International Water & Irrigation

4 Solar energy plus water equals indigenous industry, says Israeli pioneer Australia could boost social development in remote Indigenous communities by using Israeli know- how to provide clean solar energy and water and build small-scale agriculture and micro-industries. Israeli based solar pioneer Yosef Abramowitz, claims that the model of linking energy, water and food had been proven in Israel, and his Energiya Global Capital group was now deploying it in Africa. According to Abramowitz, Energiya Global Capital currently supplies 6 per cent of Rwanda’s power and would soon supply 15 per cent of Burundi’s power. Abramowitz recently joined Israeli President Reuven Rivlin on a state visit to Ethiopia where he announced plans to construct ten 10-megawatt solar and wind power stations and a program to train 200,000 engineers over 25 years to run them. “Africa is the big frontier,” Abramowitz pointed out .” There were 600 million people in Africa without access to power and another 200 million burning expensive and dirty diesel for power, and 11 of the 20 fastest-growing economies are in sub-Saharan Africa.” He concluded. Abramowitz migrated from Massachusetts in the US to Israel in 2006 where he formed the Arava Power Company whose goal was to allow the region between the Dead Sea and the Red Sea run on 100 per cent solar energy during the say. He said that despite opposition from government utility regulators that imposed strict limits on solar power to hard-lobbying fossil fuel interests, the region will run on 70 per cent solar energy during the day in 2018 and is on track to hit 100 per cent by 2020. “So it’s proof for Israel, it’s proof for Australia and for Africa and the Middle East - and we’ll have done so in spite of the government.” Residents of a rural community in New Hampshire pressing chemical company to pay for water filters Hundreds of people in a New Hampshire town have signed a petition asking a plastics company believed to be the source of tainted groundwater to pay for water filters at the town’s schools. The group of Merrimack residents says Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics has provided filtration in other towns with contaminated water, but taxpayers are currently paying to filter water at Merrimack schools. The company tells WMUR-TV that testing of the school district’s water found levels of perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, well below state safety guidelines. The chemical, used in coatings such as Teflon, has been linked to certain kinds of cancer and thyroid disease. The company has previously agreed to provide safe drinking water for hundreds of homes affected by contamination. Micro-irrigation the key to beating the heat in India Agriculture department officials credit adoption of micro-irrigation technology for helping Tamil Nadu achieve the target of 100 lakh metric tonnes of food grain production in 2017-18, des Indian agriculture department officials credit adoption of micro- irrigation technology for helping Tamil Nadu achieve the target of 100 lakh metric tonnes of food grain production in 2017-18, despite scarcity of water in several areas. According to a spokesman for the Agricultural Ministry ` 800 crore rupees (approximately 150 million US Dollars) has been set aside for subsidizing the farmers who had opted for micro-irrigation. Drip, sprinkler and rain guns are part of the micro-irrigation technology. Indian farmers have begun to show interest because it saves water, besides increasing productivity. However, the overall productivity took a beating due to unavailability of adequate water as the yield of rice per hectare dropped to 3,544 kg. On earlier seasons, the yield had risen to 4,429 kg per hectare. International Water Report