Category Archives: Renewables

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Solar Impulse Sets New Distance Record

A solar-powered aircraft from Switzerland entered the record books (again) early this morning when it landed in Dallas/Fort Worth. Pilot André Borschberg had traveled 957 miles from Phoenix in a flight lasting 18 hours and 21 minutes. The previous distance record was set last year by Solar Impulse (SI) in a 868 mile trip from Switzerland to Spain.

Solar Impulse in Phoenix (photo by Osha Gray Davidson)

I interviewed Borschberg and SI’s other pilot, Bertrand Piccard, in Phoenix for a piece I wrote for Grist (below).

Check out, too, this GigaPan image of Solar Impulse. It’s a composite of 70 separate images taken with a robotic device and stitched together to form a seamless and “zoomable” picture. By clicking on a detail in the image you can zoom in for a closer look. Click here for the full GigaPan experience, including navigational thumbnails with explanatory text.

Solar plane crosses U.S., injects sexiness into the green conversation (Grist)

Standing beside Solar Impulse — the world’s most advanced solar aircraft — in a hangar at the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport on a recent afternoon, Bertrand Piccard attempted to diagnose humankind’s biggest problem.

We are being bored to death, he opined.

“People talk about protecting the environment and it’s boring,” the 53-year-old Swiss aviator/psychiatrist said. Discussions about climate change are even worse. “Those,” he added, “are boring and depressing.”

via Solar plane crosses U.S., injects sexiness into the green conversation | Grist.

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Follow the Flight of Solar Impulse, Live

Update: Solar Impulse has landed

Solar Impulse in Phoenix (photo by Osha Gray Davidson)

Solar Impulse in Phoenix (photo by Osha Gray Davidson)

Earlier

At one minute after dawn this morning, Solar Impulse, the world’s most advanced solar-powered aircraft, took off from a Silicone Valley airport, under clear skies, beginning the first leg in what its backers hope will be a coast-to-coast history making flight. The extremely light Swiss-made aircraft has long wings covered with solar cells which enables it to stay aloft indefinitely — as long as it can charge its batteries in flight during the day.

 

For full live coverage, including mapping, airspeed, battery power, click here.

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Solar advocate Nancy LaPlaca considers state office: “Arizona is at a crossroads.”

Citing Arizona’s potential to be a leader in renewable energy, former Arizona Corporation Commission policy adviser Nancy LaPlaca announced today she is considering running for a position on the ACC in 2014.

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“Arizona is at a crossroads on critical policies for electricity, gas and water.” Nancy LaPlaca.

“Clean energy will grow our economy and bring us good-paying jobs we can be proud of,” LaPlaca said in a statement released today.

“Instead of leading the U.S. in the $100B global solar energy industry,” she continued, “our current commission is satisfied that only 2% of in-state electricity comes from solar while we send $2+ billion in ratepayer money every year to Texas, Colorado and New Mexico to buy coal and natural gas. Those dollars should stay in Arizona…”

The five-member ACC sets utility rates and implements programs to nurture renewable energy — or to ignore it. After being a national leader in RE for many years, the ACC has, say its critics, abandoned that role, following November’s election in which the commission’s only Democrats were voted off and replaced by Republicans.

In January, the new ACC sent shock waves throughout the solar industry when it announced without warning that some of the most important solar incentives would be eliminated.

“The Arizona solar industry has dramatically reduced its dependence on incentives,” said one solar spokesperson at the time, “but this is too much, too soon.”

LaPlaca cited her four years experience as a policy adviser to ACC member, Democrat Paul Newman. During most of that time, the ACC was led by Kristin Mayes, a Republican who made Arizona one of the most renewable-friendly states in the country.

In addition to renewable energy, LaPlaca stressed the ACC’s role in solving other critical resource issues.

“The Southwest is feeling the results of rising temperatures and drought,” she stated. “A recent U.S. Geological Survey report says the Verde River is at serious risk of going dry and some water wells have already failed. We need smarter policies that value not only water, but all of our critical natural resources.”