Energy Announces Key Distribution Partner in US
Tigo Energy’s Solar Solution Monitors Power From The Sun

Company websites:

Tigo Energy
AGA Architectural Glass & Aluminum

Coverage of the JV originally appeared in Globes, but the full article is no longer available online.  The piece can instead be viewed on DailyMe.com.

Nasser Majali, the CEO of Amman-based EDAMA – an NGO working to promote energy, water and environment projects in Jordan – was not listed as one of the scheduled speakers at the MENASOL solar energy conference in Cairo this week. However, given just a few minutes of advance notice, he gave a smooth presentation about his organization’s mission.

Majali is a serial entrepreneur with no particular expertise in the fields of energy, water or  the environment. Instead, his green passion developed during nature outings as an amateur photographer: He became alarmed by the piles of litter and other environmental damage he witnessed.

After growing up in Amman, Majali earned a BA at the University of Michigan and an MBA at the American University in Beirut. A string of IT startups followed, including some he continued to manage until assuming his position at the newly formed EDAMA earlier this year.

Instead of environmental know-how, he brings business acumen and an ability to work the halls of power. “Together with the private sector, we will identify the specific needs and seek to work as an effective lobby vis-à-vis the government,” he explains.

A supportive government

Majali cites the renewable energy legislation approved in Jordan earlier this year as a positive step and sees the government as a willing partner. “EDAMA was established with the support of His Majesty King Abdullah, and the Minister of Energy is very enthusiastic about renewable energy,” he says.

A third sector, academia, is also essential, he says: “We are working to involve academia in these fields. It is vital to build an R&D capability.” While citing the need for greater environmental awareness among Jordanians, Majali is optimistic about the future. “There is a real lot of interest in developing renewable energy in Jordan,” he says.

See more on MENASOL and EDAMA:
Cautious Optimisim at MENASOL Solar Energy Conference in Cairo
Jordan Launches EDAMA Intiative on Energy Independence, Water Conservation

In one of the largest deals ever for Israel’s local solar energy market, SBY Solutions Ltd an Israeli based solar energy company, plans to purchase more than $35 million worth of solar panels from the Chinese Suntech Power Holdings Company Ltd. It’s the same Chinese company that supplies solar PV panels to the San Francisco airport (links to PDF).

The photovoltaic (PV) solar panels will be able to provide as much as 18 megawatts of electricity in both Israel and Italy, where they will be installed, according to an article published in Globes. Suntech is the largest solar energy component company in China and is one of the largest in the world. SBY will use the panels for solar energy plants it will be constructing in both Israel and Italy. 

This is not the first deal involving Israel and Chinese renewable energy companies. Other solar energy deals include a deal made between Chinese based ET Solar and Ventura Communications Internet Israel Ltd to supply Israel solar energy companies with much-needed solar panels. In another Israel-China deal,  the Israeli solar tech company HelioFocus, based on research from the Weizmann Institute, will be invested in by China’s Zhejiang Sanhua in a $10.5 million agreement.

SBY is based at Moshav Nitzanei Oz in the Negev, and has installed 220 rooftop solar power facilities to date. SBY CEO Tamir Kaplinsky founded the company in 2008, and it has about 60 employees.

Both Israel and China see the need to become more involved in solar energy to provide a cleaner source of electricity. China has become one of the most polluted countries in the world, with much of its air pollution being the result of coal powered electric plants and industrial complexes.

In fact, air pollution caused by sulfur dioxide has become so bad in many parts of China, that a study conducted by the World Watch Institute in 2005 found that in cities like Guangzhou, fine particulate levels are up to five times US safety limits. And in Hong Kong, sulfur dioxide levels rose by 41 percent in 2005 alone, threatening the city’s competitiveness as the free-trade center of Asia.

While Israel’s air pollution problems are much less than in China, the growing amounts of air pollution in cities like Haifa, caused by chemical industries and oil refining,  are becoming a matter of concern. Both Israel and China also have energy problems – with Israel having to import most of its energy in the form of crude oil and coal, and China changing from an energy producing company to one in which energy supplies have to be imported.

