AguAgro Fund LP has acquired water technology incubator Kinrot Technology Ventures from Canada’s Stern Partners Inc. in a share-swap deal, reports Globes.

Stern Partners, run by president Ronald Stern, will reportedly get a stake in AquAgro, an Israeli venture capital fund focused on innovative water and agriculture technologies, although terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor regulations governing Israel’s Technological Incubators Program require that AquAgro inject at least $3 million into Kinrot over three years.

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A UK-based renewable energy company has received a $61 million grant from the Australian government to build the world’s first utility-scale wave power project.

Ocean Power Technologies will begin construction of the 19-megawatt project in the waters off Victoria in 2010. The project will provide enough electricity to power 10,000 homes.

Wave technology uses buoys riding up and down on waves to drive an electrical generator, and then sends the power ashore via underwater cable.

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Safe drinking water from thin air? That’s the claim of San Luis Obispo, California, based Atmospheric Water Systems (AWS), which offers a product line of air-filtering water systems under the brand Dewpointe. Founded more than a year and a half ago by Co-owner Stephen Krauss, Dewpointe systems takes a different approach to creating safe drinking water. Rather than filtering the water that comes through a pipe, Dewpointe filters the moisture out of the air to create drinking water. There are no water pipes attached to the machine. The rectangular device simply plugs into a wall.

I caught up with Mr. Krauss on the second day of this year’s West Coast Green event held at Fort Mason in San Francisco, California, and found out more about the Dewpointe system.

How does it work? Magic?

No, similar to a dehumidifier, Dewpointe pulls moisture out of the air; but unlike a dehumidifier, the goal of this device is to make that moisture drinkable. A series of filters take out 99.99% of the impurities and create clean drinking water. Impressive as this may sound, it also means that there must be moisture in the air for Dewpointe to operate effectively. Hence, all tropical or even moderate humidity environments in the United States such as coastal states, the south and mid-west work well. In desert environments or low moisture areas such as the south-western US, the Dewpointe will struggle.

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Water agencies facing droughts and shortages of freshwater, such as in coastal California, have been turning increasingly to desalination this year.

However, current desalination methods can be expensive and energy inefficient. Watchdog groups prefer water conservation and efficiency efforts, and charge that tapping the oceans for potable water can pollute waterways and kill marine creatures.

Yet could desalination become more viable and efficient? The Global Cleantech 100 list anointed several companies with that aspiration as technology innovators earlier this month. (more…)

Water technology, solar innovation, Israel’s electric cars: I’d originally written this story for ISRAEL21c a few months ago when we were planning on launching its new Environment channel. The new channel was finally up this week. Consider it a good starting point if you’d like to know more about Israeli technology and investment opportunities and what the future may hold:

When green evangelist Al Gore visited Israel last year (and Green Prophet was there) he gave a clear message. “The people of Israel can lead the way to renewable energy,” he told audiences. With its unique geographical position, and clean tech know how, he announced, Israel is a natural leader in the field.

It’s a view that is echoed by many. Ian Thomson, the Californian co-founder of CleanTechies, a web site launched for clean technology professionals, agrees.
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For thousands of years, the native Aymara people have been harvesting scarcely fallen raindrops along the Andean foothills in northern Chile by capturing the rainwater in nets for irrigation and drinking purposes. The people in this region, in and around the Atacama desert, are accustomed to fragile ecosystems and an extremely dry climate. However, today, even in the fertile central and southern regions of Chile, there are noticeable tensions over water rights and water availability.

Presently, it is not as if there are times when nothing flows out of the tap here. Nor are the urban folks of Santiago running outside their homes with their own polypropylene mesh nets ready to catch any drop of rain that falls. However, a convergence of factors – an increase in population growth, perceptible changes in climate patterns, and competition for water resources between various industries and hydro power – have caused a national “war over water” of sorts to emerge at the forefront of national environmental, economic, and political discussions.
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The Israel Export and International Cooperation Institute reports that water technology exports totaled $1.4 billion in 2008 – double the 2005 amount. The global water market is worth $400 billion annually and is expected to rise to $537 billion next year.

To mark World Water Day, the Export Institute published figures about the country’s water technologies industry. There are 250 companies in the sector of which 200 export their products. 50 companies in the sector are defined as start-ups.

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