Florida will be home to the first "Solar City"

According to Engadget, the first "Solar City" will be built right here in Florida! If all goes as planned, construction will begin 2011. The location is called Babcock Ranch and is on the Gulf side of the state. Fortunately there is a Plan B in case the economy is still in a slump. I don't know if the stimulus money is part of this project or not. Housing here is crawling slowly forward from what I can tell locally. There are some homes being bought and sold but a lot are still sitting on the market. I wonder about building yet more houses when there is a glut of houses sitting on the market. But from what this blog post said, the back up plan was to go ahead with the power plant and sell the electricity to the larger grid. This sounds like a better plan that what is often heard around here which is "Build Nuclear!"

Chinese Cargo Ships Will Have Solar Sails

Just found this on my goolge alerts:

Australian company Solar Sailor has signed a deal with the largest Chinese shipping line COSCO to fit their tankers with large solar-powered sails. This is great news, but what's inside those cargo ships? How can we make the cargo it's carrying green too?

Solar Energy

I've been reading and studying a lot about Solar Energy lately. There are hundreds of different ways that scientists and engineers are attempting to produce energy from the sun. One of the many technologies I head about is called Solar Thermal Power. If I understand it correctly, the unique idea is to collect the solar rays and heat water or a liquid that can be used as steam which will turn the turbines that produce electricity. It is different in that all the solar materials are used to concentrate the light onto one source and that source is then used to heat the water or liquid. This to me makes sense.

Any way, here is a good article that highlights the various plants that are being built around the world that are solar thermal energy plants.

SolarPlaza provides free information and trade for PV market

Here is a link to the trading floor.

And their library

And their database

How do they make money?

Will somebody please tell me, why is the Sunshine State number one?

Why NOT?

I read today about new company that will sell renewable energy in the Central Florida area! YEAH! The name of the company is NEW POINT ENERGY SOLUTIONS! Why has take Florida so long to get onboard? You would think since Florida is the "Sunshine State" that we would be number one. Let's hope we can make up for lost time!

Solar Energy in Africa

Reuters reported today that Rwanda has installed "Africa's biggest" solar plant. It will produce 50 megawatts of energy for the county. This is amazing considering that Rwanda was involved in genocidal warfare against its people in the 1994 where 800,000 people were slaughtered. Mixed emotions there! They are like Germany; it will take time to forget. I’m glad they are moving forward.