http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-24/israel-s-kibbutz-collectives-find-new-purpose-in-green-ventures.html
Related News:
Israel’s Kibbutz Collectives Find New Purpose in Green Ventures
By David Wainer - Jun 24, 2010
Members of Kibbutz Ketura, a collective farm in Israel’s Arava Desert, share meals under the fluorescent lights of a spartan dining hall. The kibbutz’s leaders earn the same pay as the laundry folders: nothing, other than occasional dividends and monthly allowances. Anyone who wants a new air-conditioner to make it through the desert summer has to sign up on a waiting list.
Yet Ketura’s commitment to socialism hasn’t stopped it from forming a partnership with Siemens AG, Europe’s largest engineering company. Siemens last August paid $15 million for a 40 percent stake in Arava Power Co., a company affiliated with the kibbutz that plans to start generating solar power this year.
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Dear Peoplehooders,
Despite working too hard for a solar Israel, every once in a while I step back into the Peoplehood debate. Here is the video from last week in a study session for JDC staff, with Dr. Ezra Kopelowitz. Click here for part one. Ezra’s expert presentation can be seen here. Thank you to JDC staff for the opportunity.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1166442.html
In an historic first, the KKL-JNF has invested in Arava Power, the first such investment in its 110 year history. This is part of KKL’s efforts to green the Negev and Arava through green power, develop these regions, be a key player in the environmental movement and also create revenues for itself, as all charities begin to retool for the 21st century. Unfortunately, Globes wrote it all up as a scandal, when in fact it is a beautiful story and represents great news for KKL-JNF. we’re honored to be their partners. Through this landmark deal, Jews from around the world via JNF can participate in the solar revolution in Israel and also may be able to create new avenues to do their carbon offsets through JNF and the future solar fields.
In today’s anglo file in haaretz, KKL begins to fight back that the deal is in fact super, duper kosher. Click here for the story.
CNBC PRESENTS “BEYOND THE BARREL: THE RACE TO FUEL THE FUTURE” ON THURSDAY, APRIL 22ND AT 8PM ET
Published: Monday, 5 Apr 2010 | 11:42 AM ET
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By: Jennifer Dauble
ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS, N.J., April 5, 2010— There is an amazing race going on right now around the world to find the fuel of the future. More than three decades after the oil shocks shook America, the United States and the rest of the industrialized world is still addicted to oil. But now, for the first time in a generation, plans to break the black gold stranglehold are closer than ever to becoming a reality.
On Thursday, April 22nd at 8PM ET, CNBC will broadcast a one-hour special, “Beyond the Barrel: The Race to Fuel the Future,” anchored by CNBC’s Carl Quintanilla. The one-hour program will showcase the bottled promises ready to be unleashed from the Middle East, South America, Asia and here at home. This CNBC original production will introduce viewers to more than a dozen potential game changing innovations to power our planet. “Beyond the Barrel: The Race to Fuel the Future” will also take a critical look at why we are still years away from putting these ideas into practice.
CNBC, First in Business Worldwide, will cover this story from across the globe:
· CNBC’s Jane Wells will look at parts of the American west where new solar towns are popping up all over the map.
· CNBC’s Brian Shactman travels to Bolivia to report on the Country’s untapped reserves that can be used for new battery technology and change the way we use energy forever.
· NBC’s Adrienne Mong reports from China, a country accused of being a serial polluter. But at the same time, China’s green-tech industry is catching up with the world’s traditional leaders very quickly as they mass-produce the equipment and materials needed to create new forms of energy.
Additionally, Quintanilla will profile a small start-up in northern California that’s working to turn toxic emissions literally into building blocks for tomorrow. Plus, Quintanilla will go one-on-one with the OPEC ministers who say there’s no way the world will replace oil anytime soon and he’ll talk to the naysayers who believe we’ll be addicted to oil forever.
For more information go to: www.cnbc.com .
CNBC’s Carl Quintanilla is co-anchor of CNBC’s “Squawk Box” (M-F 6-9AM ET). Sanford Cannold is the Executive Producer of “Beyond the Barrel: The Race to Fuel the Future.” Jason Gewirtz is the Senior Producer and Jeremy Pink is the Senior Vice President, Business News.
