CleanTech 2011, the 15th annual international event for Clean Technologies, took place in Tel Aviv on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The exhibition gives companies, researchers and professionals from around the world a chance to display their newest developments, novel technologies and outstanding quality services in different fields. The exhibition includes professional conferences, seminars and symposiums, in which executives come to learn.
“Cleantech is in essence technologies that repair the world,” explained Haim Alush, General Manager of the Mashov Group which initiated the conference. “Man has wronged the world for hundreds of years, and we’ve reached a crossroads in our treatment of the environment. What’s being done here is actually Tikkun Olam (the Jewish principle of repairing the world).”
Alush noted that Israel is considered a leader in technology in general and in Cleantech in particular. He said that the sun-heated water tank, considered to be the invention which launched the renewable energy field, was in fact invented in Israel.
The technologies presented in the conference are in fields such as water supply and purification, waste water treatment, waste efficiency devices, renewable energy, green building, natural gas, waste and recycling, and air pollution.
One of the main issues which Cleantech tries to solve is the issue of water resources.
“The world’s population has grown in 70 years from 2 billion people to 7 billion,” said Alush. “At the same time, man has caused many bad things such as polluting water resources. Man has become more modern and he consumes ten times the amount of water than the more primitive man consumed. So there are many problems that accumulated and caused a great shortage in water, which is only going to get worse.
“If we do not find innovations and new technologies,” he said, “there will be wars between nations over water.”
Alush said that CleanTech 2011 is comparable to the World Cup, in that it presents not just Israeli innovations, but innovations from all over the world.
“The conference is a world-wide brainstorm whose purpose is to solve the world’s water problem and also the energy problem, since energy is also running out as fuel and charcoal run out,” he said. “We’re here to invent. This entire field constantly reinvents itself.”