When electricity is needed

"We are very pleased and honored by the nominations from our peers and the validation from CSP Today's widely respected judging panel," said Kevin Smith,Largest Collection of billabong boardshorts, CEO of SolarReserve. "SolarReserve's energy storage technology provides a genuine alternative to baseload coal, nuclear or natural gas burning electricity generation facilities." The technology will be featured in the company's Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project in Nevada. In addition to the technology award, SolarReserve was also a finalist for CSP Today's "Most Effective Environmental Stewardship of the Year" award.The same Air purifier, cover removed.

SolarReserve recently received a conditional commitment from the U.S. Department of Energy for a $737 million loan guarantee to fund part of the 110 megawatt (MW) Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project to be built near Tonopah, Nev. Construction is slated for the summer of 2011 with a projected start of operations in late 2013. The project will create in excess of 4,000 direct and indirect jobs during construction and, upon completion, the project will provide firm, non-intermittent and renewable electricity to approximately 75,000 homes during peak electricity periods.

SolarReserve's solar power tower technology generates power from sunlight by focusing the sun's thermal energy onto a central receiver. When electricity is needed, molten salt heated by a receiver at the top of the tower is sent to a heat exchanger to produce steam,what are the symptoms of Piles, which in turn drives a conventional steam turbine electrical generator. The cooler molten salt is stored, ready to be reheated by the sun and used again as part of a continuous closed loop. This integrated energy storage allows the technology to deploy electricity on-demand, day and night, providing the same operating stability, reliability and dispatchability of a conventional power generator. The system is completely self-sustaining and emissions free no fossil fuels are required.

CSP Today award finalists were chosen by an industry vote and an expert panel of judges determined this year's winners.

SolarReserve, LLC headquartered in Santa Monica, Calif. is a solar energy project development company developing large-scale solar energy projects worldwide. It holds the exclusive worldwide license to the molten salt, solar power tower technology developed by Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, a subsidiary of United Technologies Corporation. Since its formation in late 2007, SolarReserve's team of power project professionals have assembled a concentrated solar power development portfolio of more than 25 projects featuring its licensed solar power technology with potential output of more than 3,Handmade oil paintings for sale at museum quality,000 megawatts in the United States and Europe; with early stage activities in other international markets including the Middle East, North and South Africa, Australia, China and Latin America. SolarReserve is also developing 1,100 MW of photovoltaic projects across the Western United States, and is actively acquiring new sites to add to the pipeline. SolarReserve's experienced management team has previously developed and financed more than $15 billion in renewable and conventional energy projects in more than a dozen countries around the world. SolarReserve's investors include US Renewables Group, Good Energies, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Nimes Capital,Has anyone done any research on making Plastic molding parts from scratch? Pacific Corporate Group, CalPERS Clean Energy and Technology Fund and Argonaut Private Equity.

The Romance of Birthright Israel

When Julie Feldman (no relation), then 26 and a Reform Jew from New York City, arrived at Ben Gurion Airport in December 2008, she called herself "a blank slate." She returned as the attack on Gaza was under way, armed with a new "pro-Israel" outlook. "Israel really changed me," she said.When the stone sits in the kidney stone, "I truly felt when I came back that I was a different person."

It was mission accomplished for Birthright Israel, the American Zionist organization that has, since its founding in 1999, spent almost $600 million to send more than 260,000 young diaspora Jews on free vacations to the Holy Land.

Birthright co-founder Charles Bronfman claims he just provides free airfare and lodging. "Then," he says, "Israel does its magic." Indeed, in 2009 Brandeis University researchers found that almost three-quarters of alumni describe their Birthright experience as "life changing." "If you come here, and you connect to the origins of the Jewish people, the country that forged our existence, our faith, our values," then¨CLikud Party leader Benjamin Netanyahu promised in a 2008 Birthright video, "it'll change your life forever."

