Switching America to Solar -- How Possible?

This video shows how very possible it could be, that it is, to switch America to solar energy.



Not only is this true, factual, but actually, if we would use our glass skyscrapers, in our cities, to have and use transparent solar cells on them, as well as the roofs of our homes, the land needed to power the nation shrinks yet more and very likely, dramatically.

US' First Solar Roadway?

Yessir. America is going to get its first solar roadway. A road, made of electricity-generating solar panels is coming to our nation, at last. And guess what state is getting them?

Why, it's little old Missouree.

America Is About to Get 

Its First Solar Roadway

Check this out:

Solar roadways are coming to the most famous highway in the United States — Route 66.

The simply named Solar Roadways, an Idaho startup run by husband-and-wife team Scott and Julie Brusaw, developed the technology and has entered a partnership with the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) to install their durable solar panels at a rest stop in Conway, Missouri, along the famous road.

The Brusaws achieved some viral fame through their Indiegogo campaign and the accompanying video, which garnered over 20 million views on Youtube and netted $2.2 million in donations for further development on the project.

The panels are roughly 70 pounds each and hexagonal, made of tempered glass that has the strength to hold cars and trucks and a tractioned surface that performs similarly to asphalt. According to the company’s website, the panels contain “LED lights to create lines and signage without paint heating elements to prevent snow and ice accumulation,” in addition to producing clean energy.

The company has been developing the technology through donations and grant programs and has passed two previous tests with federal highway officials prior to this latest project with MoDOT...

The world's first roadway has done extremely well:

World's First Solar Road Already 

Generating More Power Than Expected

So here's to you, Missouri. Leading the way into a cleaner, smarter future. We won't just leave that to the state of California any longer.

What Needs To Happen With And For Energy

I've said for a long time this is what needs to happen. We need to power our cities with our skyscrapers.

For starters.

Two Huge Sources and Reasons for Hope

I saw two media releases yesterday that gave me hope for the future of electricity and reducing pollution and carbon emissions. And then there's the hope for humankind.

First this from Bill McKibben and his 350.org group and The New Yorker:

Power to the People

Why the rise of green energy makes utility companies nervous.

A little bit from the article.

Mark and Sara Borkowski live with their two young daughters in a century-old, fifteen-hundred-square-foot house in Rutland, Vermont. Mark drives a school bus, and Sara works as a special-ed teacher; the cost of heating and cooling their house through the year consumes a large fraction of their combined income. Last summer, however, persuaded by Green Mountain Power, the main electric utility in Vermont, the Borkowskis decided to give their home an energy makeover. In the course of several days, coördinated teams of contractors stuffed the house with new insulation, put in a heat pump for the hot water, and installed two air-source heat pumps to warm the home. They also switched all the light bulbs to L.E.D.s and put a small solar array on the slate roof of the garage.

The Borkowskis paid for the improvements, but the utility financed the charges through their electric bill, which fell the very first month. Before the makeover, from October of 2013 to January of 2014, the Borkowskis used thirty-four hundred and eleven kilowatt-hours of electricity and three hundred and twenty-five gallons of fuel oil. From October of 2014 to January of 2015, they used twenty-eight hundred and fifty-six kilowatt-hours of electricity and no oil at all. President Obama has announced that by 2025 he wants the United States to reduce its total carbon footprint by up to twenty-eight per cent of 2005 levels. The Borkowskis reduced the footprint of their house by eighty-eight per cent in a matter of days, and at no net cost.

I’ve travelled the world writing about and organizing against climate change, but, standing in the Borkowskis’ kitchen and looking at their electric bill, I felt a fairly rare emotion: hope. The numbers reveal a sudden new truth—that innovative, energy-saving and energy-producing technology is now cheap enough for everyday use. The Borkowskis’ house is not an Aspen earth shelter made of adobe and old tires, built by a former software executive who converted to planetary consciousness at Burning Man. It’s an utterly plain house, with Frozen bedspreads and One Direction posters, inhabited by a working-class family of four, two rabbits, and a parakeet named Oliver. It sits in a less than picturesque neighborhood, in a town made famous in recent years for its heroin problem. Its significance lies in its ordinariness. The federal Energy Secretary, Ernest Moniz, has visited, along with the entire Vermont congressional delegation. If you can make a house like this affordably green, you should be able to do it anywhere.

I’ve travelled the world writing about and organizing against climate change, but, standing in the Borkowskis’ kitchen and looking at their electric bill, I felt a fairly rare emotion: hope. The numbers reveal a sudden new truth—that innovative, energy-saving and energy-producing technology is now cheap enough for everyday use. The Borkowskis’ house is not an Aspen earth shelter made of adobe and old tires, built by a former software executive who converted to planetary consciousness at Burning Man. It’s an utterly plain house, with Frozen bedspreads and One Direction posters, inhabited by a working-class family of four, two rabbits, and a parakeet named Oliver. It sits in a less than picturesque neighborhood, in a town made famous in recent years for its heroin problem. Its significance lies in its ordinariness. The federal Energy Secretary, Ernest Moniz, has visited, along with the entire Vermont congressional delegation. If you can make a house like this affordably green, you should be able to do it anywhere.

