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A Solar-Powered Target Store | Earth Wise

April 26, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Many companies have made sustainability commitments of various types. Environmental organizations have urged big-box and grocery stores to install solar panels on their rooftops and parking lots thereby reducing their energy usage and expanding the country’s supply of renewable energy. These places occupy large areas and therefore are capable of supporting large solar arrays.

According to a report by two environmental advocacy groups, rooftop solar panels on retail stores could generate enough electricity to power the equivalent of nearly 8 million U.S. homes.

Target Stores are one of the retailers that has been making an effort to be a greener company. Target has installed solar panels on about 25% of its approximately 1,900 stores. The Target store in Vista, California, about 40 miles north of San Diego, is the company’s most sustainable store. It already had solar panels on its rooftop, powering a portion of the store.

But now it has installed massive carports topped with solar panels high above its parking lot. With these panels, this Target can now produce enough renewable energy to power the entire store, from its refrigeration to its heating and air conditioning. Adding in some of the other energy-saving features of the store, Target expects to produce 10% more energy than the store needs, which it will return to the local power grid. This is Target’s first net-zero energy store.

Target is not the only big retailer going solar. Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Walmart all have been installing solar panels on some of their rooftops. Even some restaurants are trying to reach sustainability goals with solar panels. This is a trend that hopefully will continue to grow.

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Target looks to massive solar panels in a California parking lot as a green model to power its stores

Photo, posted June 30, 2014, courtesy of Mike Mozart via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

A New Low For Lake Powell | Earth Wise

November 2, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Lake Powell is the second largest reservoir by capacity in the United States. It straddles the border of southeastern Utah and northeastern Arizona and was created by the Glen Canyon Dam, completed in 1963. The reservoir serves as a bank account of water that is drawn upon in times of drought and has made it possible to weather extended droughts by sustaining the needs of cities, industries, and agriculture in western states. Hydroelectric power by the dam’s eight generators provides electricity to seven states.

As a result of the protracted drought in the west, the water levels in Lake Powell have reached the lowest point since 1969. As of September 20, the lake held only 30% of its capacity and federal managers started releasing water from upstream reservoirs to help keep Lake Powell from dropping below the so-called minimum power threshold which is the water elevation that must be maintained to keep the dam’s hydropower turbines working properly.

With the entire Lower Colorado River water system below 40% of capacity, Bureau of Reclamation recently announced that water allocations in the U.S. Southwest would be cut over the next year. The Colorado River basin is managed to provide water to millions of people including those in San Diego, Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Los Angeles.

Successive dry winter seasons over the past two years along with a failed 2020 summer southwestern monsoon, have led to the lowest precipitation levels on record in the Southwest going at least as far back as 1895. With warm temperatures, reduced snowpack, and increased evaporation of soil moisture, most of the American West suffers from persistent and widespread drought.

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Lake Powell Reaches New Low

Photo, posted June 28, 2021, courtesy of the USFWS – Mountain Prairie via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

A Solar-Powered Airport

August 12, 2019 By EarthWise 1 Comment

The Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport in Tennessee has become the first airport in the United States to run entirely on solar power. The small airport operates over 60,000 flights a year and has recently completed work on a 12-acre, 2.64-megawatt solar farm that generates enough clean electricity to account for the airport’s total energy needs.

The project was funded largely by the Federal Aviation Administration, cost $10 million, and took nine years to complete. The facility uses onsite batteries to help power operations at night. The installation is expected to last 30 to 40 years.

The solar farm is in the southwest corner of the airfield on land that is unusable for aviation purposes. It is visible from the two runways at the airport.

Officials from nearly 50 airports around the world have visited or contacted the Chattanooga airfield in recent years to learn about its solar operations. Several major airports, including San Diego and London’s Gatwick, have also installed solar panels that provide a portion of their power needs. The world’s busiest airport – Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson – is looking into constructing renewable energy microgrids to power part of its operations. Airports generally have plenty of vacant land that can be used for solar panels that can lower their power bills.

The largest airport solar installation is actually Cochin International in Kerala, India, which became 100% solar powered in 2015. It is the 7^th largest airport in India. Its solar array has nearly 30 megawatts of capacity. Airport managers there were fed up with huge electric bills and invested about $9 million to install the solar array. It is expected to have paid for itself in the next couple of years.

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Chattanooga Becomes First U.S. Airport to Run Entirely On Solar

Photo courtesy of Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Desalination On The Rise

July 23, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Desalination has been regarded for decades as a solution for providing fresh water to places where it is scarce. With drought becoming more common around the world – sometimes even in places where water supplies were thought to be ample – there is increasing pressure to bring new desalination plants online.

San Diego gets only 12 inches of rain a year and has no groundwater. It gets half its water from the distant Colorado River, and that source is becoming increasingly unreliable. Thus, it is no surprise that America’s largest desalination plant is in Carlsbad, about 30 miles north of San Diego. That plant provides about 10% of the fresh water needs of the region’s 3.1 million people.

There are 11 desalination plants in California, and 10 more are proposed. Desalination is huge in Saudi Arabia, Australia and Israel. Globally, more than 300 million people get their water from desalination.

But there are problems. Desalination is expensive and energy-intensive. If the process is powered by fossil fuels, it contributes to global warming. There are ecological impacts as well since it takes two gallons of sea water to make a gallon of fresh water, and the gallon left behind is extremely briny and potentially harmful to dump back into the sea. The intake systems of desalination plants are also harmful to fish and other aquatic creatures.

The cost of desalination has dropped by more than half over the last 30 years but water from it still costs about twice as much as that from other main sources. The technology is getting better and cheaper, but the industry must confront and solve serious environmental and economic problems in order for desalination to be able to meet the needs of an increasingly thirsty world.

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