Texas and Solar

While some have finally started to I've wondered, over these last couple of decades and even talked about, why weren't the schools, office buildings, strip malls and enclosed malls etc., I've been a part of building, not included Solar as a self sustaining energy source and if producing more then needed selling that to the grids, existing buildings could have been adding. Sure up front it might cost more to add but in the long run money would have been saved and maybe made and things like fighting about which schools/libraries etc. should be closed, happening where I am right now and forecast to continue in the coming years. Late to the game when we were thought to be flush with cash and spending that on now showing failed idea's, now broke we're dismantling our extremely needed societal advances instead of building forward!!

Texas quietly gains a place in the sun

Its first solar farm has started up in San Antonio, and six more are in the works

{Lisa Krantz : San Antonio Express-News Texas' first solar farm is in southeastern San Antonio, dubbed Blue Wing. It has an array of 215,000 photovoltaic panels that capture sun rays and turn them into power.}

Nov. 6, 2010 - Surely some wiseacre is on record observing that there are two things Texas has plenty of: hot air and hot sun.

But Texas may eventually have the last laugh. The state, which already leads the nation in turning wind into electricity, has quietly begun to harvest sunlight on a large scale.

Its first solar farm, an array of 215,000 photovoltaic panels that capture sun rays and turn them into power, went on line Thursday in San Antonio. Statewide, at least six more projects are in earlier stages of development.

"We have some of the best solar radiation in the country," said a hopeful Luke Metzger of Environment Texas, "just a ton of sun."

Until the big plants are up and adding electricity to the consumer grid, however, that power remains primarily potential. Tapping it will be controversial as long as solar is expensive relative to energy from other sources, overwhelmingly coal and natural gas.

And even if all the projects now on the books get built, they would create a mere sliver of the electricity Texans consume every year.

Yet proponents insist solar power has a bright future here, with economic as well as environmental benefits. {read rest}