A non-profit organization founded to promote the generation of renewable

solar energy straight from your community’s parking lots.

Generate on-site solar electric power.

Reduce energy costs.

Provide premium shading.

Control water runoff.

Charge electric vehicles directly without needing to be converted to AC power for grid.

Highly visible evidence of a company’s commitment to the environment.

Provide green jobs.

ABC News reported on Dec 4, 2010 that there were 250 million cars and trucks on America’s roads.

The Urban Planners’ Rule of Thumb is that there are 8 parking spaces for every car (or truck) in the United States.

There are at least 500 million parking spaces are empty in the US at any given time.

Parking is the single biggest land use in any city.

1713 square miles (the estimated size of all surface parking lots in the US) could be used to generate 1 billion kilowatt-hours of solar power. With just 50% of that space covered with pv (photovoltaic or solar) panels, it could handle 2 billion cubic meters of stormwater runoff, generate 822,264 tons of oxygen, and remove 1.2 million tons of carbon dioxide annually.

From Donald Shoup: ―Solar Parking Requirements‖

Cities specify a minimum number of parking spaces for every building, the minimum size of the spaces and their landscaping.

Cities could also specify that a share of these spaces be covered with solar panels to meet the increased peak-hour power demand created by new buildings.

Cities can amend their zoning codes to require solar power in the parking lots of new buildings. Requiring a specific electric generating capacity, such as 1 kilowatt per parking space, will give developers the freedom to meet the requirement in the most cost-effective way.

Covering one parking space with solar panels will produce about 2 kilowatts of generating capacity (unless you live in sunny California where you’ll get 5 kilowatt-hours of electricity per day from 1 parking space).

If the parking lots of new buildings come with solar canopies, vast parking lots without solar panels could begin to look antisocial (Donald Shoup, Access Number 40, Spring 2012).

Sunpower. http://us.sunpowercorp.com/commercial/products-services/solar-parking/

Wall Street Journal. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10000872396390444914904577619821383361402

Shoup, Donald. Solar Parking Requirements. Access. Number 40. Spring 2012. http://www.uctc.net/access/40/access40_almanac.pdf

Glendal e Star. http://www.glendalestar.com/news/article_dfe7b260-10d0-11e3-9aa1-0019bb2963f4.html

Buckman, Allen K. Turning Parking Lots into Solar Plants. Today’s Energy Solutions. May 2011. Web. Accessed November 2, 2013. http://www.onlinetes.com/tes-0511-parking-lots-solar-power-plants.aspx

International Parking Institute. Overview of the US Parking Industry. Web. Accessed November 2, 2013. http://www.parking.org/media/overview-of-the-us-parking-industry.aspx

http://www.good.is/posts/growing-a-solar-forest-in-a-south-carolina-parking-lot

Did you know that the temperatures in Alaska and Siberia were in the 100s this past summer?

Did you know that the North Pole became a lake this past summer?

Did you know that the methane being released from sea beds in the Artic is fast becoming the real emergency we have to worry about? Follow the scientists of the Artic Methane Emergency Group for latest updates http://www.ameg.me/index.php/about-amegand on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/ArcticMethaneEmergencyGroup

Harold Wanless, a University of Miami geology professor who’s long studied climate change, envisions much worse — a rise of as much as two feet by 2048, three feet by 2063 and 4.1 to 6.6 feet by 2100. Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/11/09/3742641/rising-sea-levels-falling-real.html#storylink=cpy

{I agree it will be at least this bad. I’ve seriously studied the climate crisis since 2001.}

Ted Talk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWInyaMWBY8

We Are Only Beginning to Feel Climate Change Impacts http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lh2Ih712fbk

James Hansen on Tipping Points, Carbon Tax and Organized Denial http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCxDOs5Taew

We cannot drill and burn the shale oil. If we do, all scientists agree that our civilization will be over. That we will face mass extinction and the human race will probably not survive.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&ved=0CDQQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.westernresourceadvocates.org%2Fland%2Foilshalevalues.php&ei=xOqEUru3AdDdsASCsoKQCw&usg=AFQjCNGqHlJerwi4fdzB6xh7wmoynQaFyA&bvm=bv.56343320,d.cWc

The greed of the rich & powerful has monopolized the fuel industry since the early 1900s.

