This document proposes using parking lots to generate solar power through installing solar panels above parking spaces. Key points: - There are over 500 million empty parking spaces in the US daily that could be used for solar panels. - Covering just 50% of the estimated 1713 square miles of parking lots with solar panels could generate 2 billion kilowatt-hours annually while providing benefits like stormwater management and reducing carbon emissions. - Cities can require new buildings to include solar panels over a portion of parking spaces through zoning code amendments.

1. A non-profit organization founded to
promote the generation of renewable
solar energy straight from your
community’s parking lots.

2. 
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Generate on-site solar electric power.
Reduce energy costs.
Provide premium shading.
Control water runoff.
Charge electric vehicles directly without
needing to be converted to AC power for grid.
Highly visible evidence of a company’s
commitment to the environment.
Provide green jobs.

3. 
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ABC News reported on Dec 4, 2010 that there
were 250 million cars and trucks on America’s
roads.
The Urban Planners’ Rule of Thumb is that
there are 8 parking spaces for every car (or
truck) in the United States.
There are at least 500 million parking spaces
are empty in the US at any given time.
Parking is the single biggest land use in any
city.

4. 
1713 square miles (the estimated size of
all surface parking lots in the US) could
be used to generate 1 billion kilowatthours of solar power. With just 50% of
that space covered with pv (photovoltaic
or solar) panels, it could handle 2 billion
cubic meters of stormwater runoff,
generate 822,264 tons of oxygen, and
remove 1.2 million tons of carbon dioxide
annually.

5. From Donald Shoup: ―Solar Parking Requirements‖
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Cities specify a minimum number of parking spaces for
every building, the minimum size of the spaces and
their landscaping.
Cities could also specify that a share of these spaces be
covered with solar panels to meet the increased peakhour power demand created by new buildings.
Cities can amend their zoning codes to require solar
power in the parking lots of new buildings. Requiring
a specific electric generating capacity, such as 1
kilowatt per parking space, will give developers the
freedom to meet the requirement in the most costeffective way.

6. 
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Covering one parking space with solar panels
will produce about 2 kilowatts of generating
capacity (unless you live in sunny California
where you’ll get 5 kilowatt-hours of electricity
per day from 1 parking space).
If the parking lots of new buildings come with
solar canopies, vast parking lots without solar
panels could begin to look antisocial (Donald
Shoup, Access Number 40, Spring 2012).

7. 
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Sunpower. http://us.sunpowercorp.com/commercial/productsservices/solar-parking/
Wall Street Journal.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000087239639044491490457761
9821383361402
Shoup, Donald. Solar Parking Requirements. Access. Number 40. Spring
2012. http://www.uctc.net/access/40/access40_almanac.pdf
Glendal e Star. http://www.glendalestar.com/news/article_dfe7b26010d0-11e3-9aa1-0019bb2963f4.html
Buckman, Allen K. Turning Parking Lots into Solar Plants. Today’s Energy
Solutions. May 2011. Web. Accessed November 2, 2013.
http://www.onlinetes.com/tes-0511-parking-lots-solar-powerplants.aspx
International Parking Institute. Overview of the US Parking Industry. Web.
Accessed November 2, 2013.
http://www.parking.org/media/overview-of-the-us-parkingindustry.aspx
http://www.good.is/posts/growing-a-solar-forest-in-a-south-carolinaparking-lot

8. 
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Did you know that the temperatures in Alaska and
Siberia were in the 100s this past summer?
Did you know that the North Pole became a lake
this past summer?
Did you know that the methane being released
from sea beds in the Artic is fast becoming the real
emergency we have to worry about? Follow the
scientists of the Artic Methane Emergency Group
for latest updates
http://www.ameg.me/index.php/about-ameg
and on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/ArcticMethaneEmerg
encyGroup

9. 
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Harold Wanless, a University of Miami
geology professor who’s long studied climate
change, envisions much worse — a rise of as
much as two feet by 2048, three feet by 2063
and 4.1 to 6.6 feet by 2100.
Read more here:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/11/09/3
742641/rising-sea-levels-fallingreal.html#storylink=cpy
{I agree it will be at least this bad. I’ve
seriously studied the climate crisis since 2001.}

10. 
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Ted Talk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWInyaM
WBY8
We Are Only Beginning to Feel Climate
Change Impacts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lh2Ih712
fbk
James Hansen on Tipping Points, Carbon Tax
and Organized Denial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCxDOs5
Taew

