Solar Energy

A rush to stake claims for renewable energy projects in the California desert has triggered a federal investigation and prompted calls for reforms to prevent public lands from being exposed to private profiteering and environmental degradation. Officials said last week that the inspector general's office of the Department of the Interior was investigating Tempe, Ariz.-based First Solar Inc.'s recent acquisition of Hayward, Calif.

It is far from the "million solar roofs" that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger touted, but the number of rooftop solar installations in California has grown from an estimated 500 a decade ago to nearly 50,000 today. And in the last three years, the Golden State's solar market has more than doubled.

In a lab in Caltech, Harry Atwater holds up a plastic panel, a fraction of a millimeter thick. Even in the brightly lit room, the surface's panel remains jet-black -- absorbing all the light that hits it. The high-tech material is 10 times more efficient at absorbing light than the regular silicon cells that some homeowners install on their roofs to harvest the energy of the sun. It is one of several projects that Atwater's team at Caltech...

Across the desert flatlands of southeastern California, dozens of companies have flooded federal offices with applications to place solar mirrors on more than a million acres of public land. But just as some of those projects appear headed toward fruition, environmental hurdles threaten to jeopardize efforts to further tap the region's renewable energy potential. The development of solar-power facilities in the desert has been a top priority of the Obama administration as it seeks to ease the nation's dependence on fossil fuels and curb global warming.

Los Angeles City Controller Laura Chick said Thursday that she is against the solar energy plan known as Measure B. She said the proposal was rushed through the City Council without sufficient review and noted that there are two reports with widely divergent cost estimates for the plan to add 400 megawatts of solar panels to parking lots, rooftops and other surfaces by 2014. Chick made her remarks as she unveiled a 223-page report on the Department of Water and Power that says the agency has not determined how much more its ratepayers would have to pay for the shift to solar, wind and geothermal energy.

Using solar ovens built from recycled materials, fifth-grade students at Tustin Memorial Elementary School cooked up a treat Friday for themselves and their classmates: hot dogs heated to a sizzle by the morning's bright sun. The students built the eight ovens, some of which got as hot as 275 degrees, as part of their study of the Earth's atmosphere and the greenhouse effect, teacher Mark Payne said. "This is free energy, and we're not polluting," he said.

With patience, ingenuity and a lot of duct tape, four South El Monte High School students built and raced a solar-powered bicycle that beat 23 other sun-worshiping schools in a national bike race, their teacher said. Three of the students transformed an ordinary race bike into a math/science project that took first place in the high school division and third in an all-ages competition at last month's Solar Bikerace USA, in Neosho, Mo.

Hundreds of yards from a room in the Huntington Library holding the oldest Bible written in English is what energy experts hope will be the new form of urban energy in the 21st century--row after row of solar panels. Affixed to a concrete slab over an empty reservoir, the photovoltaic panels generate 100 kilowatts that are dispersed into Southern California Edison's power grid, providing power to the Huntington and the stately surrounding San Marino neighborhood.

The fall equinox last week signaled the official end of long, sunny days in the Valley. For some kids, especially those interested in science, less sun can mean more incentive to try to "capture" it, or at least its power. Kits to build high-tech solar collectors for school experiments or to fuel toy airplanes and water mills are now available at selected toy stores in the Valley. One Canoga Park firm, Sun-Mate Corp., the largest U.S.

Last weekend's flurry of Earth Day celebrations obscured Sun Day--an annual observance devoted to renewable energy. According to Alan Tratner, who organized the initial Ventura County observance of this event seven years ago when former President Jimmy Carter launched it nationally, Sun Day is held the Sunday closest to Earth Day, but the difference between the events is worth noting.