About CNBC:CNBC is the recognized world leader in business news, providing real-time financial market coverage and business information to more than 340 million homes worldwide, including more than 95 million households in the United States and Canada. The network’s Business Day programming (weekdays from 5:00 a.m.-7:00 p.m. ET) is produced at CNBC’s headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., and also includes reports from CNBC news bureaus worldwide. Additionally, CNBC viewers can manage their individual investment portfolios and gain additional in-depth information from on-air reports by accessing http://www.cnbc.com.
The latest issue of Hadassah is devoted to, well, Hadassah, and all the good works they have done, including support Kibbutz Ketura. Following three mostly magical years at Ketura, Alan Tigay, Hadassah’s highly respected editor, invited me back to their pages, a place where I began my journalism career. Click here for the full article.
February/March 2010 Vol. 91 No. 4
Columns & Departments
Letter from Ketura: Where the Local is GlobalYosef Israel Abramowitz
A family came to Kibbutz Ketura to reconnect and focus on personal goals. Their time there, however, was spent working on world-changing projects.
After our three-year sojourn as a family in the Arava Desert, I am hoping that at least one of my children will end up joining Kibbutz Ketura so that I can have burial rights there alongside my heroes, friends and fellow Young Judaeans. a My connection to Ketura began in 1982, when I was in Israel on a Hadassah scholarship to participate in Young Judaea’s Year Course program. I was lucky enough to spend six months of my time in the country, having fun in the sun in a great community, cooking for its members and driving around in a forklift. I have romanticized my time at Ketura, recalling my younger self as a long-haired, softball-playing, ideology-filled troublemaker who loved the kibbutz’s vast swimming pool as much as the canopy of stars that illuminated the Arava sky each night.
So, naturally, when my wife, Susan, and I recently decided to spend time in Israel, I wrote an e-mail to the kibbutz asking if we could hang out for several years. Luckily, Sharon Benheim, who participated in Year Course a year before me, was on the other end of the computer. She answered that she was head of klita, outreach for new members, and could we commit to the process? Yes, was my answer; no, was my wife’s. Still, they welcomed us and our five children, Aliza, 16; Hallel, 14; Adar, 11; Zamir, 8; and Ashira, 6, for a two-year stint.
Our goal was to live simply, calmly and with increased family time, in a Jewish community, restoring a better balance to our hectic lives. Susan and I were to each write books; hers about theology and adoption and mine about the future of the Jewish people. |
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15 new solar fields will produce 100MW of power
BY EHUD ZION WALDOKS
07/02/2010 22:56
Arava Power Company signs deals with 15 kibbutzim and moshavim to produce solar photovoltaic (PV) electricity.
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The Arava Power Company (APC) announced Sunday that it had signed agreements with 15 kibbutzim and moshavim around the country to produce 100 MW of solar photovoltaic (PV) electricity.
One hundred MW represents fully a third of the 300 MW quota allocated for solar energy from medium-sized fields.
Having secured agreements with most of the kibbutzim in the southern Arava, with its abundant sunshine, APC made its announcement to coincide with the Eilat-Eilot International Renewable Energy Conference taking place next week.
Arava Power holds all the necessary licenses and permits to begin work, the company said, and the existing power lines are sufficient to transfer the electricity to the national grid as soon as the fields are built, APC President Yosef Abramowitz told The Jerusalem Post Sunday.
The medium-sized field – from 50 KW to 5 MW – market was opened recently when the Public Utility Authority- Electricity (PUA) announced the feed-in tariff of around NIS 1.60 per kilowatt hour.
The 100 MW is just the beginning, the company said. APC CEO Jon Cohen called on the National Infrastructures Ministry and PUA to raise the quota from 300 to 1,000 MW, thus expressing the company’s confidence that solar energy has a bright future in Israel.
“We are implementing Prime Minister Netanyahu’s vision to cease use of fossil fuels within a decade and [help Israel] develop alternative energies for itself and the world,” he said, in a statement.
