Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) researchers have invented a process to make a green feed alternative for crude oil out of two of the most common substances on Earth – water and carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas detrimental to the environment.

Profs. Moti Herskowitz and Miron Landau, along with Dr. Roxana Vidruk and the team at BGU’s Blechner Center of Industrial Catalysis and Process Development have developed a green feed that can be converted using well-established technologies into liquid fuel and delivered using existing infrastructure to gas stations. As opposed to other alternative fuel sources, such as electric cars, which require additional infrastructure, this green feed would merely replace oil as the input for refineries.

The project is partially supported by I-SAEF (Israel Strategic Alternative Energy Foundation).

Herskowitz unveiled the revolutionary breakthrough at the Bloomberg Fuel Choices Summit in Tel Aviv last week.

“It is an extraordinary challenge to convert carbon dioxide and hydrogen to green feed,” says Herskowitz. “The technology is based on novel specially tailored catalysts and catalytic processes. Well-established, commercially available technology can be directly applied to the process developed at BGU. It is envisaged that the short-term implementation of the process will combine synthetic gas produced from various renewable and alternative sources with carbon dioxide and hydrogen.”

Prof. Herskowitz, who is the Israel Cohen Chair in Chemical Engineering and the VP & Dean at BGU, indicated that the new process should become a reality in the near future. “Since there are no foreseen technological barriers, the new process should become a reality within five to ten years,” he says.

Regarding other alternative fuels, Herskowitz maintains that his invention represents a game-changer.

“The liquids that have been used over the past decade are ethanol (alcohol), biodiesel and/or blends of these fuels with conventional fuels, as will continue to be done in the foreseeable future. These alternatives are, however, far from ideal, and there is a pressing need for a game-changing approach to produce alternative drop-in liquid transportation fuels by sustainable, technologically viable and environmentally acceptable processes from abundant, low-cost, renewable materials.”

Researchers at the Blechner Center have also developed a novel process for converting vegetable and algae oils to advanced green diesel and jet fuels.

Palestinian Authority-Israeli “peace talks” might be short-lived following the unveiling on Tuesday of a new Gush Etzion-Dead Sea highway Tuesday that would destroy Palestinian Authority ambitions to include all of the Jordan Valley and the Judean Desert in its planned future state.

While foreign and Israeli media reported that Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas  has made it clear there is no room for compromise on PA territorial demands in the area, two Cabinet ministers senior Knesset Member Avigdor Liberman toured the proposed route of the new highway, with work slated to begin in only four months.

News of the new west-east road, which would revolutionize travel and the tourist industry, has barely been reported, but once the Palestinian Authority gets a hold of it, it undoubtedly will demand that there is no sense in talking unless Israel calls off the bulldozers and asphalt trucks.

“Israel will not be present between us and Jordan,” Abbas said in Jericho  this week. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has consistently said that Israel will retain a presence in the Jordan Valley as a security measure.

Abbas on Sunday rejected an Israeli military presence, adding that he might consider an international force to back up PA security forces.

The planned $10 million highway makes mincemeat out of Abbas’ grand vision and could set off the fuse that would explode the PA-Israeli discussions that Palestinian Authority negotiators insist are going nowhere.

The route for the new road was unveiled during a tour of the area on Tuesday by Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz, a strong Likud nationalist, Agriculture Minister Yair Shamir of Yisrael Beiteinu , and Liberman, chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Security Committee and leader of the Yisrael Beiteinu faction in the Likud party.

The highway would cut through “Area C,” determined by the Oslo Accords to be under Israeli control, and would carve through some of Israel’s most awesome natural areas.

Planners  claimed that the route was approved by environmental experts,  but any work that would scar the Judean Desert cliffs, parts of which are virgin area occupied only by wildlife, would meet a storm of protests from environmentalists.

The political story from the Palestinian Authority will be just as fierce, but comments by Israeli  officials touring the route Tuesday were full of enthusiasm and praise.

“I have been dreaming of this road for 20 years,” said Motti Dahaman, chairman of the Megillot Regional Council in the Dead Sea area north of Ein Gedi.