Oh, yeah.

Hope.

Secondly, this. I wrote about this a year or two ago, the hope it can and would and should mean for us. This is from Bloomberg Business News.

Invisible Solar Cells That Could Power 

Skyscrapers

Can you imagine skyscrapers, creating their own energy, their own electricity?

Can you imagine how the owners and/or developers of these things would virtually line up to have their huge, towering buildings create their own electricity?

The saved, unused, uncovered Earth since we wouldn't need as many "solar farms," covered in panels?

Can you imagine the savings?

Can you imagine the reduced pollution and carbon emissions?

Then imagine lowered--possibly drastically lowered--energy bills?

One day, getting away from hydroelectric dams, jamming up our rivers?

Imagine.

Happy Solar Day 2015

Solar Day 2015

Recognition for Clean Energy, Energy Conservation and Sustainable Living

The SolarDay Mission Statement

1 – To create a national and international day of awareness and celebration of SolarDay, including: 

A – The many benefits of solar energy and energy independence,

B – The creation of more sustainable lifestyles and businesses,

C – The adoption of green and clean-technology that does not adversely affect the planet and the atmosphere,

D – Through SolarDay activities in the U.S. and worldwide experienced by hundreds of millions of people and governments with the objectives of 40 nations participating by 2014.

E – Gain official recognition of SolarDay by the U.S. government as an annual day of recognition of solar energy and the goal of energy independence as a fundamental part of citizen and business sustainability objectives for the country.

Link:   SolarDay 2015 | Solar, Sustainabilty, Clean Technology

Dear Future Generations

Link:  Stand for Trees

The Next Important Documentary We Need to See

Get ye to the Tivoli

Quote of the Day -- on a World Balance

Clean, renewable, sustainable energy, winning locally

As the Sierra Club points out

Known for being the hometown of President Harry S. Truman, the city of Independence is now leading the shift to cleaner energy in Missouri - eliminating coal power by 2016 and tripling its clean energy goals.


As Independence, Missouri's own Examiner newspaper covered the story:

Council solidifies renewable energy goals

With a resolution Monday, City Council threw its support behind a future of increased renewable electric energy in Independence.

The resolution, introduced by Council Member Scott Roberson, identifies the Council’s goals regarding renewable energy and provides direction to the city manager for policies and programs related to that.

“This gives a whole new direction to energy in Independence,” Roberson said during the end-of-meeting comments. “Leon Daggett at Power & Light, the city manager, all of us have working really well together on this.

“I think this will bring all sorts of new possibilities.”

The resolution states the Council’s goal to have 10 percent of IPL’s energy supplied by sources that are not carbon-based (coal and natural gas) by the year 2018, which would conform to a state standard for investor-based utilities; as well as to increase that goal to 15 percent by 2021.

It also notes the city’s recent conversion of its streetlamps to LED lights, as well as future plans to remodel an office building for IPL’s administrative offices.

The resolution directs City Manager Robert Heacock to:

• Assure the new IPL offices are designed to minimize energy use and incorporate renewable energy.

• Develop a feasibility study for options such as solar, wind and geothermal energy at city-owned facilities.

• Develop a study to evaluate incentives and sustainable programs regarding renewable energy that can be provided to customers.

• Provide a status report by November on those projects.

• Do a rate study for residential, commercial and industrial customers, including provisions for renewable energy programs, and report back to the Council by May 2015.

Other directions include shutting down the coal-fired Missouri City Power Plant and phasing out coal at the Blue Valley Power Plant by January 2016 – both plans that have been in the works – and producing a report by next July outlining options and costs for disposing the Missouri City plant.

It's enough to give a person hope.

Quote of the day -- on the and our future

Quote of the day -- and from a surprising source

How cool is this?

I just found it on a friend's page on Facebook.

 

 

Some stats on it:

 

1,800 MPG

Total weight 150 lbs

Load capacity 350 lbs

Electric motor 750 watt

Electric power 20 mph

Electric range 14+ miles

Charge via outlet 1 1/2 hours

Charge via sunlight~ 7 hours

 

And made in the USA.

 

Links: 

 

http://www.organictransit.com/

 

http://blogs.nicholas.duke.edu · Dec 16, 2013
Dean of Duke's Nicholas School

 

http://www.greatfallstribune.com · December 16, 2013
Montana...thinking ahead.

http://www.betterworldclub.com/ · Dec. 16, 2013
Free 24/7 roadside assistance

That noise you just heard was any new airport being killed

First, Representative Sam Graves has made it clear, time and again, that tearing down our existing airport only to throw it away and build a new one is absurd. Here is his website from last August:

Congressman Sam Graves : Latest News : ICYMI: No new KCI

Then, last week, Southwest Airlines--our biggest tenant at the airport right now--came out squarely, publicly against the costs of the new debacle airport:

Southwest Airlines wants a bigger voice on KCI's future

Apparently, according to a report on KCPT, Southwest had told public officials for some time that they were against this whole idea. It's only just now they decided to go public.

