Long-awaited
winter rains, plus my recent trip to the Arava
in southern Israel are the inspiration for this week’s blog. The Arava region in Israel’s Negev “desert”
now produces 60%
of Israel’s exports of food crops, right alongside massive fields
of solar panels. It is a
microcosm of Israel’s advanced agricultural technologies that combine with its
cleantech innovations to help generate a green and sustainable planet.
My journey south centered around Kibbutz
Ketura, just 50km north of Eilat, which hosts the Arava Institute for
Environmental Studies. It also
contains a 5MegaWatt solar
field, with self-cleaning robots, built by Arava Power, which is now
constructing a 40MW
field just across the road. It
has a factory growing special algae
that makes Ketura the world’s leading source of the natural anti-oxidant
astaxanthin.
(Algae growing frames - Kibbutz Ketura. Photo by M.Ordman)
Two innovative joint research projects
have just been approved, involving scientists at MIT and at Ben Gurion University of the Negev. You can probably guess the goals of
“Self-Sustained Agriculture Based on Marginal Water”, but you may have more
trouble with “Identification of Epigenetic Quantitative Trait Loci Associated
with Tomato Seed Germination”! Before
we leave the Negev, Israel’s Brenmiller Energy has just announced that it will
establish a 10MW solar power station in Dimona, capable of generating
electricity from solar energy for an average of 20
hours a day.
Heading north we reach a rather wet Tel
Aviv, where hydroponics - growing crops without soil - are cultivating lettuce
and strawberries in the Central
Bus Station using water from the building’s air-conditioning
system. Just around the corner,
Israel’s Flux has developed
a personal
device that helps individuals and small businesses install home-farming
hydroponics.
Up in the Galilee, delegates at Kinneret
College’s first Water
Conference heard how Israel’s BSc graduates in Water Industry
Engineering extended a wastewater system under Israel’s main Tel Aviv highway,
without disrupting traffic. Several
ex-students currently work for some of the 11
Israeli water companies that recently visited Spain to present
technology to help Spanish infrastructure companies recycle more of the rain in
Spain. We now cross the sea to Africa,
where students from Tel Aviv University have built a 48,000-liter rainwater
harvesting and advanced filtration system that provides 400 children and staff
at Nkaiti Secondary School in Minjingu, Tanzania with safe
drinking water.
Israel’s newly launched relationship with
India is on the crest of a wave.
Israeli water company Netafim has been selected to partake in a $60
million micro-irrigation
project in the Indian state of Karnataka. The project will help 6,700 farmers in 22 villages, increase crop
production and save 50 percent of their water consumption. Meanwhile, Israel’s Water-Gen is bringing
its pioneering air-to-water
technology to the urban poor of India, where over 150 million people
are not connected to a water supply. In
addition, the Israel pavilion entitled “Israel
Innovation in India” opened at Vibrant Gujarat 2015, showcasing
advanced Israeli agriculture technologies.
Just in case anyone thought that Israel had
abandoned Haiti, five years after the devastating earthquake, IsraAID’s
work there includes the agriculture program “Haiti Grows”, supporting
local farmers with Israeli technology.
Closer to home, the Israeli government has sponsored Palestinian
Arab strawberry farmers to upgrade facilities and train them in
strawberry cultivation. Annually,
Israel trains 1200 Palestinian Arab farmers.
There has been some good news
emanating from Europe recently. Nine
Israeli cleantech companies attended Leipzig’s
Green Ventures Forum,where they held over a hundred meetings with companies
from over 30 countries. Over in Italy,
Israel has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Fiat Chrysler, Iveco and
Magneti Marelli for co-operation in the development of natural
gas based technologies. And
even the United
Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) was appreciative of the
five-day MASHAV workshop in Israel, teaching successful renewable energy
practices and energy efficiency technologies to 23 experts and policymakers
from across Eurasia.
Back in Israel, the Environment Ministry
has just announced that it will provide $1.6 million for local authorities to
encourage commuters to use public
transport or bicycles in congested Israeli cities. It includes new bicycle rental stations,
cycle paths and a subsidized station taxi service. And I won’t say “no” if someone wants to donate to me one of the
new INU electric
scooters launched by Israel’s Green
Ride It folds automatically, recognizes its owner and has a range of
40km at speeds up to 25km/hour.
Before I put on my hat and coat, there is
just room to include Jacob Richman’s excellent image of the new Israeli stamps
featuring some of Israel’s beautiful winter
flowers. And I conclude with a
puzzling phenomenon. After an absence
of 20 years, flocks of synchronized starlings have been forming spectacular
sights of dancing clouds in
the skies of southern Israel.
Are they also enjoying Israel’s new blue-sky thinking?
Israel – it’s a breath of fresh air.
Michael Ordman writes a free weekly
newsletter containing positive news stories about Israel.
For a free subscription, email a request to
michael.goodnewsisrael@gmail.com
