Clarification

A close friend of mine is in Professor Hightower's Energy Resources class. When I told her about Oxy's plan for a 2 megawatt solar array she said that there was still a problem with the panels that hadn't been considered. She said that Hightower had told her class that the solar panels were highly reflective. As you all already know this goes contrary to what Professor Snowden-Ifft told our class last Thursday. One of these professors has been misinformed. This reminds me of a certain health care bill that is being widely debated; Snowden-Ifft should investigate allegations of misinformation that can possibly lessen support for this project.

Good News! Martifer Solar, the company we have chosen to build our solar array, completed a new production line in July that is capable of producing 50 megawatts worth of solar panels in a year.

Why Do We Care? This new facility is fully automated and runs in a semi-sterile environment and eliminates the need for nitrogen trifluoride, a gas used in thermal cleaning of chemical vapor deposition when manufacturing solar cells and other electronics. This gas has a global warming potential more than 17,000 times higher than CO2 and it's use has been increasing steadily with yearly production more than doubling in the last few years. It's great that we are using a company which has less of a negative impact creating the solar panels. Martifer is also involved with other renewable energy sources the coolest of which is their prototype ocean wave driven generators off the coast of Portugal.