Archive for May, 2011

Solar Services Hitting The Mainstream?

Via ClimateWire, a report on the recently announced partnership between Sungevity and Lowe’s Home improvement stores to help customers quote and install a solar system.  As the article notes: “…Critics often charge that solar is “fringe” or “inaccessible,” which has historically been true. Since the 70’s, home solar photovoltaics has been largely a technology for […]

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Rooftop Housing

Via Inhabitat, an interesting look at rooftop housing: From solar arrays and green roofs to exquisite gardens and massive farms, rooftops in New York City boast a lot more than just air conditioners and water towers. Covering our buildings’ roofs is a hallmark of sustainable building, and in a dense urban landscape like the Big […]

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Solar R Us

Via The Sierra Club, a report on what may prove to be the largest single solar rooftop installation in North America: When clean-energy supporters hear that one corporation plans to add 5 MW of solar on one facility, they turn into kids in a candy store — or, in this case, a toy store. Toys […]

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Growing Profits On The Roof

Courtesy of The New York Times, an interesting article on the economic viability of rooftop agriculture: “…When Lufa Farms began selling produce to customers in Montreal in late April, it signaled what could be the beginning of a tantalizing new era in the gastronomic fortunes of that Canadian metropolis. In all but the short summer […]

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The Emerging Youtility

Via Cleanbreak, an interesting report on how the Toronto District School Board has become, in effect, a solar utility by agreeing to install PV panels on 450 rooftops under a $445-million deal.  As the article notes: Kudos to the Toronto District School Board for taking the plunge into solar PV, announcing yesterday its trustees had […]

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Green Roof Proves a Cost-Effective Way to Keep Water out of Sewers

Via Science Daily, an article on how green roofs can be a cost-effective way to keep water from running into sewer systems.  As the report notes: “…Green roofs like the one atop a Con Edison building in Long Island City, Queens can be a cost-effective way to keep water from running into sewer systems and […]

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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.”