Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

The Ultra-Efficient Farm of the Future Is in the Sky

Via Wired, a look at a rooftop laboratory where scientists show how growing crops under solar panels can produce both food and clean energy: Five stories off the ground at Colorado State University, a highly unlikely garden grows under a long row of rooftop solar panels. It’s late October at 9 am, when the temperature is […]

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This Number Helps Explain Why Rooftop Solar Is Becoming More Attractive in Many States

Courtesy of Inside Climate News, a look at state electricity rates, the “15-cent rule,” and what it means for solar: About 5 percent of U.S. households have rooftop solar, a share that may seem like a lot, but it looks low compared to places like Germany (about 20 percent) and Australia (about 30 percent). One of […]

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Why One Couple Went All-In On A Show-Stopping ‘Green Roof’

Via The Washington Post, a look at why one couple went all-in on a show-stopping ‘green roof’: When their roof needed to be replaced, D.C. architects Mark and Lucia Freeman installed a green roof. (Jennifer Chase for The Washington Post) When most people offer guests a tour of their home, they give you a spin through […]

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Some Rare, Real Talk From a Utility About Competition With Rooftop Solar

Via Inside Climate News, a report on how one Arizona utility’s expert witness finally said the quiet part out loud of why utilities fear rooftop solar: In a hearing last month in Arizona, an expert witness for the state’s largest utility said he agrees with the idea that utilities oppose rooftop solar because it is […]

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Google: Powering The Future With New Solar API

Can Google Maps help save the planet?  Back in 2014, Google helped a team launch Project Sunroof- an incredibly useful tool that uses Maps data to calculate how much sunlight a building receives and estimates how much solar energy it could generate.  It does this, with the help of a lot of computers and clever […]

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Inside the Slow, Yet ‘Incredible’ Installation of a $78,000 Tesla Solar Roof

Courtesy of the Wall Street Journal, a look at the slow, yet ‘incredible’ installation of a $78,000 Tesla solar roof I needed a new roof anyway,” says Winka Dubbeldam, standing outside her house in the Springs, a hamlet on the east end of Long Island. And as long as she was replacing her roof, Dubbeldam, […]

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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.”