By developing solar energy for generating electricity, both countries can win.

::Suntech

Read more solar energy articles dealing with Israel cooperating with Asian countries:

Israeli and Chinese Company Work Together in Solar Energy Project

South Korea Looks to Collaborate With Israel on Renewable Energy

Israel’s Heliofocus Solar Energy Company Gets Chinese Investment

The 2nd annual MENASOL solar energy conference on the development and finance of utility-scale solar projects in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) opened Tuesday in Cairo. Approximately 250 people from around the world gathered for the two-day conference. This is about double the number of participants who attended the initial MENASOL conference, held last year in Abu Dhabi, conference director Heidi Hafes explained.

The conference speakers, from both the public and private sectors, included representatives from Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Libya, Amman and Yemen, as well as the UN, World Bank, investment banks and other organizations.

Nearly all of the speakers incorporated PowerPoint presentations with graphs showing steep curves in the projected demand for electricity, intersecting curves depicting the projected convergence of costs for renewable vs. conventional energy (in 2014-15, one speaker suggested), charts with national goals for renewable energy capacity and/or tables listing the pros and cons of various solar technologies.

Still not a ‘no-brainer’

Some emphasized the technological, financial and regulatory challenges the MENA region still faces before becoming a solar powerhouse. As one speaker noted, it is still not a “no-brainer” for Europe to look to North Africa to supply its electricity needs.

Another speaker reminded the participants to “mind the gap” that still exists between the relative costs of alternative and conventional sources of energy.

The real value of this kind of conference, however, is not the marathon of presentations but rather the opportunity to network with potential partners/competitors. Indeed, there is quite an interesting mix of talented and knowledgeable people here, and I’ll try to profile a few of them in later posts.

More green conference news from the region:

An Obvious Absence from the World Future Energy Summit

Upbeat Mood at Carbon-Neutral Eilat Energy Event

Serious philosophers rarely make good businessmen. But solar energy innovator Arnold J. Goldman is no navel-gazer. Goldman heads Jerusalem-based BrightSource Industries and its California-based parent, BrightSource Energy, which is contracted to deliver more than 2,600 megawatts of solar electricity in California using new technology demonstrated at Goldman’s Solar Energy Development Center in the Negev, the largest solar energy facility in the Middle East.

Goldman, 67, was named a “Builder of Jerusalem” by Jerusalem-based educational institution Aish Hatorah, which also acknowledged his early role in founding solar energy pioneer Luz International; subsidiary Luz Industries Israel; and Electric Fuel Corporation, a vehicle battery developer.

Ever since the Rhode Island native was 16 and living in the San Fernando Valley he has been seeking higher truths in the beauty of mathematics, he tells ISRAEL21c. Later, Goldman’s search broadened to embrace Jewish thought.

“From the age of 14 I had worked at an assortment of odd jobs when I had time, including stretching springs across couches,” Goldman remembers. “The summer I was 16, I was selling mops. I woke up one night feeling miserable and came to the conclusion that if I had to work most of my life, at least I wanted it to be valuable.”

Meshing knowledge with real-world achievements

His future wife, Karen Fried, urged him to channel his intellectual curiosity away from academics into what he now defines as “Jewish thinking” – meshing pure knowledge with measurable real-world achievements. After earning a bachelor’s degree at the University of California-Los Angeles in engineering with a minor in philosophy and economics, and a master’s in computer science at the University of Southern California, Goldman went into business.

“I was trying to get into lines of work that I thought would expand my knowledge base so that I could gain a big enough comprehension of how reality worked,” Goldman recounts. “I decided that computers and communications were a focal point for integrating thoughts into places where they could be processed. I wanted to start a business and learn how to put together groups of people.”

Goldman first spent five years in computer development in the military industry. He was an innovator in the use of integrated circuits on projects such as the Minuteman rocket system (the Minuteman is a land-based intercontinental ballistic missile designed to attack ground targets), and then moved to defense contractor Litton Industries, where he tackled assignments for its subsidiary, Royal Typewriter.

