Tag Archives: Solar power

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What Does a Climate Scientist Drive?

Mark Jacobson's all-electric Tesla roadster


If you’re Mark Jacobson, director of Stanford University’s Atmosphere/Energy Program, you drive an all-electric, cherry-red Tesla roadster, with a license plate proclaiming “GHG FREE.” (GHG = Green House Gases)

Solar power, Charge!

“Note that the license plate is a little exaggerated,” Jacobson wrote The Phoenix Sun via email, “but the power does come from rooftop solar.”

If you’re a regular Sun reader, you know we’ve covered Jacobson’s work in the past. But after he co-authored a cover story for Scientific American on how to create a 100% renewable energy society, the editors at Grist felt Jacobson’s “big picture” thinking merited a full interview.

You can read that Q&A with Jacobson, here, on Grist.





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Solar Power National Forest

Tonto National Forest

These days, it seems you can’t swing a javelina around here without hitting something powered by the sun. (Please don’t try this experiment; javelinas aren’t fond of being swung.)

That’s not a complaint; far from it, in fact. It’s just a little bit…overwhelming. Case in point:

On Saturday I drove my 15-year-old son, Liam, to his first practice swim for the 2010 Alcatraz Challenge. Trying to get close to conditions similar to what the swimmer will encounter in San Fransisco Bay in April is impossible in Phoenix. We had to drive up into the mountains northeast of the city to Bartlett Lake in Tonto National Forest. The water temperature on Saturday was perfect: a brisk 53°F — just about what swimmers can expect at Alcatraz.

Liam had finished his hour-long swim (they do wear wetsuits, by the way, but it’s still cold) and we had just started back to Phoenix when we passed an array of thirty-six solar panels connected to a small shed. I don’t stop for single panels. I’d never get anywhere if I did. But these looked impressive and photogenic. So, I pulled over and took the picture linked from the map above.

Cholla Campground

It wasn’t until I got home and started looking for information on these panels that I stumbled across a solar gold mine. Cholla campground is on the shore of Lake Roosevelt, also in the Tonto National Forest and just twelve miles from Bartlett Lake. Now, lots of campgrounds have a few solar panels or a solar water heater for the shower.

Cholla Campground, solar-powered well pump

At Cholla campground, the only electricity comes from solar panels. The only hot water is heated by solar water heaters. But, it’s the size of the facility that makes it unique. With 206 campsites, Cholla is the largest fully solar-powered campground in the United States.

For now, all I can offer is this photo from the National Forest Service. I’ll take a drive up there soon and report back on what’s there.

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Rooftop Solar PV Gets a New Face

Sanyo's bifacial PV

Today in my blog “Brief Back” (written for True/Slant) I wrote about the implications of a story out of Canada that’s not getting much play in the States.

It’s about Sanyo’s “bifacial” solar PV, that can use solar radiation coming from in front or from behind it. Why do that? Because when it’s placed on roofs with 85% reflective coating, the array can produce 30% more electricity than the one-sided variety.

The details are more interesting than that might sound, so check it out at True/Slant.