“This road is part of a vision or tourism and will connect Gush Etzion to the Dead Sea and Megillot with Jerusalem,”  He said. “The highway will make it easier form tourists form Bethlehem to come to the Dead Sea.” The highway if it can bridge the political divide, will cut travel time from Gush Etzion to the Dead Sea to only 27 minutes. Today, the only way to reach the Dead Sea, except by four-wheel vehicles, is via Jerusalem to the north or  Arad to the south, with travel time of nearly 90 minutes.

Gush Etzion Regional Council chairman Davidi Perl called the highway an “historic event” and added, “Today there are only two roads to the Dead Sea. The significance of this new highway is that it will bring the center of the country to the Dead Sea and encourage tourism there and in Gush Etzion and the Judean Desert.

The road would include the current Beit Shemesh-Gush Etzion route, which would be widened into a super highway, and it then would carve out a new path, over dirt roads, east of Efrat and then south east, bypassing virtually impassable cliffs.

Tel Aviv residents began riding on Israel’s first electric bus Tuesday, several weeks after the Better Place electric car venture filed for bankruptcy,

The Dan Bus Company invested $112 million for the orange-colored pollution-free bus, whose route takes it from the city’s central bus station to the Arlozorov train station. It can run approximately four hours before needing a six-our charge, and if it pays off, the bus company envisions buying another 250 electric vehicles.

As for the private electric business, there still is a chance it will make a comeback. Investors paid only $5.5 to pick up the pieces of Better Place and try to recharge the idea of Israeli motorists driving gas-free cars.

Empire Kosher Poultry was fined $99,000 by Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection for repeat violations dating back to 2008.

The infractions at America’s largest kosher poultry producer, which has its plant in Mifflintown, Pa., included chemical spills, discharge of untreated industrial wastewater into the nearby Juniata River, improper storage of solid waste and a lack of reporting to state authorities of some unauthorized discharges.

For example, a state inspection on March 15 revealed an unreported industrial wastewater spill that an Empire employee said was from the chicken de-skinning operation area. Inspectors found a wastewater manhole that overflowed to the ground and into a storm water conveyance system, spilling chicken skin and fat into the areas.

The earliest citation, in May 2008, faulted Empire for having dysfunctional dissolved-air-flotation machines, not maintaining proper records, failing to provide secondary containment around storage containers in the feather pit, and having chemical spills and process waste in the feather pit.

On May 28, Empire agreed to pay fines totaling $99,000. Approximately $15,000 was paid to Pennsylvania’s Solid Waste Abatement Fund and another $84,000 will go to the state’s Clean Water Fund over a period of about five months.

יַעַר גֶּשֶׁם A rainforest is a place of astounding beauty and biodiversity. Rainforests are also responsible for 28% of the world’s oxygen, according to Wikipedia.

The Hebrew term for rainforest is a literal translation of the English – יַעַר גֶּשֶׁם, where יער means forest and גשם means rain.

An example in context:

“לִפְעָמִים קוֹרְאִים לְיַעֲרוֹת הַגֶּשֵׁם “הָרֵאוֹת שֶׁל הָעוֹלָם
The rainforests are sometimes called “the lungs of the earth.”
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סְבִיבָה

With summer coming in the northern hemisphere and air-conditioning (entry on that tomorrow) set to full blast in Israeli homes and vehicles, this week’s a good time to introduce some Hebrew terms about climate and environment.

The Hebrew word for environment is סְבִיבָה. It’s a verbal noun of the root ס.ו.ב (s.w.b) meaning going around – the same root as that of the word for dreidel – סְבִיבוֹן.

Some usages of סביבה:

הַמִּשְׂרָד לַהֲגָנַת הַסְּבִיבָה
Ministry for Environmental Protection (literally, for the protection of the environment)

צָרִיךְ לִדְאוֹג לַסְּבִיבָה הַיּוֹם לְעַמַן הַדּוֹר שֶׁל מָחָר.
We must take care of the environment today for the sake of tomorrow’s generation.

סְבִיבָה מִשְׂרָדִית נְעִימָה מְאַפְשֶׁרֶת עֲבוֹדָה פּוֹרָה.
A pleasant office environment enables productive work.

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