Solar Power & Energy

There are many reasons solar power is becoming more popular. In fact, there are almost as many reasons to start using solar as there are people in the world. Most of those reasons fall into one of these broad categories though…

1. Save the planet. There’s a lot of gaining interest in this area specifically. Almost anywhere you look you’ll find news items, government legislation, and corporate news touting the strong need to reduce greenhouse emissions, reduce pollution, stop using up natural resources and more.

Solar power is what’s known as a “clean energy” source. The power itself comes directly from the sun and since the sun is not expected to die out anytime soon, it’s considered a sustainable and renewable source of power. We don’t have to gut the earth to tap the sun’s energy, and we don’t have to fill our skies with black pollution clouds to use it either.

Now …

On April 2, 2009 at 11:00 a.m., A dedication ceremony will take place in San Antonio, TX to commemorate the inaugural use of a flexible solar cover on a landfill.

With this new solar cover the Tessman Road Landfill, owned by Republic Services, Inc in Phoenix Arizona, now runs on 100% green power. They use a combination of solar power and a methane gas-to-electricity plant.

The flexible solar strips, developed by United Solar, capture the sun’s rays for conversion into electricity and are adhered directly to a Firestone manufactured synthetic geomembrane cover.

Republic and partner, CPS Energy, Greater San Antonio’s electric and natural gas provider, will document the results of this project for use in the deployment of solar energy covers on landfills throughout the region and to provide electricity in excess of the landfill facilities’ needs to area power customers.

Republic operates more than 65 renewable energy projects nationwide, primarily capturing …

Although they’re not using solar to power these new vending machines, PepsiCo has announced a new pilot program which looks like an excellent step in the right direction.

Under a new pilot program, they’re placing 30 Pepsi-Cola vending machines in high-consumer traffic areas in the Washington, D.C. area. These new machines use less energy and generate 12% less greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than current vending machines. For the first time ever in the United States, these machines will also use a natural refrigerant: carbon dioxide (CO2) instead of the more environmentally harmful hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) which are usually used to cool vending machines.

PepsiCo has been focusing on three areas which will help them reduce the environmental impact of equipment used to sell their products. The three areas are: Improving energy efficiency; eliminating HFCs from the insulating foam used in their vending machines; and using green refrigerants instead of HFCs.

They’ve made great progress …