11. 
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We cannot drill and burn the shale oil. If we
do, all scientists agree that our civilization will
be over. That we will face mass extinction and
the human race will probably not survive.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&
esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&ved=0CD
QQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.westernr
esourceadvocates.org%2Fland%2Foilshalevalu
es.php&ei=xOqEUru3AdDdsASCsoKQCw&us
g=AFQjCNGqHlJerwi4fdzB6xh7wmoynQaFyA
&bvm=bv.56343320,d.cWc

13. 
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The greed of the rich & powerful has
monopolized the fuel industry since the early
1900s.
―Henry Ford designed the Model T to run on
ethanol alcohol.‖
He had a 25% share of all fuel sales in the US.
John D Rockefeller funded the bill that became
known as ―Prohibition.‖
When Ford gave up, they lifted Prohibition.

14. 
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―In the year before 911, VP Cheney held 40
secret meetings with the heads of major oil
companies. In those meetings, it was obvious
that the oil companies were writing energy
policy for our country.‖
―Justice department released maps from the
meetings that showed the oil companies
discussed Iraqi oil pipelines, oil refineries and
oil fields. Iraq had the second largest oil
reserves in the world. The maps were dated
March 2001, six months before 911.

15. 
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Naomi Klein, author of ―Shock Doctrine‖
―If we think about 911 and why we felt the way we
did after the event, it’s because there wasn’t a story
to explain that event. When we lose our story…we
become childlike. That’s what happens in a state
of shock and you are very inclined to believe in
strong father like figures who claim to have it all
figured out. And so we think about what
happened after September 911 when we lost our
story, the eagerness of the Bush administration
was so acute in planting a new story, immediately,
and this new story was called the war on terror.‖

16. 
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Scott Ritter, former UN Weapons Inspector,
1991-1998
―Suddenly on September 12th, we have a war
meeting in the White House with Paul
Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense,
saying we got to take out Iraq. Paul Wolfowitz
said, in an interview with Vanity Fair, we just
had to pick an issue to sell this case to the
American public. And the issue we picked was
wmd [weapons of mass destruction].‖

17. 
―The nexus of wmd and terrorism has been
created. It doesn’t exist – there is no connection
between Suddam Hussein and Osama bin
Laden. There are no weapons of mass
destruction. The more we found out what the
truth was, the more the truth became
inconvenient to the policy objectives of the
United States government.‖

18. 
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Roger Ballentine, Former Energy Advisor,
Clinton Administration
―Our desire and our need to protect the flow of
foreign oil requires us to spend a lot of money
in a military presence in the Middle East. We
spend $50 billion a year, in just everyday
military expenditures, just to protect the flow
of oil, we spend $50 billion dollars a year.‖

19. 
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Shell $28 Billion
Chevron $19 Billion
BP $17 Billion
ConocoPhillips $12 Billion
ExxonMobil $40 Billion
Exxon sales top $1 Billion a day.

20. 
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Chris Sanders, President, Sanders Research
Assoc., International Investments
―If you keep running up your credit, you’ve
got a choice. You can declare bankruptcy or
you can pick up a gun and go rob a service
station. The United States had elected to pick
up a gun and go rob a service station. That’s
what the war on terror is all about.‖

21. 
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Robert Kennedy
―We were the most beloved nation on the face
of the planet. And it took 230 years of
disciplined, restrained, visionary leadership by
Republican and Democrat presidents to build
up those vast reservoirs of public adoration of
the United States and for our values. Through
monumental arrogance and incompetence,
these oil slaves in the White House have
drained those reservoirs dry…‖

22. 
―Abraham Lincoln said America is a great
nation because we are a good nation and he
said if we ever stop being a good nation we’ll
quickly lose our greatness as well. Because of
our addiction to oil, we have lost that
greatness, because we lost our goodness. We
put the oil in front of the Bill of Rights. This
isn’t a great nation just because it’s a place
where you can come and make a big pile for
yourself and whoever dies with the most wins.
It’s good because of the values that we’re
proud of, that we pass down to our children.‖

23. 
That’s it in a nutshell, folks. Either you’re
going to stand up and start doing the right
thing (even if it means taking the bus) or not. I
mean, with all that knowledge about 911, it
should be obvious to you that not only the oil is
running out, but that we the people need to
start standing up for what is right again. And
quickly. Solar Parking Lots will help us keep
our current lifestyle – that ever so convenient
lifestyle that keeps us dependent on a car.