―Henry Ford designed the Model T to run on ethanol alcohol.‖

He had a 25% share of all fuel sales in the US.

John D Rockefeller funded the bill that became known as ―Prohibition.‖

When Ford gave up, they lifted Prohibition.

―In the year before 911, VP Cheney held 40 secret meetings with the heads of major oil companies. In those meetings, it was obvious that the oil companies were writing energy policy for our country.‖

―Justice department released maps from the meetings that showed the oil companies discussed Iraqi oil pipelines, oil refineries and oil fields. Iraq had the second largest oil reserves in the world. The maps were dated March 2001, six months before 911.

Naomi Klein, author of ―Shock Doctrine‖

―If we think about 911 and why we felt the way we did after the event, it’s because there wasn’t a story to explain that event. When we lose our story…we become childlike. That’s what happens in a state of shock and you are very inclined to believe in strong father like figures who claim to have it all figured out. And so we think about what happened after September 911 when we lost our story, the eagerness of the Bush administration was so acute in planting a new story, immediately, and this new story was called the war on terror.‖

Scott Ritter, former UN Weapons Inspector, 1991-1998

―Suddenly on September 12th, we have a war meeting in the White House with Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, saying we got to take out Iraq. Paul Wolfowitz said, in an interview with Vanity Fair, we just had to pick an issue to sell this case to the American public. And the issue we picked was wmd [weapons of mass destruction].‖

―The nexus of wmd and terrorism has been created. It doesn’t exist – there is no connection between Suddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. There are no weapons of mass destruction. The more we found out what the truth was, the more the truth became inconvenient to the policy objectives of the United States government.‖

Roger Ballentine, Former Energy Advisor, Clinton Administration

―Our desire and our need to protect the flow of foreign oil requires us to spend a lot of money in a military presence in the Middle East. We spend $50 billion a year, in just everyday military expenditures, just to protect the flow of oil, we spend $50 billion dollars a year.‖

Shell $28 Billion

Chevron $19 Billion

BP $17 Billion

ConocoPhillips $12 Billion

ExxonMobil $40 Billion

Exxon sales top $1 Billion a day.

Chris Sanders, President, Sanders Research Assoc., International Investments

―If you keep running up your credit, you’ve got a choice. You can declare bankruptcy or you can pick up a gun and go rob a service station. The United States had elected to pick up a gun and go rob a service station. That’s what the war on terror is all about.‖

Robert Kennedy

―We were the most beloved nation on the face of the planet. And it took 230 years of disciplined, restrained, visionary leadership by Republican and Democrat presidents to build up those vast reservoirs of public adoration of the United States and for our values. Through monumental arrogance and incompetence, these oil slaves in the White House have drained those reservoirs dry…‖

―Abraham Lincoln said America is a great nation because we are a good nation and he said if we ever stop being a good nation we’ll quickly lose our greatness as well. Because of our addiction to oil, we have lost that greatness, because we lost our goodness. We put the oil in front of the Bill of Rights. This isn’t a great nation just because it’s a place where you can come and make a big pile for yourself and whoever dies with the most wins. It’s good because of the values that we’re proud of, that we pass down to our children.‖

That’s it in a nutshell, folks. Either you’re going to stand up and start doing the right thing (even if it means taking the bus) or not. I mean, with all that knowledge about 911, it should be obvious to you that not only the oil is running out, but that we the people need to start standing up for what is right again. And quickly. Solar Parking Lots will help us keep our current lifestyle – that ever so convenient lifestyle that keeps us dependent on a car.