Harry Zvi Tabor
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Harry Zvi Tabor (March 7, 1917 – December 15, 2015) was an Israeli physicist. He is known as the father of Israeli solar energy.[1][2] He is generally credited with having brought Israel's solar energy program to international prominence.[3]
Biography
Harry Zvi Tabor was born at London in 1917
Scientific career
In 1949
He was instrumental in developing the solar water heater that 95 percent of Israeli households have.[2] In 1992 he was awarded an honorary degree from the Weizmann Institute of Science.[8] These simple water heaters operated without pumps, whereby cold water was heated in the panel, which acted as a thermosiphon. This unit in turn became the standard for solar water heating worldwide, and helped popularize the commercialization of solar thermal technology in the United States in the 1970s, where Tabor lectured and acted as a consultant to solar start-up companies such as Northrup, Inc. which subsequently merged into ARCO Solar, which became BP Solar. Tabor experimented with various coatings to optimize the absorptivity of solar energy, with minimizing the re-radiation, or emissivity of the heat absorbed. This led to his development of a "black chrome" surface for the copper water-bearing plate.
Tabor worked with the Standards Institute of Israel, to establish testing procedures and an official performance certificates so that a solar collector could not be bought without SII certification.
Tabor and French immigrant Lucien Bronicki developed a small solar power unit, an Organic Rankine cycle turbine, for developing countries with problematic power grids.[3][9] It was designed to neutralize the maintenance issues of reciprocating engines so it had only one moving part, the rotor. A 3 kWe prototype was exhibited at the 1961 United Nations Conference on New Sources of Energy in Rome, but it failed to find commercial success.[9]
Awards and recognition
- 1975 – Royal Society Energy Award
- 1979 – Inducted in Solar Hall of Fame
- 1981 – International Solar Energy Society Award
- 1981 – Krupp Foundation Energy Award
- 1994 – Passive Low Energy Architecture International Award
- 1995 – Israeli Knesset Quality of Life Award
- 2014 – Israeli President's Medal of Distinction[10]
See also
Original materials are archived at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.
References
- ^ BGU shields its eyes and stares into the solar future[permanent dead link], Ehud Zion Waldoks, The Jerusalem Post, November 2, 2008.
- ^ Jerusalem Post, October 1, 2008.
- ^ Encyclopedia of the Earth, 2007.
- ISBN 1857430891.
- ^ "Habonim 80th Participants". Bogrei Habonim uk & ireland.
- ^ Harry Zvi Tabor, The Environment Encyclopedia and Directory 2001, by Europa Publications Limited, 3rd Ed, Europa Publications, Europa Publications.
- ^ "ynet – כלכלה – ד"ר צבי תבור, אבי דוד השמש המודרני, נפטר בגיל 98". ynet. 15 December 2015. Retrieved 2015-12-16.
- ^ Honorary degrees Archived 2009-01-05 at the Wayback Machine of the Weizmann.
- ^ ; Final draft.
- ^ "President honors eight Israelis with presidential award".