Coal to Newcastle

Israel is exporting snow to the Alps.

Honestly. Not a joke. Really. It even says so in the newspaper.

For the Hebraically challenged, here's the story. An Israeli company called IDE started by desalinating sea water, then turned its technology to large cooling installations used in mines, and from there it was a short step to producing large quantities of ice or snow. Of course, the ski resorts in the Alps have been using artificial snow machines for years (decades?), but some recent years have been uncommonly warm, and there's a growing demand for a longer ski season, while energy is capped (or not). The new Israeli contraption gives more snow for 20% of the energy.

The base prices of such a toy is $3,000,000, and it will give you 950 cubic meters of snow daily, so if you want one for your back yard feel free to contact me and I'll help you with the deal (reduced commissions for readers of this blog).

Or you might wish to boycott Israel and stop skiing. That's also an option.