Gathering a group of scientists from the California Institute of Technology and Xerox, in 1972 he started Lexitron, the United States’ first word processing company. “I felt if you could make electronics simple, people would do it,” Goldman tells ISRAEL21c.

Through it all, the thinker kept attending philosophy classes and began writing a book, A Working Paper on Project Luz, which provided the philosophical basis for Luz International.

An irresistible coincidence

At a night class in 1976, a Catholic priest recommended the works of Jewish medieval scholar-physician-philosopher Maimonides. Two weeks later, an aunt Goldman hadn’t seen for 20 years sent him a brochure about a class on Maimonides being offered at LA’s University of Judaism. It proved to be an irresistible coincidence.

“Karen and I went, and it was the first time I found a philosopher in whose stream I belonged,” says Goldman. “I found out I had been doing ‘Jewish thinking’ all along.”

As his book-in-progress assumed a Jewish flavor, the family relocated to Israel, planning to stay for two years so that Goldman could finish it there. They never left. The concept of Luz – the biblical locale of Jacob’s dream ladder connecting heaven and earth – fuelled Goldman’s “need to create an environment to integrate science and consciousness.” And that environment was a community that used solar energy.

The community didn’t pan out as well as its solar energy aspect did, “But I discovered that the company itself was a community,” Goldman recounts. Luz Industries grew to employ 500 people in Israel and thousands in California, where between 1984 and 1990 it installed nine solar power stations in the Mojave Desert, accounting for 90 percent of the world’s solar energy generation.

However, because of the large land mass required for equipment that captures the sun’s heat and turns it into electricity-generating steam, Luz’s coffers ran dry when its property-tax exemption expired in California.

Goldman poured his energies into a new book, Moving Jewish Thought to the Center of Modern Science, and founded several small companies to explore how linguistic dynamics integrate consciousness into physics. “I was interested in the play between speech, thought and language, and quantifying their impact on that which is created.”

Israelis can “bury their ego in the objective”

The effects of the 1997 Kyoto Protocols on clean energy combined with rising fossil-fuel prices provided the opportunity for Goldman to resurrect Luz. “Utility companies and investment bankers in California were willing to talk to me, so we were able to deal with very creative ideas for a next-generation system,” explains Goldman, who holds numerous patents and is the recipient of international prizes such as the International Solar Energy Society Achievement through Action Award. “No big system in the world had ever before produced more energy than it consumed.”

Luz II, a wholly owned subsidiary of BrightSource, handles research, development, logistics and project engineering for the advanced solar-thermal technology of BrightSource plants in Europe and the US. Though it may seem illogical to base his business in Israel, Goldman says he could not have accomplished what he did elsewhere.

“I was trying to do something broad and complex, and it’s hard for people to get their mind around all the elements. Israelis are intellectually curious and have experience in so many areas and that allowed us to put in place a big multidisciplinary conversation and build a learning model based on my specifications in something like six months. It would have taken three or four years in the States. Israelis show incredible dedication and are able to bury their ego in the objective,” he says.

Goldman, the father of five and grandfather of 10, takes a serious interest not only in Aish HaTorah – whose founder, Rabbi Noach Weinberg, was a fan of his writings – but also in the Jerusalem College of Technology, where he is a member of the international board of governors. ‘I am looking into doing ecological education within a Jewishly rich curriculum,” he declares. “I want to put together Jewish thought and science.”

More on BrightSource
BrightSource Gets A Billion
BrightSource Expands on Coyote Land
California’s PG&E Invests in BrightSource

(This article is reprinted with permission from ISRAEL21c – www.israel21c.org)

Aligning America with United Arab Emirates? the The US Department of Energy (DoE) and Masdar, Abu Dhabi’s multifaceted renewable energy initiative which includes an eco-city with the same name, signed a Memorandum of Understanding this week to promote collaboration on clean and sustainable energy technologies, reports Carbon Capture Journal and a press release issued by Masdar.

