Archive for July, 2011

Fuel, Cars, Batteries. Parking Garages As The Next Logical Step.

Via Greentech Media, a report that General Motors Ventures has invested $7.5 million into Sunlogics, which makes solar-powered garage stalls with amorphous silicon solar panels.  Yet another indication of the investment community realizing the area over a parking lot or top of a building has been a non-performing asset for businesses.  Adding solar turns them […]

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Cool Roofs For A Cooler Planet: A Hot Idea

Via The Sierra Club, an interesting report on the impact that white roofs could have upon global climate: Temperatures soar to 104o F here in downtown DC, but the humidity makes it feel like 120. City-dwellers squint and grimace. Tourists shield their bodies with light-colored fabric, like nomads trekking across the Sahara. We swelter. Last […]

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Solar: Now For Renters, Too

Via GigaOm, a report detailing a recent decision by the California Public Utilities Commission voted to give renters of apartments or other multi-tenant housing access to a so-called virtual net metering program, which allows renters to get credits on their utility bills for the electricity produced by a communal solar system on their complex. “…The […]

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White Roofs vs. Green Roofs: Which Is Better In Terms of Global Warming Reduction?

Via Celsias, an interesting article summarizing the differences between green roofs and white roofs in contributing to global warming reduction in a positive way: “…The short answer is that they are both good in their different ways and in any particular situation it depends on what you are wanting to achieve as both types produce […]

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Solarithmetic In (On) Schools: Good For Private Investors

Via Earth Techling, a report on an interesting financial innovation that allows private investors to own the solar power systems installed at public schools while still receiving substantial associated tax benefits. “…That concept is swiftly becoming a reality in Gainesville, Fla., where Gainesville Regional Utility‘s (GRU) feed-in tariff system will be instrumental in bringing renewable […]

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Bundling The Sun: Turning Solar Leases Into Asset-Backed Securities

Via Forbes, an article discussing the trend towards bundling solar leases into an asset-backed security: “…When solar entrepreneur Edward Fenster looks across the roofs of photo voltaic panels his company has installed on thousands of homes, he sees not just a source of clean green electricity but also security. An asset-backed security, that is. Fenster […]

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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.”