“The goal to produce 300 solar megawatts is an important step towards implementing the government’s decision to produce 5 percent of Israel’s energy consumption from renewable sources by 2014, but it’s not enough: In order to achieve this goal, at least 1,000 megawatts are needed, and the market indicates that only mid-size solar fields can fill the gap faster than any other source,” he said in a statement.
The other potential type of solar energy is solar thermal, which concentrates sunlight to heat water to power a turbine. PV converts sunlight directly into electricity. Abramowitz contended that solar-thermal fields could not be built fast enough to help reach the 2014 goal, whereas PV fields could.
Regarding additional solar capacity, a public hearing for the feed-in tariff for large fields is currently under way and Abramowitz said APC was ready to push forward in that arena as well – but not at the currently proposed tariff of NIS 1.05.
“We have told PUA that a tariff of NIS 1.05 is not financially attractive enough for developers. It needs to be at least NIS 1.40,” he told the Post.
Given the right tariff, APC is ready to build large solar fields alongside each of the 15 medium-sized fields, the company said.
“We’re in a huge growth period. In each of the 15 mid-size field locations, we are also planning to build a large-size field, adding another 500 megawatts to Arava Power’s pipeline. Together with our partners from Siemens, we are weighing additional proposals from investors,” Abramowitz said in a statement.
In order to connect those large fields to the grid, a new 161-kilovolt power line has to be run around or under Machtesh Ramon. The north-south line from Eilat to the center is mostly laid, except for the Machtesh Ramon part. APC and PUA have been in discussions about the best route for such a line.
APC has also suggested running a larger capacity high-voltage power line down to Eilat so that the area could provide energy to the center, but such a project is still pending approval and several years away from fruition, Abramowitz conceded.
Nevertheless, APC contended that it was ready to make a reality out of the Eilat-Eilot Regional Council goal of becoming an alternative energy center.
“With its plentiful sunshine and ample open space, Israel’s Arava region has established itself as one of the most innovative solar hotspots in the world and Arava Power is leading the region’s renewable energy efforts,” said Udi Gat, Eilat-Eilot Regional Council head.
“The investment by Arava Power in this region underscores the important role we play as an incubator for supporting, advancing and promoting novel renewable energy initiatives.”
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For Immediate Release
December 23, 2009
Contact:
Larry Lerner, UCSJ President, (908) 305-8943.
Leonid Stonov, UCSJ Director of International Bureaus, (847) 529-8954.
UCSJ MOURNS THE DEATH OF ITS NATIONAL DIRECTOR
Micah H. Naftalin Provided Over Two Decades of Inspirational Leadership
Washington, DC–Micah H. Naftalin, an inspirational leader in human rights activism
on behalf of Soviet Jews, died earlier today in Washington, DC. He
was 76 years old. Since February 1987, Mr. Naftalin served as national
director of UCSJ, an independent grassroots human rights organization
operating across the former Soviet Union (FSU).
“I am deeply saddened by the loss of such a great human rights leader
within the Jewish community,” said Larry Lerner, UCSJ’s president.
“Micah was a friend and colleague whom I admired for many years.
He will be greatly missed”
Under Mr. Naftalin’s leadership, UCSJ monitoring has long been the
principal source of primary data on religious discrimination and,
especially, antisemitic and xenophobic hate crimes and propaganda
across the FSU, with special emphasis on Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.
In early 2007, he initiated, with cooperation from the Moscow Helsinki
Group, the Coalition Against Hate, an unprecedented consortium of 30
religious freedom and human rights NGOs from Russia, Ukraine and
Belarus, pledged to provide cooperative activism and monitoring of
hate crimes. Read more
wow. My heroes on in this list of the top 20 and it’s an honor to be among them. Can’t wait to build Israel’s first solar field, at ketura. chag sameyach!
