A new kind of Power Plant

In an Article on the Discovery News website Chris Davis talks about taking sports stadiums and covering them with Solar Panels to provide the electricity to power the facilities when in use and the community around the stadium when it is not.  He points to a project in Taiwan that built a stadium using this very premise. Can you image Wrigley Field or the SuperDome powering the neighborhood around them? They would turn into even bigger assets for the community. The panels could help offset the massive energy usage if not totally making the facilities self sufficient. I think it's a great idea and should be used in any forward thinking or simply practical city. My city, Chicago, has several huge buildings with useless roofs, like the various McCormick Places, which are huge event spaces with millions of square feet of roof space.  Any large factory, warehouse, or other building should help provide power to the local community. This would also protect local areas from brown/black-outs and other problems that are sometimes triggered from problems in plants or transmission lines far away. A more defused power generation grid would be more robust and secure. It would also eventually (after initial investment) help to lower the generating costs of electricity and help us move into a more carbon neutral power production environment. So, city planners, it's time to get moving. Imagine when flying into a large city seeing the glimmering roofs of solar panels across the cityscape. This is simply a progression of green roofs which are a popular cause of Chicago's Mayor Richard M. Daley (our City Hall has one). Traditional green roofs help reduce heat island effects in cities and lower HVAC costs for buildings. They can also be used to grow food and make the city more livable. So let's make it happen. Call your mayor and tell them to start making the city power itself.