Photo: Google Maps Loblaw Couldn't Resist Ontario's Generous Feed-in Tariff? Loblaw is announcing today that it will put solar panels on the roof of 4 supermarkets in a pilot program, with the ultimate goal of installing solar arrays on more than 100 stores in Ontario. This is not surprising considering how insanely generous the feed-in tariffs for solar power are in the province (between 53.9 and 80.2 ¢/kWh, with 20-year contracts). I just hope that measures have been taken to avoid repeating what happened in S...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Photo via International Rivers The International Herald Tribune has an interesting (if embarrassingly headlined--in the print edition, they went all-out for an Icarus reference) look at the boom and bust of the Spanish solar industry today. Basically, in a rush to jumpstart a pioneering solar industry, the Spanish gov offered far too sweet a feed-in tariff for solar investors--a whopping 58 U...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Image credit: Good With the technology available today, powering an airplane with solar power doesn't make a whole lot of sense. But this isn't keeping people from trying. Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg, specifically, are working to build a solar airplane that could circle the planet....Read the full story on TreeHugger

Photo: Public domain, Sandia Labs The Search Giant is Working on Cheaper Mirrors Solar thermal power has a bright future (ha!), but at the moment the biggest hurdle in the way of wider adoption is capital cost. All those mirrors cost a lot of money and add up to a significant portion of the total cost of a solar thermal power plant. Thats why Google's energy division has been working on making cheaper mirrors. Bill Weihl, the company's green energy czar, claims that their latest prototype could cut by ...Read the full story on TreeHugger

A greenhouse is an effective way of harnessing solar power to extend the growing season for different kinds of fruits and vegetables in cold climates.

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