Bronfman's partner in founding Birthright, Michael Steinhardt, professes faith in Israel as "a substitute for theology." Steinhardt understands that for a generation weaned on irony, Birthright could offer an opportunity for deep,We also offer customized chicken coop. wholehearted conviction. "My liberal arts education taught me that any distinct concept or ideal will crumble under the scrutiny of too many questions," laments a recent college grad writing on her Birthright experience,Find everything you need to know about Cold Sore including causes, which taught her "it was okay and even honorable to believe in the state of Israel, to adopt, so to speak, the settlers' original dream." Her Jewcy.com essay is hardly unique: Birthright has generated reams of effusive essays and blog posts over the years.

Barry Chazan, a Hebrew University professor emeritus and the architect of Birthright's curriculum, explains in a celebratory 2008 book, Ten Days of Birthright Israel, that the trip is designed so travelers "are bombarded with information." The goal is to produce "an emotionally overwhelming experience" that "helps participants open themselves to learning." On my own Birthright trip last year, I experienced the Chazan Effect. Chronically underslept, hurled through a mind-numbing itinerary, I experienced, despite my best efforts to maintain a reportorial stance, a return to the intensity of feeling of childhood.

"This is not a vacation," a Birthright employee pronounced the first evening, before shooing us to the hotel bar. "You are embarking on a journey." Just four nights later, my steel trap of a heart was overcome by emotion upon seeing my new Birthright crush dancing with another girl. I fled to my room and cried.

Conceived as "the selling of Jewishness to Jews," in Bronfman's words, Birthright trips are offered in dozens of varieties, from secular to Orthodox, from outdoorsy to LGBT-friendly. Crisscrossing the country in rollicking tour buses, Birthright participants between 18 and 26 swim in the Dead Sea, ride camels, visit the occupied Golan Heights, listen to lectures on Zionism and spend their nights boozing and flirting with the IDF soldiers assigned to accompany them. Trips are conducted by a variety of contracted tour providers, each designing itineraries approved by Birthright's central office in Jerusalem. Itineraries must include core sites (the Western Wall, Masada) and curricular themes ("The History of Zionism"), and Birthright maintains rigorous quality control.is the 'solar panel revolution' upon us? Currently, there are seventeen tour providers, with Hillel, the international Jewish campus group, among the largest. Each trip is overseen by two American camp counselor figures, an Israeli guide and a rifle-toting guard.

The free trip is framed as a "gift" from philanthropists, Jewish federations and the State of Israel. Far-right Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson is the largest individual donor, having given Birthright $100 million over the past five years. The Israeli government provided Birthright $100 million during the program's first decade; Prime Minister Netanyahu recently announced another $100 million in government funding. Birthright's budget for 2011 is $87 million, a number expected to reach $126 million by 2013, enough to bring 51,000 participants to Israel that year alone.

To apply for a Birthright trip, participants need just one Jewish grandparent¡ªand to pass a screening interview. (Practicing a religion other than Judaism is an automatic disqualifier.) After their ten days on Birthright, participants may postpone their return by up to three months to travel in the region, and it is not unheard of for progressives to "birth left" in the West Bank afterward (as I did)¡ªthough Birthright policy is that anyone discovered to have a "hidden agenda" of "exploiting" the free trip "to get access to the territories" to promote "non-Israeli" causes can lose her spot. Birthrighters planning anti-occupation activism with the International Solidarity Movement have been dismissed.An Insulator, also called a dielectric,

14 ways to improve conferences and meetings

You work hard enough to win your meeting and conference business, so it makes sense to leave a positive lasting impression and an incentive for delegates to return.

In my line of work I see a lot of meeting and conference venues—sometimes as a mentor, but frequently also as the client or a delegate. Normally the first impression is alright. You get a warm welcome and are asked at the outset if everything is OK. But it's what happens after this that invariably lets you down.

The room setup
The appearance of the room is of course important, but the first impression goes beyond how the room looks.