Then, today, I saw this little YouTube video from our own one-and-the-same KCPT and their Kansas City Week in Review  show. It's loaded with not just cautions but good to great reasons Kansas City shouldn't--and even likely won't--tear down our current airport, only to build a new, extremely expensive new one:



God, I loved that.

Seems as though common sense and fiscal responsibility is going to prevail after all.

But stay tuned.


 

Great questions

Is this the country we want? Is this the people we want to be?

Inspiration

A New Story of the People from Sustainable Man on Vimeo.

Things we Americans should learn from Germany and Germans

One more thing we could learn from the German people:

Breaking news today:

Germany Rejects Fracking

Yet another great idea and movement from Germany since fracking is so polluting and causes people to get sick and also causes Earthquakes.

We should be so smart.

Other things we could and should learn from Germany:

--how to have workers--labor--and management cooperate for the benefit of labor, management, the companies themselves and so, the nation;

--killing nuclear power is a good idea since it has so many and much extra costs to it, due to the half-life of radioactive uranium and those storage costs and issues;

--working hard on solar energy, specifically photovoltaic cells, makes a lot of sense due to its many benefits not least of which is getting out of the Middle East, turning over so much national treasure for oil until we do thus weakening the nation further, polluting far less, putting less C02 in the air, etc.;

--killing "outsourcing" of manufacturing since it takes jobs out of the country which weakens us as citizens but also the nation, of course.

So much we could learn.

And that's just a short list.

If only we wanted to learn, huh?

Links: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/germany-rejects-fracking-to-tap-natural-gas-a-831764.html; http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/05/07-2

The Future and Green Energy

"Clean energy was a $260 billion investment flow in 2011. Europe has now more than one million new renewable jobs. The big winner is Germany. They have more solar workers than America has steel workers. [German Chancellor Angela] Merkel bet that it would be smarter to send their energy money to their own engineers, manufacturers, and installers than to keep paying it to [Russia’s] Gazprom. She’s right, and it was a winning bet." --Amory Lovins, Chairman, chief scientist at Rocky Mountain Institute (www.rmi.org) and author of "Reinventing Fire." Links: http://www.alternet.org/environment/154222/renewables_are_a_reality%3A_how_to_get_our_clean_energy_future_without_any_help_from_congress?page=1

Solar cells on all our commercial and residential buildings

I saw this news video today and it proposed what I said here some time ago and that is that we should use photovoltaic cells to transform all the exterior surfaces and buildings we can--commercial and residential buildings--to create our solar power.

With this, we could at least shrink the power companies, at minimum, if not, eventually, do away with them completely, to generate our electrical power. More power to us--power to the people.

On the anniversary of the "Clean Air Act"

This week, most people won't know, is the anniversary of the "Clean Air Act" by Congress, in Washington, of 1990. It turns 21 years old, thank goodness. As we know, our air in the 1960's, at least, had gotten pretty fouled and dirty and awful and we needed to do something about it--we needed to clean it up. So clean it up we did, thank goodness. And, as it turns out, the Act did help us clean our air, some, anyway, and set us on a good, intelligent, healthier and far more sustainable path. Sure, we need to do more about our air and cleaning it and it will have to come from partnerships with corporations but some of those companies have found that clean air is not only in their best interests but that it can also help create both more business for them as well as new technologies and jobs. We need to develop more in this arena--we need to create yet more, "greener" and cleaner technologies and capabilities, including and especially solar power, particularly photovoltaic cells that create our electricity. So in this week that we say "Happy birthday!" to the Clean Air Act of 1990, I am reminded of Oliver in the Charles Dickens story and later, movie and can only tell the US Congress the following: Unfortunately, too many in Congress now think there's too much "regulation". (http://www.iwatchnews.org/2011/11/16/7399/5-questions-william-ruckelshaus?utm_source=iwatch&utm_medium=social_media&utm_campaign=facebook). All I can say is, we don't want to end up like polluted China. Let's not go backward. Let's keep cleaner air and progressing forward. Link: http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/11/16/370028/happy-birthday-clean-air-act-jobs-innovation-saving-lives/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+climateprogress%2FlCrX+%28Climate+Progress%29

Isn't this right?

I mean, seriously, doesn't this describe our situation? The scientists and scientific community have declared that "global warming" or "climate change" or whatever you choose to call it, is real and that it is very likely being inflicted on us by our own actions of pumping so much carbon dioxide into our atmosphere. Some, however, want to deny it--whole political parties, at minimum. So what if the scientists are wrong? Doesn't it make sense to use less and conserve? Of course it does. What part of how we live across this planet seems sustainable? It surely is not.