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RUTH LITTMANN STAFF WRITER
t's relentlessly hot and
dry at Kibbutz Samar in
southern Israel, but Bryan
Medwed, wearing dusty
jeans and light-weight shirt,
doesn't rule out farm work
when the mercury tops off at
125 degrees Fahrenheit.
Kibbutzniks on Samar
can fight nature only by co-
operating with it. The tradi-
tion has borne fruit trees from
sand. Houses have sprouted in
the middle of nowhere. Grass cov-
ers desert expanse. And now, Mr.
Medwed, a former Detroiter, has
developed his own way of har-
nessing the blazing sun for pub-
lic benefit.
It's called "Sunergy."
Kibbutz Samar says its project
"is going to make history. While
the world scratches its head
about the cost-effectiveness of
pollution free power, we have
the plan ..."
Sunergy employs special pho-
tovoltaic panels to absorb light
rays for conversion into direct
current, which afterward can be
changed to alternating currents
— the kind we use everyday for
television sets, hair dryers, etc.
Flat modules, positioned on
special pedestals, angle upward
to best catch rays of the sun. The
panels ought to produce more
energy than Kibbutz Samar
needs by day, Mr. Medwed says.
He hopes the excess can be chan-
neled through a national grid,
which standardizes the electri-
cal current and sends it over the
high wire to other areas in Is-
rael.
Samarniks say they'd like to
give Sunergy a shot at reducing
Israel's dependence on foreign
nations for 97 percent of its pow-
er. They also forecast a savings
on the $100,000 annual bill for
lighting their own modest homes
and running machinery.
But there's a hitch. Mr. Med-
wed needs money. Although Kib-
butz Samar (located about 20.
miles north of Eilat) receives
more sunlight than anywhere
else in the Promised Land, the
Energy Ministry in Israel has
been slow to offer partial funding
for Sunergy. A request for tem-
porary loans was submitted last
year. Mr. Medwed still awaits ap-
proval.
"World scientists are jumping
up and down about pollution and
the greenhouse effect, but world
governments have not yet made
solar energy a priority," he says.
The clear advantages: Solar
energy is renewable. Unlike fos-
sil fuel, it can't be exhausted. Nor
does it release toxins. Risk of oil
slicks, nuclear fallout, smog and
acid rain is nil.
But there are disadvantages,
experts say. To date, solar ener-
gy is expensive. At the U.S. De-
partment of Energy in
Washington, D.C., Jeffrey Maz-
er says conventional power on the
East Coast costs only 6 cents per
kilowatt hour. By contrast, the
price of photovoltaic energy eats
Bryan Medwed at Kibbutz Samar.
1
A backward glance at how a row
of panels will appear.
SOLAR PANELS
The hope is to save
money with this
Medwed-designed stand
for the panels.
lm
— .42m
.gym
.2m
.50m
up somewhere between 20 to 40
cents per unit.
Mr. Medwed says the special
design of his project will bring
that cost down to about 7 cents,
comparable to the current price
of conventional power in Israel.
Costs of Sunergy and other so-
.2m
lar energy projects are primarily
up front, because, unlike con-
ventional power plants, infra-
structure for most solar energy
systems is not yet in place. The
costs include equipment and ma-
terials, many of which are made
of pricey silicon. Maintenance en-
tails additional dollars, although
equipment reliability has im-
proved drastically in recent years.
(Mr. Medwed believes his units
will have a life span of three
decades, more than enough time
to pay for themselves, he says.)
To date, 1.5 percent of Israel's
power comes from the sun. In the
United States, that percentage is
less than 1 percent. Some experts
say Capitol Hill lobbyists for com-
panies like Mobil and Exxon
might have something to do with
this. By promoting gas subsidies,
U.S. oil barons deter Congress
from focusing on other sources of
power, like solar, they say. Nev-
ertheless, the solar-energy in-
dustry is gaining steam in export
markets. Companies like Solarex
in Maryland are shipping panels
to many Third World countries
where governments are at-
tempting to furnish remote areas
with electricity.
In Mr. Mazer's opinion, that's
one way Israel might be able to
capitalize on Kibbutz Samar's
Sunergy Project. The cost of ex-
tending one mile of utility line
into faraway deserts, mountain
ranges and other places off-the-
beaten track ranges between
$20,000 and $25,000. That's thou-
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