Catalina Island is the only place in California where the number and size of road-going motor vehicles is regulated by law. For residents of the island who want to bring a personal car, this means signing up at the bottom of a 14-year waiting list. Tourists are not permitted to ferry a vehicle from the mainland, even for temporary use. These policies keep the total car count below 1,000.

Because the principal settlement and center of activity, Avalon, is only about one square mile in size, walking works in most situations. Visitors in need of luggage help find hotel shuttle and taxi services readily available. There are two trolley routes within Avalon, and vans and shuttle buses are available for charter trips outside the city. Golf carts are a popular way of making short trips as well as exploring the mountainous area of the island’s interior. Bicycles are another reliable option.

Catalina Island lies 22 miles off the coast of California near Los Angeles. This 76-square mile escape has two major settlements: the main city of Avalon (about 4,000 permanent residents) and the town of Two Harbors (about 300 permanent residents). Around one million tourists arrive via boat or helicopter each year. Popular activities include hiking, mountain biking, camping, snorkeling, scuba diving, parasailing, and bus and boat tours.

Most of the island is controlled by the Catalina Island Conservancy, a non-profit organization that attempts to preserve Catalina’s natural beauty and ecosystem. Despite this, the beach at Avalon is listed on the Natural Resources Defense Council’s list of the 10 most chronically polluted American beaches. The city’s century-old sewage system is to blame; its clay and metal pipes have deteriorated to the point that they no longer contain much of the human waste produced. The sewage that escapes the plumbing system enters the groundwater and finds its way to the coast. The waters appear pristine, but water quality tests tell another story.

Over the summer, the city of Avalon is launched at $5.1-million project to address the problem—the latest effort in a series of measures taken over the last decade.

An article on Catalina Island

Official Site: Catalina Island

In an ambitious move, a Californian utility plans to create a massive, distributed “powerplant” by installing a total of 2 square miles of solar cells on the roofs of businesses. Southern California Edison plans to install 250 megawatts’ worth of solar power, generating enough electricity to power 162,000 homes.

Green Wombat reports:

It’s a potentially game-changing move, one that could lower the cost of solar cells as manufacturers ramp up production to meet the utility’s schedule of installing a megawatt-a-week of arrays until it reaches the 250-megawatt target. That alone is more than United States’ entire production of solar cells in 2006 and will generate as much electricity as a small coal-fired power plant, albeit with no greenhouse gas emissions.

The $875 million initiative also marks the first big foray into so-called distributed energy by a major utility. Instead of building a centralized power station and the expensive transmission system needed to transmit electricity to the power grid, Edison will connect clusters of solar arrays into existing neighborhood circuits. A significant hurdle for the massive megawatt solar power plants planned for California’s Mojave Desert is the need in some cases to build multi billion-dollar transmission systems through environmentally sensitive lands to bring the electricity to coastal metropolises.

The initiative will work like this: Edison will lease the warehouse rooftop space from building owners in Riverside and San Bernardino counties. The utility will outsource the installation, and retain ownership of the solar cells.

This plan will be exciting if it is achieved, and it will become a model for other utilities to follow.

Via: Green Wombat

Nanosolar has just announced that, after five years of development, it will be shipping its innovative “solar film” product. Basically, Nanosolar is able to print solar panels on machines that resemble printing presses. The company, whose backers include Google’s co-founders, say it is producing the world’s lowest-cost solar panel, costing as little as 99 cents per watt.

What will Nanosolar be doing with the first three commercial panels?

• Panel #1 will remain at Nanosolar for exhibit.
• Panel #2 can be purchased by you in an auction on eBay starting today.
• Panel #3 has been donated to the Tech Museum in San Jose.

Nanosolar is a heavily financed Silicon Valley start-up. The company has raised $150 million and built a 200,000-square-foot factory.

To make solar film, Nanosolar prints CIGS (copper-indium-gallium-selenium) onto a thin polymer. There is no costly silicon involved in the process. Nanosolar is only a few years old, but it has laid plans to take on multinational corporations, such as BP and Sharp, in the solar industry.

Via: NanoSolar Blog