Israeli innovator Ecoppia has developed a solar powered robot that cleans PV panels without water. The microfiber technology has been in use for a year now at Ketura Sun in the Arava desert and has increased the energy efficiency by around 5% every month. Conventional cleaning methods involve the use of water and man power, while the robots use no additional energy, no water and clean the panels every evening at dusk.

For more information about Ecoppia and the E4 robot, please visit their website http://www.ecoppia.com

Courtesy of the Huffington Post

Follow Elie Jacobs on Twitter: www.twitter.com/eliejacobs

U.S. Climate Has Already Changed, Study Finds, Citing Heat and Floods

The African Renewable Energy Fund closed its first round of capital raising with $100 million in the bank. The fund hopes to double the amount available for 5-50 MW schemes within 12 months.

Read more: http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/details/beitrag/100m-renewables-fund-for-sub-saharan-africa_100014514/#ixzz2xiIFBuDr

by Kit Kennedy

Courtesy of NRDC

http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/kkennedy/for-profit_solar_developer_wit.html#.UynWz18N4qM.email

With Hanukah candles being lit in homes around the world—mine included—starting tonight, you might be interested to know about an early rabbinic debate that has great relevance for our world today.

In celebrating Hanukah, these early scholars wanted to know, should one start with eight lights and work down to one? Or, start with one and work your way up?

If you’ve ever lit Hanukah candles, you know the answer: Start with one and work up. The reason is meant not just literally but metaphorically: During a dark time, such as the one we face now with climate change, it’s best to increase the amount of light in the world.

In Israel and around the globe, a Jerusalem-based solar developer, Energiya Global, is doing just that.   My husband, Matthew Diller, and I had the opportunity to visit Energiya Global's Jerusalem office this summer.  Matthew is dean of  Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York City (part of Yeshiva University), where Weldon Turner, Energiya Global’s COO, got his law degree. Energiya Global calls itself “a for-profit company with a non-profit soul.”

EG’s think-big idea is this: By 2020, to bring as much as 10,000 megawatts of pollution-free solar power to developing countries. EG is planning clean electricity for up to 50 million people who currently go without, or, instead, depend on high-polluting fossil fuel systems such as dirty diesel generators or kerosene cook stoves and lamps. In the process, Energiya Global hopes to help lift many of these people out of poverty and address the darkness that global warming increasingly presents.

Energiya Global was co-founded by American immigrant Yosef Abramowitz (whosesister-in-law is comedian Sarah Silverman), and got its start after Abramowitz and colleagues built the first utility-scale solar array in Israel in 2011. That event sparked lots of international press, and Abramowitz’s original company, Arava Power, was inundated with inquiries and requests from around the world.

Already, EG has raised more than $800 million in conditional financing, and is at work on projects in Turkey, Romania and Ecuador. More are planned soon, in locations as far flung as South Africa and North Carolina.

In many of the places where Energiya Global has begun to work, solar power is often  cheaper than highly polluting diesel power (often the only other energy option), and bringing solar will not only improve local residents’ health but will also free them from the economic burdens of importing fossil fuels.

One of EG’s most inspiring projects is underway in the African nation of Rwanda. That country of 10.5 million people, riven by genocide in 1994, currently has only about 100 megawatts on the electric grid; about half of that comes from diesel generators. A new Energiya Global solar array will add another 8.5 megawatts. The solar field is being constructed on land leased from the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village. ASYV raises orphans of the genocide and other vulnerable young people and is modeled after the Israeli children’s villages that raised hundreds of thousands of orphans after the Holocaust. The lease provides ASYV a long-term revenue stream and clean electricity. Energiya Global calls the project a “win-win situation and a natural partnership.”

Hanukah comes at a dark time of year to remind us, perhaps, that miracles are possible. They require some dedication—in fact, the word Hanukah is derived from a Hebrew verb meaning “to dedicate”—and perhaps a bit of Divine spark, too. No doubt, Energiya Global is carrying both of those with them, as they increase and harvest the light that developing countries and the rest of us so desperately need.

By Justin Gillis

New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/18/science/scientists-sound-alarm-on-climate.html?_r=0

Early in his career, a scientist named Mario J. Molina was pulled into seemingly obscure research about strange chemicals being spewed into the atmosphere. Within a year, he had helped discover a global environmental emergency, work that would ultimately win a Nobel Prize.

