Word: rooftop
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...that could be changing. The engineering company CH2M Hill is now joining hands with the U.S. Department of Energy to provide Internet solar maps of 25 American cities, using Google Earth technology to chart the precise solar potential of neighborhoods, literally rooftop by rooftop. The company has just finished mapping all of San Francisco, allowing residents to enter their address and take the solar measure of their own home. "People in San Francisco think we don't have any solar potential,' says Gavin Newsom, the city's deep-green mayor. "But the map shows we have a lot more...
...city, including commercial sites, government sites and the handful of residential sites, which is nice if you're keeping track of these things. But the really cool part comes when you enter in an address - any address in San Francisco - into the website. The camera shifts to a rooftop view of the business or home, with data on the size of the roof, its estimated solar energy potential, the estimated electricity that could be produced and the utility bill savings, as well as the amount of carbon that can be avoided by shifting to solar. You can also get estimates...
...Meanwhile, one day this month members of the Tucson group were submitting requests for such things as answering machines, rooftop TV antennas, cell phones, and firewood - items that would surely help users cancel their cable subscription and cut down on heating and other costs. Martinez said one person, apparently hoping to save money on the water bill, posted a request for giant barrels that he could use to capture rainwater. Members were also seeking scraps of fabric, mason jars and broken crayons, all of which are good for craft-making...
...farming because his students were bummed out. A professor of environmental health at Columbia University in New York City, Despommier teaches about parasitism, environmental disruption and other assorted happy topics. Eventually his students complained; they wanted to work on something optimistic. So the class began studying the idea of rooftop gardening for cities. They quickly discarded that approach--too small-scale--in favor of something more ambitious: a 30-story urban farm with a greenhouse on every floor. "I think vertical farming is an idea that can work in a big way," says Despommier. (See pictures of urban farming...
...existing conventional units required our partners to have a rooftop with an electrical outlet,” she said. “So because the solar unit doesn’t need that, it’s much easier.” —Staff writer Betsy L. Mead can be reached at emead@fas.harvard.edu...