Named to Brandeis Post

Progress Reported in Growth
of Solar Energy Use for Israel

By JAMES LEWIN

at the experimental level.
If successful, the station
An experimental project, will produce about enough
begun last year at Ein electricity to run an average
Bokek near the Dead Sea, sized kibutz. At that point,
may eventually produce in four or five years, when
enough electrical power to the program is already
service all of Israel — on commercially viable, it
energy collected from the could be expanded four or
rays of the sun. -
five times.
"Solar energy is one of the
Eventually, assuming
only serious alternatives to all the technical prob-
oil that Israel has," accord- lems can be solved, it is
ing to David Arnon, deputy possible that the greater
managing director of Paz part of the Dead Sea can
and Israeli chairman of the be converted into solar
World Energy Congress.
energy ponds, capable of
_ It is a fact that enough collecting 2,000
energy reaches the megawatts of electricity.
surface in two weeks That would be the equiv-
to equal the total amount of alent of, the electricity
oil and coal existing since needs for the whole coun-
the beginning of the world. try.
However, the transforma-
However, Shomron em-
tion and collection of this phasized, this is only a proj-
energy for practical indus- ected possibility for.the year
trial purposes is still a new 2000. For the present, he
phenomenon.
said, it is first necessary to
"This venture is still in prove the idea is feasible for
a very experimental a small power plant.
stage," emphasizes Yit-
Israeli scientists have
zhak Shomron, spokes- also developed a solar air-
man for the Ministry of conditioning system that
Energy. The current can use the sun's energy for
project on the shore of a cooling process.
the Dead Sea produces
Another new project in
only enough electricity to solar energy is the experi-
run a small hotel.
mental solar village, now in
Uniquely constructed the advanced planning
solar ponds trap the sun's stages, to be located at Sde
heat and store it, furnishing Boker in the Negev.
energy to run specially
Menachem Chen, general
adapted generators. The manager of the Israel Insti-
solar pond idea is an origi- tute of Petroleum and
nal Israeli concept, re-
Energy, tells us that the
searched at the Hebrew solar village is being funded
University and developed by the Belfer Center for
by the Ormat (Solmat) com- Energy Research and the
pany of Israel.
Ministry of Energy.
The net stage of the proj-
"The village will be
ect, to be completed in 1983, able to give long-term
will be to build a hydroelec- cost/benefit analysis of
tric station capable of specific solar energy
generating five megawatts projects. The knowledge
of electricity. The capital gathered there will then
investment will be $20 mil- be of commercial use."
lion, according to spokes-
Technological innova-
man Shomron. And even tions in the field include re-
then, the project will still be placing the now familiar

World Zionist Press Service

.

flat-plate solar collectors,
such as are used in home
water-heating systems,
with curved-plate collectors
which by magnifying the
sun's rays can heat water or
oil up to 500 degrees C.
Another new technique
has been suggested by im-
migrant scientist from the
Soviet Union, Prof. Yer-
miyahu Branover in the de-
partment of mechanical
engineering at the Ben-
Gurion University of the
Negev at Beersheva.
Branover's innovation is
a magnetohydrodynamic
system which produces elec-
tricity by passing liquid
metals through a magnetic
field. With this technique
there is no need for compli-
cated generators or tur-
bines. By adding an organic
substance such as freon to
liquid metals such as mer-
cury, liquid sodium and tin,
the solution boils with the
sun's help and expands,
thus activating the mag-
netohydrodynamic system
to produce electricity.

The chief problem, so
far, in developing the use
of solar energy has been
the price tag. At the pre-
sent stage, it takes a
square kilometer of land
area to absorb 1,000
megawatts of solar
energy; only 10 percent of
that can be converted to
electricity. The resultant
cost is an unacceptable
$1 per watt.

It could be conceivably
possible to construct solar
cells to supply all of Israel's
current electricity needs,
but the estimated required
investment would be an im-
practical $20 billion.
Though advocates point out
that it would be a one-time
investment, it is neverthe-
less one which Israel pre-
sently cannot afford.

WALTHAM, Mass. —
One of the country's leading
figures in the field of aca-
demic law, Saul Touster of
Chestnut Hill, Mass., has

FIRESTONE

been named director of the
legal studies program at
Brandeis University.

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was based was great, and began looking at what it
actually does. Abram, a lawyer, former president of
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to the UN Commission on Human Rights, made his
remark in response to a question regarding the in-
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the probable violation of its own charter in this re-
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