Now, at 70, Dr. Molina is trying to awaken the public to an even bigger risk. He spearheaded a committee of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world’s largest general scientific society, which released a stark report Tuesday on global warming.

The report warns that the effects of human emissions of heat-trapping gases are already being felt, that the ultimate consequences could be dire, and that the window to do something about it is closing.

“The evidence is overwhelming: Levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are rising,” says the report. “Temperatures are going up. Springs are arriving earlier. Ice sheets are melting. Sea level is rising. The patterns of rainfall and drought are changing. Heat waves are getting worse, as is extreme precipitation. The oceans are acidifying.”

In a sense, this is just one more report about global warming in a string going back decades. For anybody who was already paying attention, the report contains no new science. But the language in the 18-page report, called “What We Know,” is sharper, clearer and more accessible than perhaps anything the scientific community has put out to date.

And the association does not plan to stop with the report. The group, with a membership of 121,200 scientists and science supporters around the world, plans a broad outreach campaign to put forward accurate information in simple language.

The scientists are essentially trying to use their powers of persuasion to cut through public confusion over this issue.

Polls show that most Americans are at least somewhat worried about global warming. But people generally do not understand that the problem is urgent — that the fate of future generations (not necessarily that far in the future) is being determined by emission levels now. Moreover, the average citizen tends to think there is more scientific debate about the basics than there really is.

The report emphasizes that the experts have come to a consensus, with only a few dissenters. “Based on well-established evidence, about 97 percent of climate scientists have concluded that human-caused climate change is happening,” it says.

That is not the same as claiming that all questions about climate change have been answered. In fact, enormous questions remain, and the science of global warming entails a robust, evolving discussion.

The new report walks through a series of potential consequences of planetary warming, without asserting that any is sure to happen. They are possibilities, not certainties, and the distinction is crucial for an intelligent public debate about what to do. The worst-case forecasts include severe food shortages as warming makes it harder to grow crops; an acceleratingrise of the sea that would inundate coastlines too rapidly for humanity to adjust; extreme heat waves, droughts and floods; and a large-scale extinction of plants and animals.

“What’s extremely clear is that there’s a risk, a very significant risk,” Dr. Molina said by telephone from Mexico, where he spends part of his time. “You don’t need 100 percent certainty for society to act.”

Some of the scientists on Dr. Molina’s committee like to point out that people can be pretty intelligent about managing risk in their personal lives. It is unlikely that your house will burn down, yet you spend hundreds of dollars a year on insurance. When you drive to work in the morning, the odds are low that some careless driver will slam into you, but it is possible, so we have spent tens of billions of dollars putting seatbelts and air bags in our cars.

The issue of how much to spend on lowering greenhouse gases is, in essence, a question about how much insurance we want to buy against worst-case outcomes. Scientists cannot decide that for us — and the report recognizes that by avoiding any specific recommendations about what to do. But it makes clear that lowering emissions, by some means, is the only way to lower the risks. Because so many people are confused about the science, the nation has never really had a frank political discussion about the options.

Only a few decades ago, the world confronted a similar question regarding chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons, then common in refrigerators, air-conditioners, cans of hair spray and deodorant.

At a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., conference in 1972, a California scientist namedF. Sherwood Rowland learned that they were accumulating in the air. What, he wondered, would happen to them? He eventually put a young researcher in his laboratory, Dr. Molina, onto the question.

To their own shock, the team figured out that the chemicals would break down the ozone layer, a blanket of gas high above the ground that protects the world from devastating levels of ultraviolet radiation. As the scientific evidence of a risk accumulated, the public demanded action — and eventually got it, in the form of a treaty phasing out the compounds.

Global warming has been much harder to understand, not least because of a disinformation campaign financed by elements of the fossil-fuel industry.

But the new report is a recognition among scientists that they bear some responsibility for the confusion — that their well-meaning attempts to convey all the nuances and uncertainties of a complex field have obscured the core message about risks. The report reflects their resolve to try again, by clearing the clutter.

Will the American people hear the message this time?

IsraelDev Member of the Month Chaim Motzen, Managing Director of Energiya Global, recently secured $23.7M in financing to build an 8.5 MW solar photovoltaic power plant in Rwanda. The project, developed from concept stage to financial close by Chaim, is East Africa’s first utility-scale solar field and will increase Rwanda’s power generation capacity by approximately 8%. Construction of the field, located at Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village, has already begun. Commercial operation is expected summer of 2014.

