Green: Vatican To Build 100 Megawatt Solar Power Plant

There's money in the Vatican budget for this?

"The Vatican is going solar in a big way. The tiny state recently announced that it intends to spend 660 million dollars to create what will effectively be Europe's largest solar power plant. This massive 100 megawatt photovoltaic installation will provide enough energy to make the Vatican the first solar powered nation state in the world! 'The 100 megawatts unleashed by the station will supply about 40,000 households. That will far outstrip demand by Pope Benedict XVI and the 900 inhabitants of the 0.2 square-mile country nestled across Rome's Tiber River. The plant will cover nine times the needs of Vatican Radio, whose transmission tower is strong enough to reach 35 countries including Asia.'" (Slashdot)

Quote:

“Now is the time to strike,” Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo, the Vatican City’s governor, said in an interview from his study overlooking the Michelangelo-designed Basilica of St. Peter’s. “One should take advantage of the crisis to try and develop these renewable-energy sources to the maximum, which in the long run will reap incomparable rewards.” (Bloomberg)

What's next, an electric popemobile?

Solarworld executives in November said it was time to think about a “green” popemobile and offered to give the pope a low- emissions electric car to replace the white armored Mercedes- Benz open-top G-Class used by the Vatican.

While there has been no switchover since then, Lajolo at the time called an electric popemobile a “brilliant idea. If it costs less and can set an example, why not?”

Doh!