Signed in the US by US Deputy Secretary of Energy Daniel Poneman and Dr. Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, the CEO of Masdar, the agreement will build on a framework for cooperation in three important areas to tackle global warning, and to address depleting and polluting fuels: carbon capture and sequestration, water and bio-fuels, and clean technology.

“We look forward to working with Masdar to find clean energy solutions that will help us overcome our energy challenges. By enhancing cooperation on clean energy, we can help build a secure, prosperous and sustainable energy future for the citizens of our nations and the world,” said Deputy Secretary Poneman.

Dr. Al Jaber said: “Our two nations are strongly aligned when it comes to energy issues and we both recognize it is imperative that we start to change the way we consume energy.

As part of the agreement, both parties agreed to provide better and easier access for small and medium sized enterprises operating in clean technology clusters within the United Arab Emirates and the United States to enter their respective markets. This in turn will boost trade, investment and job opportunities between both countries. In 2009 the value of US exports to the UAE was $12.1 billion.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has the seventh largest proven oil reserves in the world at 97.8 billion barrels, according to the Oil and Gas Journal in January 2009. The UAE also has the sixth largest proven natural gas reserves in the world at 214 trillion cubic feet. It is an important oil and natural gas producer and is a member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), according to the US government’s Energy Information Administration.

The clean energy framework agreement with the DoE is a first for Masdar with a US government entity, but follows ties with US institutions such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the establishment of the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology.

The Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, Boeing and Honeywell UOP, together with the UAE’s Etihad Airways, recently signed agreements to establish a major research and demonstration project in Abu Dhabi, UAE to support the development and commercialization of aviation biofuels.

Masdar also recently signed a similar agreement with Canada, setting out a strategic agreement between the two governments for the sharing of research and evaluation and analysis on non-confidential CCS projects and technologies, according to Carbon Capture Journal.

::Carbon Capture

Israel’s cabinet has approved recommendations for preventing the further erosion of coastline cliffs.

The Israel National Roads Company  is preparing to publish tenders for the supply, installation and maintenance of wind turbines to generate electricity for highway lighting.

According to the Globes business daily, the CFO of Israel National Roads Co., Shay Yiftach, explained at a conference this week that small wind turbines could be installed on lighting poles on the coastal highway running along Israel’s Mediterranean coastline to exploit the sea winds.

The CEO of this government corporation, Alex Viznitzer, added: “We are initiating steps to integrate systems for producing renewable energy into the infrastructure of highways. Thousands of acres of available land at interchanges can be exploited for placing photovoltaic solar arrays. Many thousands of street lights can use wind turbines.”

The tenders are expected to be published after a survey is conducted to check the economic feasibility of potential sites, Globes reported.

Government seeks to shore up the shoreline

Meanwhile, the Israeli cabinet took initial action this week to prevent further erosion of shoreline cliffs along the Mediterranean, approving the principles of a policy paper prepared by the Environmental Policy Center at the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies and the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

The policy paper calls for an outlay of NIS 470 million to reinforce the cliffs over the next 20 years, the Haaretz daily reported. The cliffs have retreated a few dozen centimeters each year due to natural and human-induced erosion. The policy paper recommends physically reinforcing about 13 kilometers of the 45-kilometer stretch of cliffs, especially near Ashkelon and Herzliya.

Some of the alternatives for reinforcing the cliffs are already in place at the site of the Apollonia (Arsuf) Crusader fortress, about 15 kilometers north of Tel Aviv. However, environmentalists have complained that the work done at Apollonian ruined the beach at the foot of the cliffs.

The cabinet meeting this week included a discussion of the government’s responsibility for protecting endangered natural assets such as the shoreline cliffs. The attorney general argued that the state must take reasonable action to minimize such damage, but is not necessarily obliged to pay the costs.

Read more about wind power in Israel:

Can Israel’s Wind Power Sector Compete with Solar?

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

:: Globes

:: Haaretz