By Hody Nemes

Israel faces the prospect of freeing itself from dependence on foreign oil in the near future, with potentially transformative impact on the country’s economic and political future, two experts agreed Sunday during the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference in Washington.

But Yosef Abramowitz and Harold Vinegar, two entrepreneurs seeking to upend Israel’s energy future, differed radically in their respective visions of Israel’s path toward this goal at a Sunday breakout session at the annual gathering.

Hailed as “Captain Sunshine,” Abramowitz wants Israel to become a leader in solar energy production. As the co-founder of the Israeli solar energy firms Arava Power Company and Energiya Global, he has helped build several solar fields in Israel and is working to build solar projects in developing countries as well. He is also considering a run for Israel’s presidency as the incumbent,Shimon Peres, prepares to retire; he told the Forward he will decide next week.

Abramowitz said climate change has added urgency to his quest to build a clean energy economy.

“As a species we’re running out of time,” Abramowitz said. “As partners of God and custodians of the environment, we’re failing.”

Vinegar, the chief scientist of Israel Energy Initiatives, an Israeli energy startup, wants Israel to develop its massive reserves of shale oil, a precursor to useable fuel, which is locked tightly into underground rock formations and must be heated to nearly 600 degrees Fahrenheit before it can be used. Shale oil is difficult to extract and process, and produces more climate-damaging greenhouse gases than conventional oil. Vinegar estimates Israel’s shale oil reserves at around 250 billion barrels of oil, roughly the same as Saudi Arabia’s oil reserves.

Israel recently made some strides in its quest for energy independence, thanks to the discovery of massive Tamar and Leviathan natural gas fields in the Mediterranean. The two fields hold enough gas to supply Israel’s needs for decades and have raised expectations that Israel will become a major energy player in the Middle East. But Vinegar wants Israel to produce its own oil, not just natural gas.

“If you think the natural gas has had a big effect, just wait till you see the effects of hundreds of billions of barrels of oil,” he said. “It’s going to revolutionize the country.”

Abramowitz countered with his view that fossil fuels – like coal, oil, and natural gas – should serve only as transition fuels on the road to a renewable energy economy. Fossil fuels are the primary drivers behind climate change, which is causing increasingly severe weather around the globe, disrupting agriculture, and raising sea level. “We in the pro-Israel community need to make some difficult choices,” he said. “Do we want to perpetuate a world that does use oil, or do we have a different vision?”

Abramowitz expressed astonishment that Israel, with its reliable year-around access to sunlight in the Negev and elsewhere, had only committed itself to obtaining 10% of its energy from renewable sources, like solar and wind power, by 2020. He called that target “really, incredibly, embarrassingly modest” and voiced dismay that the government has not been eager to allow more solar projects in the country.

Vinegar said he was not opposed to developing Israel’s solar potential – and would welcome a tax on fossil fuels to fund research and development of renewable energy sources. “We believe renewables and fossil fuels can coexist and help each other,” he said.

Abramowtiz wants Israel to show the way for other nations to reduce their dependence on fossil fuels. He specifically called on the Jewish state to use natural gas to produce electricity instead of the much more polluting coal and diesel on which it now significantly relies. He also wants Israel to start using electric cars and to invest in better electric storage capability to allow solar plants to store electricity for use overnight.

The timeliness of the two advocates’ debate was underlined by an event taking place outside the conference at Walter E. Washington Convention Center, even as they spoke. At a protest outside the White House, just a few blocks away, hundreds of college students from around the country called on President Obama to reject the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which would transport tar sands oil from Alberta to refineries in the Gulf Coast. Like Vinegar’s shale oil, tar sands oil is difficult to extract and produces more greenhouse gases than regular oil.

The protest ended with 398 students arrested in an act of civil disobedience.

The event was the brainchild of Michael Greenberg, a Jewish sophomore at Columbia University, who is heavily involved in the Columbia Hillel and the Columbia chapter of J Street, a progressive Israel advocacy group.

“The Keystone decision symbolizes the choice between finding progressively worse forms of energy, or making the transition to safer and more just ways of powering our society,” Greenberg said. “President Obama has been waffling on his commitment to future generations and putting our bodies on the line could be our most powerful tool for holding him accountable.”