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France Decrees New Rooftops Must Be Covered In Plants Or Solar Panels

Posted by Soulskill on from the or-at-least-fine-pastries dept.

An anonymous reader writes: A law approved in France Thursday now requires all new rooftops in commercial zones to be covered in plants or solar panels. "Green roofs have an isolating effect, helping reduce the amount of energy needed to heat a building in winter and cool it in summer. They also retain rainwater, thus helping reduce problems with runoff, while favoring biodiversity and giving birds a place to nest in the urban jungle, ecologists say." The law was actually watered down from its original version — businesses only have to cover part of their roof. In other solar power news, reader SpzToid notes that despite earlier worries, the European power grid handled the solar eclipse just fine

3 of 247 comments (clear)

  1. Summer cooling? by DoofusOfDeath · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Here's something I've been curious about. I would expect that if there's a between the solar panels and the roof, this would lead the attic to stay a lot cooler in the summer. Because the sun would be mostly heating up the panels and not the roof. Anyone know if that can significantly reduce the temperature of a home's living spaces?

    1. Re:Summer cooling? by Nemyst · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The EPA has a page on the very subject, claiming that green roofs not only help with cooling, but also heating, since they act as insulators. They also reduce pollutants in the air and combat the heat island effect present in many large cities. I am not aware of many negatives for them, aside from the maintenance required for the more elaborate ones.

  2. Re:Pointing out the stark, bleeding obvious... by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So the plan is to install enough batteries to power the world all night long, and then for a week or two when the weather is bad?

    Or is it to put solar all over the Earth and have a massive world wide power grid to move power to where it is needed?

    I suppose either is technically possible, I just don't think either is likely to happen.

    How about we build nitrogen fixation factories near the baseload generation, keep the baseload on all the time, and make fertilizer during the times when the energy is otherwise not needed? Nitrogen fixation can be quickly started up and shut down without damage to the system, and requires an enormous amount of worldwide energy.

    How about we build a smart grid, which incorporates electric vehicles on home charging systems? Charge the car during the day, then give back some of the stored energy at night when the car's in the garage.

    How about we take recycled batteries from aging electric vehicles - batteries that can hold 80% of their original charge, but which are no longer good enough for electric vehicle operation - and stack them in warehouses to store and release energy as needed? Do batteries lose capacity at an exponential rate? If so, those 80% batteries should last a long time.

    How about we mount the solar panels with a gap above the rooftops, so that the panels keep sunlight off of the roof, reducing [somewhat] the *need* for energy to be spent on air conditioning?

    How about we look for solutions rather than assume that everything will be exactly like it is now, except with problems that cannot be solved?