Renewable Energy Initiatives!

This trip to Israel could not be going any better! Aside from the gorgeous weather, amazing people, and fantastic lectures, I am learning an immense amount about renewable energy.
The past few days have been filled with lectures and field trips based around renewable energy and sustainable living. We visited the neighboring kibbutz, Lotan. Lotan is the most environmental place I have ever been to. First off, it recycles all of its trash, turning it into playgrounds, benches, etc... The kibbutz also has its own sewage treatment plant in the form of a wetland. All the waste water is treated underneath the wetland and then re-used to water the agriculture. The wetland also functions as a bird sanctuary for the 500 million- 1 billion birds that fly over the kibbutz on their journey to Africa every year. Lotan is also home to the Renewable Energy Initiative, which is the only organization in Israel, and one of the few in the world, dedicated to creating original development through sustainable energy. I am hoping to do an internship with the iniative next summer so I can focus on the growth of solar energy in the desert, as well as the comparison of solar energy initiatives in Israel to those in Jordan.
In addition to visiting Lotan, we went to Kibbutz Yot Vatah and saw their "solar energy playground." This was a whole area filled with various kinds of solar energy technologies in both the testing stages and ready for use. Yot Vatah was a great experience because it allowed us to see about five different types of solar panels and how they worked.
After Yot Vatah, we went to Kibbutz Somar which just opened the first "flower tower" solar energy plant in Israel. This looked like something out of the distant future. There were many huge mirrors which all directed the solar rays into a single focal point on the "flower tower." A reactor inside the tower heated up the energy to around 800 degrees celcius, and then converted the heat into solar energy. This plant creates enough kilowatts to power 4-5 homes on the kibbutz.
Learning about all the new renewable energy iniatives that are going on in the Arava has made me so hungry to come back for more so that I can focus solely on renewable energy. I am in the process of arranging a summer internship with the Iniative, and as luck would have it, the year I graduate from Westfield is the same year that the masters program focusing on renewable energy through Ben-Gurion University and the Arava Institute will be starting on Kibbutz Ketura!

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Part of trip: Israel Summer 2009

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