Toda, toda, yosef
http://www.calcalist.co.il/local/articles/0,7340,L-3372789,00.html
גיל: 45
מצב משפחתי: נשוי + 5
מגורים: ירושלים
תפקיד: נשיא חברת ערבה פאוור
בעבר: יו”ר הארגון העולמי של סטודנטים יהודים
עוד משהו: כותב בלוג אישי ב־peoplehood.org
יוסף אברמוביץ’ עוד זוכר את התור הארוך שהשתרך בתחנת הדלק מתחת לביתו בעקבות החרם שהטילו מדינות ערב על ארצות הברית, כשזו תמכה בישראל במלחמת יום הכיפורים.
דבריו של נשיא ארה”ב דאז, ג’ימי קרטר, על חשיבות השימוש באנרגיה סולארית, נחרתו בו, וכמה שנים לאחר מכן התחיל לבנות מודל של מערכת סולארית שזיכתה אותו במדליה בבית הספר. אז לא שיער בדמיונו שכעבור עשרות שנים יקים חברת אנרגיה סולארית ישראלית.
כיו”ר הארגון העולמי של סטודנטים יהודים בסוף שנות השמונים נחשב אברמוביץ’ לטראבל מייקר, שידוע בעיקר בהפגנותיו למען יהודי ברית המועצות. כשעלה לארץ מבוסטון לפני שלוש שנים והתיישב בקיבוץ קטורה, שבו התנדב 25 שנה קודם לכן, היה זה אחד מימי הקיץ החמים ביותר של 2006. השמש הקופחת שבערבה גרמה לו בתמימותו להיות בטוח שהחשמל של הקיבוץ מופק, איך לא, מאנרגיית השמש. בקיבוץ צחקו עליו.
חבר של אברמוביץ’ סיפר לו על השקעתו בחברה סולארית בקליפורניה. אברמוביץ’ סיפר על כך לקיבוצניקים בקטורה, המיושב ברובו על ידי אמריקאים, אבל הם ביטלו אותו בטענה שזה לא רווחי. אנשי עסקים שהגיעו חזור ושוב לקטורה כדי לתכנן איך ינצלו את השמש להפקת אנרגיה היו פחות ציניים מהישראלים, והקיבוצניקים השתכנעו לתת את השטחים הנרחבים לחברה שתוקם בשם ערבה פאוור.
ערבה פאוור קמה כנגד כל הסיכויים, כשהתעריפים להקמת מתקנים סולאריים היו בלתי כלכליים, אך החברה ביקשה לשנות את המצב. אברמוביץ’ דפק על כל שולחנות הממשלה ורשות החשמל כדי לשנות את הרגולציה להקמת שדות סולאריים בישראל, והצליח. כמעט שלוש שנים עברו עד שערבה קיבלה רישיון ראשון להקים שדה סולארי, אף על פי שאברמוביץ’ הבטיח לאשתו שזה ייקח חצי שנה. כך או כך, הקמת השדה הסולארי הראשון בישראל קרובה מתמיד בזכות אברמוביץ’. הראשוניות והמובילות הביאה אפילו את חברת סימנס הענקית להשקיע בחברה 15 מיליון דולר תמורת 40% ממניותיה, מתוך אמונה שערבה פאוור היא “חברה יזמית מובילה בתחומה”.
אברמוביץ’, שקנה מכונית היברידית כבר ב־2004, גר היום בירושלים ומתנייד בתחבורה ציבורית בלבד. “עליתי לארץ עם החזון שישראל צריכה להיות המדינה הראשונה שמבוססת על אנרגיית שמש. אין כמעט מישהו במדינה שהאמין שזה יקרה. ראיתי בדמיוני את כל שלבי הדרך ואת החזון הסופי. ההתחלה היא תמיד הכי קשה, אבל זה שווה את זה כשישראל תשנה את העולם. זה הכבוד הכי גדול, להיות חלק מהמהפכה הכי משמעותית בעולם”, אומר אברמוביץ’.
אברמוביץ’ מאמין שישראל תתקדם מהר מאוד מהמקום האחרון למקום הראשון בשימוש באנרגיות מתחדשות. אם תטיל מסי פחמן ותחוקק חוקים לאנרגיות מתחדשות, תוכל ישראל להגיע עד 2020 לייצור של 25% ממשק החשמל שלה באנרגיה מתחדשת.
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