The Green Zone

The New Green Zone, Baghdad, Iraq.

from The Guardian:

"The US military released the first tentative artists' impression yesterday. An army source said the barbed wire, concrete blast barriers and checkpoints that currently disfigure the 5 sq mile area would be replaced by shopping malls, hotels, elegant apartment blocks and leisure parks."

"American officials stress that final decisions about reconstruction and development rest with the Iraqi government. Karnowski added that as well as the benefits of renovating and demilitarising an important area of Baghdad, the blueprint would help to create a "zone of influence" around the massive new US Embassy compound being built on the eastern tip of the Green Zone. The $1bn project to move the embassy from Saddam's old presidential palace is planned for completion later this year."

Solar Big Boxes

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.