Saving the World One Lap at a Time

Hello Readers,

I wanted to start out by congradulating the Colorado Rockies who are one game away from sweeping my Arizona Diamondbacks in the National League Championship Series.

I was recently reading online about the San Fransisco Giants stadium and how they added 590 solar panels to their baseball park. According to the Giants web site, "AT&T Park will be the first in Major League Baseball with solar panels and will bring about 120 kilowatts of energy for PG&E customers in the City and County of San Francisco."

The 590 solar panels are about the same as 40 home roof systems and the estimated cost of the panels is around 1 million dollars and the power generated by the panels will be able to power the Giants new scoreboard, according to the Giants web site.

I think this is the wave of the future for sports stadiums and I think that more stadiums should be utalizing solar panels expecially teams on the west coast where there is a lot of sun light year round.

I know I touched on the topic of Formula One going green but I felt it needed a little bit more talking about because it seems that they are making a big difference. Formula One is heading toward hybrid technology for future years and I think this is very important and could have a huge impact on racing sports. Fuel economy is a major issue for Formula One and that is why they are changing their policies.

Formula One races are not like Indy or Nascar races because F1 races are mostly done on road courses. Indy and Nascar races don't require their cars to stop and start like F1 races do. Becasue F1 races are on road courses the fuel consumption is very high due to cars going up to 200 mph and then braking and starting up again. This problem made F1 realize that something needs to be done. According to the F1 web site, the F1 cars gets about 4 miles per gallon! F1 tried the hybrid idea back in the 1990s but was stalled due to safety, according to the F1 web site.

I think this is important because F1 is not not the problem anymore but now trying to become a part of the solution. Indy cars are also starting to be a part of the solution because they are using ethanol and Nascar has also switched to unleaded gas.