Solar Power Archives - Green Businesses

Solar Powered Airplane Lands in New York on Historic Flight Around the World

NEW YORK What started as a sky-is-the-limit dream for two Swiss explorer/entrepreneurs is now one giant, soaring, fuel-free, #futureisclean reality. Bertrand Piccard (@bertrandpiccard) André Borschberg (@andreborschberg) and their innovative solar plane, Solar Impulse 2, reached a milestone Saturday as it completed a trip across the United States. The solar-powered airplane on a globe-circling voyage that began in the United Arab Emirates more than a year ago. The Swiss-made plane landed at John F. Kenney International Airport at 4 a.m. after a 4 hour 41 minute flight of about 165 miles from Lehigh Valley International Airport in Pennsylvania. Its trip across the U.S. mainland began April 24, when Solar Impulse landed in San Francisco from Hawaii. The aviation industry told them #solarimpulse was an impossible project so they built their own team & found new solutions. Read more from their logbook here. Have you ever seen bicycles assist an airplane landing …

Welcome to the Future: Solar Freakin’ Bike Paths!

Solar Freakin' Roadways We still may be waiting on those hoverboards, but at least the future of solar has finally arrived with the launch of the first solar-powered bikepath in the Netherlands on Nov. 12. In May a viral video captured people's imaginations with a picture of what the future could look like - not quite flying cars but maybe even better! Demonstrating the spectacular potential to transform existing asphalt surfaces such as roads and lots into solar panels cells, the video has received more than 18 million views on YouTube, with a cool factor and "wow, why didn't we think of this sooner?" feel. The idea came from two engineers in Idaho who experimented with a smart-grid road made entirely of solar cells that, according to the article about them on Grist.org have t he following characteristics: "Solar Roadways’ panels have heating elements to melt snow and ice, five-color LED lighting to create road lines, and corridors for moving and storing stormwater. …

When Your Rooftop Solar Panels Make More $ than S&P 500

by Chris Meehan for SolarReviews Thirteen might not be a lucky number, but it seems like a better number when you consider that in 13 states—over a quarter of all states, including the most populous ones like California and New York—solar offers a better return on investment than investing in the S&P 500. That’s just another way to look at why solar is a better investment today than many other investments people can make. That’s according to the latest Geostellar Quarterly Index, which looked at the profitability of investing in rooftop solar across the U.S. The report found that the internal return on investment over the anticipated 25-year lifespan of solar panels was highest in Hawaii (24 percent) and that the majority of top states for internal returns on investing in solar were primarily on the East coast. Among the top 10 states only California (eighth with a 12 percent return), Colorado (fifth with a 15 percent return), New Mexico (seventh with a 13 percent r…