My Solar Farm is Bigger Than Yours

Hot. Hot. I got home today from a weekend trip to Vermont, and stepping out of the car was like walking into a brick wall of heat. My normally sweet disposition disappears when the temperature gets above 90 - so I was crabby out in the greenhouse today, where the computer registered 108F in compartment 3. I didn't even bear the brunt of it - Lauren was the one out testing our new LICOR photosynthesis machine on our "Dummy" plants. Luckily, my own task for the next few days is far easier - I am taking nail polish peels of our experimental subjects and analyzing them under the microscope. Just what I like doing best.

In terms of the world outside of the lab (there is one there, I just know it!) - a friend sent me a neat article from CNN.com entitled, "California to build the world's largest solar farm." The title of the article is pretty self-explanatory - but this thing is going to be GI-Normous, seventeen times the largest existing US solar farm, and bigger than any planned in Germany (the hub of solar tech). Cleantech, the young corporation in charge of the operation, expects that economies of scale will help to drive down the cost of solar. Meaning that they are banking on the pure size and energy output of their new farm to help lower solar energy prices and stimulate purchasing. The cost of building the new solar farm remains undisclosed.