The United States and Israel have agreed to cooperative research projects on oil shale extraction and the conversion of coal for alternative fuels.
The U.S. will provide $620,000 for the projects which call for the exchange of technical information and personnel. The agreements are a result of a pledge in December, 1983 by Energy Secretary Donald Hodel and Yitzhak Modai, who was then Israel’s Minister for Energy and Infrastructure and is now Finance Minister.
The two countries signed an agreement last June and the details of the agreement were put together by U.S. and Israeli technical officials last month. The Hebrew University and the Weizmann Institute will conduct projects in concert with similar activities underway in the U.S.
“These agreements reflect the shared commitment to cooperate in scientific and technical exploration that exists between our two countries, “Hodel said. He noted that the agreements “will permit the U.S. to share in the creative oil shale research already underway in Israel and to apply the knowledge we leam to both the oil shales and, potentially, the high sulfur bituminous coals we have in abundance in this country.”
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