Archive for February, 2011

Urban Apiaries: All Abuzz About Rooftop Beekeeping

Via Clean Energy Lease, a short article on urban beekeeping: Buzz around town is that beekeeping is going towards a micro level. With bee health declining, competition from overseas production, and more, bee keepers are going through a challenging time. Wherever there is agriculture produced, bees have a role in pollination. Without healthy bees, agriculture […]

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Solar Panels A Hot Commodity For Realtors

Via 1BOG, an interesting article on the value of solar installations from a real estate sales perspective.  As the report notes: “…Once considered an eyesore by the real estate market, solar panels are apparently now becoming a hot commodity. An influential study by NREL (National Renewable Energy Lab) caught everyone’s’ attention last year when it […]

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Sprout It From The Rooftops: Benefits Of Living Roofs

Via Celsias.com, an interesting report on the advantages of living roofs: “…Auckland, New Zealand ,like any other city heats up and becomes unbearable: it washes its storm water away quick as a flash. It keeps biodiversity knocking at its suburban doors. It doesn’t have to be this way, of course. It can harness sunshine, rain […]

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White Roofs Could Save U.S. $735 Million per Year

Via Inhabitat.com, a brief but interesting analysis of the economics underpinning the cooling effect that white roofs have on buildings — especially air-conditioned ones — as well as their ability to drastically lower energy costs.  As the article notes: Since being appointed as the Secretary of Energy, Dr. Steven Chu has been talking all about […]

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SunShot Program: Raising The Roof On The Ten Million Solar Roof Initiative?

Courtesy of Inhabitat.com, a report on the Ten Million Solar Roof Initiative proposed by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont in 2010 which aims to put solar panels and water heaters on 10 million American roofs by 2020.  As the article notes, the recently-announced SunShot program aims to drastically drive down the cost of solar energy […]

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White Roofs: A Red-Hot Option To Cool The World

Via the Spray Foam Insulation Community Portal (an industry site), a brief look at cool roofs: As the threat of global warming becomes widely recognized, scientists have proposed using geoengineering (manipulation of the Earths environment) to quickly respond to this threat. Most proposed geo-engineering techniques are novel and unproven. Two simple technologies that have been […]

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About This Blog And Its Author
As potential uses for building and parking lot roofspace continue to grow, unique opportunities to understand and profit from this trend will emerge. Roof Options is committed to tracking the evolving uses of roof estate – spanning solar power, rainwater harvesting, wind power, gardens & farms, “cooling” sites, advertising, apiculture, and telecom transmission platforms – to help unlock the nascent, complex, and expanding roofspace asset class.

Educated at Yale University (Bachelor of Arts - History) and Harvard (Master in Public Policy - International Development), Monty Simus has held a lifelong interest in environmental and conservation issues, primarily as they relate to freshwater scarcity, renewable energy, and national park policy. Working from a water-scarce base in Las Vegas with his wife and son, he is the founder of Water Politics, an organization dedicated to the identification and analysis of geopolitical water issues arising from the world’s growing and vast water deficits, and is also a co-founder of SmartMarkets, an eco-preneurial venture that applies web 2.0 technology and online social networking innovations to motivate energy & water conservation. He previously worked for an independent power producer in Central Asia; co-authored an article appearing in the Summer 2010 issue of the Tulane Environmental Law Journal, titled: “The Water Ethic: The Inexorable Birth Of A Certain Alienable Right”; and authored an article appearing in the inaugural issue of Johns Hopkins University's Global Water Magazine in July 2010 titled: “H2Own: The Water Ethic and an Equitable Market for the Exchange of Individual Water Efficiency Credits.”