Audio By Carbonatix
Conventional wisdom says it can’t be done. We say it can’t not be. The downtown baseball stadium, once it’s approved by voters next week, should become a world showcase of solar power technology. The Valley’s power companies–Salt River Project and Arizona Public Service–should pool their resources and make the ballpark one huge demonstration project. A gesture of such beneficence would go a long way toward reversing the negative public image that the local utility giants work so hard to generate. It’s the kind of goodwill effort that might keep ratepayers from burning both companies’ neat new headquarter buildings to the ground someday.
But alas, being utility execs, they’ll undoubtedly come up with lots of reasons why the city should ignore this idea.
Au contraire:
The stadium will be large enough to include the huge photovoltaic panels needed to capture enough sun to light and cool the place at night.
If cool towers can be installed at the Civic Plaza to make that concrete jungle hospitable, think of how they’ll work at the open-air, natural grass stadium. Imagine the publicity the stadium’s solar system will get in every nationally broadcast game. It’s the kind of PR the city hasn’t been able to buy or manufacture in past years, as it lost out on the solar research institute to, of all places, Denver.
