A green light unto the nations

“Israel can take a leading role in curing the West of oil addiction.”

–says Lyon Roth of Globes Online.

Quoting the famous biblical passage:

“I will make with you a covenant to be a light unto the nations” Isaiah 42:6.

Roth reminds us that Jews have long been identified as divinely designated to serve as a “light unto the nations”. In fact we are reminded that democratic ideals, fidelity to justice, the rule of law, as well as the essential dignity of the human person are just a few examples of concepts that have their origins in the Jewish traditions.

Roth brings out an interesting point when he says that the first known environmental protection exhortation — to respect the planet and its resources, is specified in a Torah (Jewish Bible) commandment:

“Do not destroy trees by swinging an axe against them, for from them you will eat.” Deuteronomy 20:19.

Since the creation of the modern state of Israel 62 years ago, Israel has been associated with environmental conscientiousness and can boast of being the only political entity with a net gain in trees per area at the turn of the 21st century. The world had become aware of the ever expanding consumption of finite resources, especially fossil fuels, which have reached alarming rates.

When the world celebrated the 40th “Earth Day” the general worldwide consensus is that we need to be able to enjoy a greener planet.

While there are scientists who contemplate the effects of global warming, significant geopolitical factors have become part of the big equation.The fact that much of the world’s oil and natural gas reserves are controlled by governments that hostile to the values described above.

The price of oil & Western Civilization

the cost of gasoline

Currently, oil is sold for approximately $80 a barrel, which is more than double the cost at the end of 2008. The serious problem with oil is that the world has become addicted to it. Without a concerted effort to free western civilization from this addiction, we very well may approach the end of western civilization. There are viable alternatives that are showing themselves in new innovative technologies in renewable energy. While these are primarily solar, some great promising technology is being developed in wind, biomass, hydo, and more. This combined with alternative motor vehicles, especially the electric car can ignite a revolution in the energy world as we know it. If these alternative energy resources take a more serious share of the energy producing industry, together with the emerging electric vehicle, the place for fossil fuels, primarily oil, will be forced to take a lesser role.

Who will lead that effort? During the 1973 energy crisis generated by the Arab embargo (in wake of the Yom Kippur war), we were expecting the USA and Israel to lead the way. Israel was a pioneer in this research starting in the early years of the state when Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion look to solar power as the way of the future. Israeli architects in the 1970s  offered passive solar home design.  Over 50% of Israel’s domestic hot water produced by solar energy has been the norm since the 1950s.

LUZ Solar Power Plant

In the 1980s, an Israeli-American company called Luz was generating 95% of the world’s solar energy. Their first solar energy project was a 12.5 MW electricity-generating power station at Dagget, California. This deployment was followed by an additional six 30 MW power plants that utilized a larger size solar collector unit. Later, Luz built two 80 MW power stations using even larger solar collector units. Today, over 20 years later, all of these solar energy plants are still operational.

However, oil became cheap again in the mid 1980s. Saudi Arabia released an additional oil flow, making the Reagan administration happy. Since the world’s second largest oil exporter was the Soviet Union, the US administration expected that lowered oil prices would cripple its economy since the USSR relied heavily on its oil export revenues. This together with the quagmire of the Soviet Union’s war in Afghanistan stretched it too thin to support failed satellite dictatorships around the world. Ultimately, the entire “Evil Empire” came down together with the Berlin Wall.

That is how the West won the Cold War. But, what about the war the west is currently challenged with against radical Islam which is funded primarily by petro-dollars?

Fighting this war, the Saudis won’t be America’s allies this time, nor will any other concern whose economy is fueled chiefly by oil exports. We have to accept that the only way to make oil cheap is to make it useless.

The president’s recent drilling compromise had received a lot of attention. It was thought that even if America succeeds in increasing its share of the planet’s proven reserves from 3% to 4, 5 or even 10% (which is extremely unlikely), it is clear that this amount is a proverbial drop in the barrel.

The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is the ultimate slap in the face when it come to the environmental impact of mishandled oil. The realization that the bill Americans will ultimately pay for this will be unprecedentedly huge. Americans no doubt are finding clean energy alternative ever growing in attractiveness.

So as the US continues to consume 25% of the world’s production. Americans increasingly see that they have to kick this dirty addiction.  Therefore, the only responsible rationale  to devote financial resources to the development of clean alternative energy solutions.

If we look at China, we can deduce that they understands this need. It is busy securing oil drilling concessions all over Latin America and Africa. China has passed the US, becoming the chief importer of oil from Saudi Arabia. Yet, at the same time, China is also investing heavily in green technologies and renewable energy sources. China is now the world’s largest manufacturer of photovoltaic solar panels and is delving into the development of a local electric car industry.

Islamic militants fuels by the US dept

Oil Money Supports Radical Islam

Do you know what the true price of oil is for Americans and people of the rest of the free world? If oil had no value, would we be worried about a nuclear Iran? Would Hamas, Hezbollah and all of the other terror organizations be able to exist without any oil funding? Would the ever increasing number of hate-preaching madrasas continue to flourish without oil money? Would Al-Quaida even exist?

The United States is now in a quagmire war in Afghanistan and Iraq, for which is has already spent over $1 trillion. Furthermore, they’re likely to be there for a while. The United States imports about $300-500 billion a year in foreign oil while borrowing over $2 billion every single day to finance these expenditures. The UUS national debt is surpassing $12 trillion.

It does not look like the United States will get out of this economic hole until it gets out of its oil addiction.

Bright lights coming out of Israel

Better Place Electric Vehicle Power Station

Viable electric car technologies  are critical if we are to reduce and, hopefully, eventually entirely eliminate dependence on oil. Shai Agassi’s Better Place has already signed agreements on five continents with concerns that want to move their economies to the new paradigm of battery-powered electric cars. Better Place also just raised an additional $350 million moving ahead on all fronts. More and more countries and localities want to be included.

Michael Granoff, Head of Oil Independence Policies for Better Place, says “a critical question is how will the anticipated hunger for electricity be satisfied? We’re working closely with renewable energy companies, particularly in Israel, to ensure that Better Place’s success also inures to the benefit of companies expanding grid capacity with clean-tech solutions.”

Solar Balloons by GEOTECTURA, Israel

Today, renewable sources like solar, wind, geothermal, biomass and hydro still play only a small role in the world’s energy production. However, the technologies are emerging and improving at a fast pace. Europe moved ahead on this while the USA ignored the issues, being content with low gasoline prices at the time. Europeans were taxed on gasoline which encourage the development of renewable energy sources. A good example is that today entire towns in Denmark are now powered by alternative energy sources.

Israeli companies are also playing a role. Even through Luz went bankrupt in the 1990s, a victim of investment dollars run dry. Two major corporate successors remain leaders in solar power.

• BrightSource, founded by several former Luz engineers, recently received $1.4 billion in US federal loan guarantees to construct three individual utility-scale solar thermal units in California. these units are to generate 400 MW of electricity, sufficient to power 140,000 homes, nearly doubling the amount of solar thermal energy produced in the US today.
• Solel utilizes the next generation of Luz parabolic troughs for its solar thermal power plants. Solel was acquired by Siemens for $418 million last October.

Professor David Faiman of Ben Gurion University, tells us, “whoever invests in Israeli solar initiatives today is likely to be included in the next generation of soligarchs.”