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In a recent blog post, the Truman Project's National Security Project wrote about Israel's energy revolution and its strategic opportunities for the United States. The post explains that Israel and the United States have a long history of cooperation and joint R&D programs, and the energy sector provides ample opportunity to magnify them.
Since both Israel and Jordan have faced an unreliable supply of natural gas from Egypt in recent years, Jordan's partially state-owned Arab Potash Company is in talks with Israel through American-owned Noble Energy to rectify the problem, Reuters reported. The company seeks to import fuel from the Dead Sea area to use in its factories. No agreement has been reached, but Jordan's Energy Minister has acknowledged that Israel's energy is a "clean and inexpensive source of fuel" it hopes to capitalize on.
Israel’s cabinet approved a plan that will encourage the nation’s transportation sector to transition away from oil and toward domestically produced natural gas, Globes reported. The plan calls for the increased use of compressed natural gas, the importation of hybrid engine motor vehicles, electric engines in city buses, and the integration of methanol as a gasoline blend. The cabinet projects that under this plan Israel will reduce its use of oil in transportation by 30 percent by 2020 and 60 percent by 2025.
Israel National Gas Lines and Israel Electric Corporation inaugurated a floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) buoy off the coast of Israel, The Jerusalem Post reported. The move will allow gas imports to resume following the repeated pipeline bombings and ultimate cancellation of the natural gas supply Israel had received from Egypt. The Israeli government expects that the buoy will save it more than $130 million almost immediately, and that the imports it will carry would compensate for Israel’s gas shortage until its northern Tamar field comes online in April. “This is the final stage for a great beginning in order to secure energy independence for the first time in Israel,” said Israel National Gas Lines Chairman Ron Haimovsky.
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro visited Israeli solar facilities in the Arava Desert to stress opportunities for additional cooperation in the renewable energy sector, The Jerusalem Post reported. At Kibbutz Ketura, Ambassador Shapiro toured Israel’s first medium-size solar field and learned about the trans-boundary renewable energy research at the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, which promotes professional collaboration between post-graduate Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian students. Shapiro also visited Kibbutz Yotvata and its Israel National Center for Renewable Energy. With a $30 million budget, the Center serves as a technology test site and home for new start-ups.
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