Original Article from New York Times here
"...the day might come when people can pull their electric cars up to a store and recharge them with power from the roof or even from wind turbines in the parking lot."
Its the last sentence in this article that grabs you. The article points out an increase in retail business including solar panels within their retail big-boxes. While the energy savings and bottom line of these maneuvers is clear (though it represents 10% - 40%) the price isn't such an easy answer - costing millions of dollars making coal still the cheapest option.
But a marketing maneuver it is, green-washing and visual displays of "do-gooding." But what of the notion of having a new infrastructure of retail energy outlets. What is the draw of retail business offering "energy" for free if you shop with them? How could this feed into the great (mobile) infrastructure of energy and its distribution? Can we imagine a scenario of working/shopping during the day, recharging our Car to return home and plug our cars into our house...energy is shared, distributed. What are the new market forces? energy, time, open space, energy prices, battery storage.
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