Germany, which has come to rely heavily on wind and solar power in recent years, is launching more than 20 demonstration projects that involve storing energy by splitting water into hydrogen gas and oxygen. The projects could help establish whether electrolysis, as the technology is known, could address one of the biggest looming challenges for renewable energy—its intermittency.
In a nondescript site in Midland, Texas, an inexpensive new process is cleaning up some of the most contaminated water around—the extremely salty stuff that comes up with oil at wells. By the end of next month the technology is expected to be chugging 500,000 gallons per day, furnishing water that’s sufficiently clean to use in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, for oil and natural gas production (see “Natural Gas Changes the Energy Map”).
United Utilities, the UK’s largest listed water company, is the latest water utility to sign a contract with Israel’s Mapal Green Energy for wastewater treatment. United Utilities is now the third UK water provider to purchase Mapal’s bubble aeration water purification system for use in municipal and regional water supply systems.
The deal is set to supply Mapal-purified water to approximately 7 million northwest England homes. Mapal last year signed deals with Anglian Water and Thames Water, two large water suppliers in southern England. As a bonus, Mapal has been accepted as a member of British Water, the UK’s leading trade body.
Corn farmers in the verdant plains of southwestern France have responded to dwindling water resources by adopting drip irrigation — a money-saving technique invented in the 1960s in Israel.
Initially adopted in water-poor regions including the vineyards and orchards of southern France, the method has begun appearing in big agriculture further north in the past three years.
Tension over water use is emerging in the southwest where corn is a major crop, warns agronomist Marc Dufumier, author of a book seeking to dispel dubious conventional wisdom on farming and food.
"Warka Water" offre une solution originale au problème de l'accès à l'eau potable dans les zones rurales arides. Il s'agit d'une structure verticale avec un réservoir en tissu capable de recueillir de l'eau potable déposée par condensation de l'air. La structure de maillage triangulaire est constituée par des matériaux locaux tels que le jonc et peut être construite facilement par les habitants des villages.
Lors de sa visite en Californie en mars dernier, le Premier ministre israélien Benyamin Netanyahou a signé un accord avec le gouverneur Jerry Brown sur, entre autres choses, l'exportation de technologies israéliennes en matière de traitement de l'eau afin d'aider l'Etat à mieux faire face à la sécheresse. "Grâce à cet accord, la Californie et Israël vont profiter de leurs forces respectives dans la recherche et la technologie pour faire face a des problèmes communs importants", s'est félicité Jerry Brown.
Groundwater makes up a large source of the nation’s drinking and irrigation water supply, but its fluctuating levels aren’t usually well monitored or understood, making it a challenge to manage the resource well. A Wisconsin startup aims to change that.
You may not know much about the groundwater in your area or the alarming drop of its levels in certain parts of the country. But you should care, because ground water abundance significantly affects things like food production, so it actually has a sizable impact on you and people you know.
Tel Aviv, Israel (CNN) -- Water. A vital nutrient, yet one that is inaccessible to many worldwide.
The World Health Organization reports that 780 million people don't have access to clean water, and 3.4 million die each year due to water-borne diseases. But an Israeli company thinks it can play a part in alleviating the crisis by producing drinking water from thin air.
Water-Gen has developed an Atmospheric Water-Generation Units using its "GENius" heat exchanger to chill air and condense water vapor.
Israel’s IDE Technologies Ltd. is in talks with Japan’s shipbuilders and government to design and build off-shore desalination plants, seeking to tap rising demand for alternate sources of short-term freshwater supply.
The maker of land-based desalination equipment wants to start delivering floating platforms to clients within three years, Udi Tirosh, a business development director at the Kadima-based company, said in an interview. IDE’s ship-based designs could supply water for a city of 850,000 people and Japan’s shipbuilders are among potential partners, he said.
Throughout the EU, companies are coming to grips with global water shortages linked to CO2 emissions. EurActiv.fr reports.
A study, led by the Carbon Disclosure Project to commemorate World Water Day, analysed 70 European companies in mainland Europe. Response rates were diverse: only one in two energy companies responded, whereas the materials, consumer staples and utilities sectors saw response rates of close to 90%.