Is best use made of natural light, or is this blocked off with a dependence on artificial light (which is far more tiring on the eye and wastes a lot more energy)? Where artificial lighting is a must, is this logically positioned so delegates are not sitting in their own shadows? Is there good light on the presenters and props?

The setup of the room requires common sense. I often get the impression that porters have had no training and have not checked the rooms. For example:

    * If using a projector, are there sufficient impact socket for a laptop, and can these be easily reached without presenters tripping on a lead and breaking their necks?
    * Has the presenter been included in the delegate numbers and been provided with a chair, glass and water, or does the venue really expect them to stand for eight hours? (At two venues only last week I was not given a chair for separate all-day workshops.)
    * Check the size of the table needed for the presenter; if they have notes and handout materials, have you provided them with a workspace that is big enough to put down their notes and props, or it is taken over by the projector?
    * Is the projector lined up properly with the screen (and in focus), or is it so close to the screen that the image only fills a quarter of the space available. Worse still, is the projector not angled upwards so the image only shows on the bottom third of the screen?
    * If presenters have requested flip charts, is there a supply of fresh paper, and do all the pens work? Test them at the end of every meeting and discard those that have passed their best.
    * Consider also the positioning of tables and chairs. I frequently find the presenter is positioned so far away from the rest of the participants that it’s necessary for them to shout to be heard. When a cabaret set up is used, factor in the length of the meeting; if it is an all-day meeting and delegates are required to face the front, ensure they can do so without having to keep turning around and straining their necks.


Refreshments
Whereas the room setup will be more of a concern to the presenters than the delegates, the quality and timing of refreshments are a key factor for presenters and delegates alike.

    * Having refreshments turn up on time is critical to the smooth operation of any event. A mere five-minute delay during a 10-minute break can have a serious impact on the meeting timetable. And it’s not just refreshments that need to be delivered promptly, but clean cups, fresh milk, plenty of teabags, etc. I know this sounds obvious, but you’ll be amazed how often the milk runs out or everyone favours a particular flavour of tea and there isn’t enough to go around.
    * Avoid bottlenecks at coffee stations: Arrange cups, flasks and milk and sugar so you don’t get congestion all around one spot. It might be obvious to the venue which pot or flask is tea and which is coffee and which is hot water, but it isn't to the delegates, so please make this clear. (A show of hands: Who has ever poured coffee as opposed to hot water onto their teabag?)  And then what are we supposed to do with our tea bag once our tea is brewed? Please provide a bowl for spent tea bags. (This goes for hotel rooms, too.)
    * If you have more sophisticated coffee machines, ensure they can keep pace with demand. A machine that takes just 20 seconds to brew and dispense a cup of coffee at best can only accommodate 30 people in a 10 minute period. It certainly won’t be suitable for a meeting with 50 delegates.
    * I don't know about you, but I find it quite difficult to distinguish what's in a sandwich without either opening it up or eating it. A few simple labels on buffet food make such a difference and cost next to nothing in time and effort.
    * Watch for trends. If your delegates go through more still water than sparkling (which in my experience is usually the case) match what you provide in your set up to meet the demand. It not only keeps your delegates happy but saves on wastage, too.


Be responsive
Check the room temperatures and respond quickly to organisers’ requests to adjust them. The bane of my life is air conditioning. Invariably it blows too hot or too cold. Half the time I question whether it adds anything, particularly in a room where the windows open. And nobody wants to sit right beneath a blast of cold air. Adjusting it to suit everyone's requirements is a fine line.

Have a system that can be turned off if required. Systems designed to keep every room at the same temperature are sheer madness. If you have a room with just two people in it sitting still compared to a room with 30 people doing group activities letting off all that body heat, you’re obviously going to want them at different temperatures. Be prepared for organisers to ask for a temperature change or for the air conditioning to be turned off altogether. I sometimes feel as if I've asked for the moon when I make this request; is it really too difficult? But then please, please, respond and check that the adjustments have worked rather than simply adjusting them to the opposite extreme.