The Pentagon will install solar panel array as part of $55 million DOD initiative

2024-02-03T08:00:00-05:00

The Pentagon has announced it will be installing a solar panel array on its roof in a historic first that’s part of a new $55 million Department of Defense clean energy initiative at military installations in the United States and Germany.

The DOD has been active in attempting to mitigate the large carbon footprint caused by the U.S. military with similar conservation strategies for several years. The money for the new solar panels is being sourced from a larger Department of Energy program that will spend $104 million in total on 31 projects affecting ten other federal agencies. The DOD says this is necessary to bolster its energy resilience and defense operational capabilities while also improving the quality of life for service members living and working at bases full-time.

"We have a moral obligation to the people that defend our nation, to their famili...

Anti-democratic vistas: Plans for a new city in Northern Californian farmlands draw ire from concerned officials

2023-09-04T12:00:00-04:00

Over a five-year period, the company became the largest landowner in Solano County after purchasing more than 55,000 acres of undeveloped land. The company has paid more than $800 million since 2018, according to court records. [...] On the eastern end of Solano County, the city of Rio Vista is now surrounded by Flannery Associates land. Mayor Ronald Kott said that, like many Solano County officials, he had not been approached by anyone from the company to discuss plans for the land.

Similar to Marc Lore’s utopian vision for a new $400 billion Shenzhen-style city from scratch called Telosa, the secretive land grab-cum-startup city lies suspiciously close to Travis Air Force Base and is being marketed as a “new city with tens of thousands of new homes, a large solar energy farm, orchards with over a million new trees, and over ten thousand acres of new parks and open space.”

Democratic Representative Mike Thompson told reporters last week he was “very concerned about our national security” related to the plan's proximity to the base. Some residents have reported “fear” in their dealing with the company, including concerns about retaliation. The company, meanwhile, maintains its secrecy is deliberate and intended to prevent possible real estate speculation on the part of landowners, a group of whom they have sued for collusion.

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The Pentagon will install solar panel array as part of $55 million DOD initiative

Anti-democratic vistas: Plans for a new city in Northern Californian farmlands draw ire from concerned officials