Spain is Doing Sassy Things
Anytime Spain comes up in conversation or on the news, I pay special attention because that's where John grew from a shy infant into a not-shy man. A couple of articles have come across my computer screen that I think are worthy to point out. See, the Spain I knew loved to lag behind the rest of the world, almost proudly sticking to its stop-the-country-no-matter-what siesta routine. So, when I see things like this, I get very proud of my country. It's all grows up!
First, an article from BBC News on May 2nd. Spain has redefined the potential of solar power near Seville. This is a "solar tower" (it doesn't have a proper name yet):
As you can see, this leaves a simple solar panel in the dust. The technique is to point 600 giant mirrors (you can compare to the SUV in the photo above to get scale) at a tower that's 40 stories tall. All that light (and it's an insane amount of light) turns water to steam which powers turbines and makes energy. Steam power? How retro! How much power can this steam produce? How about 11 Megawatts? How about 6,000 homes?
First, an article from BBC News on May 2nd. Spain has redefined the potential of solar power near Seville. This is a "solar tower" (it doesn't have a proper name yet):
As you can see, this leaves a simple solar panel in the dust. The technique is to point 600 giant mirrors (you can compare to the SUV in the photo above to get scale) at a tower that's 40 stories tall. All that light (and it's an insane amount of light) turns water to steam which powers turbines and makes energy. Steam power? How retro! How much power can this steam produce? How about 11 Megawatts? How about 6,000 homes?
GO Spain! While some states are arguing whether or not to give tax breaks for people installing solar power, Spain's blowing all expectations out of the water. They are still working on this, though, and a few more thousand mirrors are planned so it will power all 600,000 residents of the town of Seville.
Second, something called "Air Trees" are being built near my hometown of Madrid.
From what I gather from www.plataformaarquitectura.cl, designers are hoping these public spaces will fill the ever-popular rotaries used in Spain. They are made almost entirely from recycled materials and, thanks to the solar panels, will feed energy into the city's grid. In addition, the tree cover is going to act as a natural air conditioner. This is a totally sassy idea that... just... makes me really happy. I love projects like this. Could this be Spain's new, standard public plaza?
Third, outside of the environment, you can read about Spain kicking ass health care-delivery-style in this previous post on HAWTaction.com: Unknown Hero: Dr. Peter Pronovost.
When it comes to the environment, though, the US is so behind the times, it's confusing. Johnny Lead Foot's preparing to write something about this, so I don't want to steal his thunder and suffer those repercussions, but I will say that we are so far behind in this "alternate" energy exploration that we are only thinking of the magic bullet... not smaller projects like these that will, cumulatively, probably save our asses.
Spain's kicking some ass. HAWT action [hot ak-shuh
n]
Second, something called "Air Trees" are being built near my hometown of Madrid.
From what I gather from www.plataformaarquitectura.cl, designers are hoping these public spaces will fill the ever-popular rotaries used in Spain. They are made almost entirely from recycled materials and, thanks to the solar panels, will feed energy into the city's grid. In addition, the tree cover is going to act as a natural air conditioner. This is a totally sassy idea that... just... makes me really happy. I love projects like this. Could this be Spain's new, standard public plaza?Third, outside of the environment, you can read about Spain kicking ass health care-delivery-style in this previous post on HAWTaction.com: Unknown Hero: Dr. Peter Pronovost.
When it comes to the environment, though, the US is so behind the times, it's confusing. Johnny Lead Foot's preparing to write something about this, so I don't want to steal his thunder and suffer those repercussions, but I will say that we are so far behind in this "alternate" energy exploration that we are only thinking of the magic bullet... not smaller projects like these that will, cumulatively, probably save our asses.
Spain's kicking some ass. HAWT action [hot ak-shuh
n]
Johnny - interesting. Si, go Spain! I know Spain has changed a lot since we lived there, but who are the instruments of change? Individuals or the government? When/how did Spain get the green smarts?