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Who cares if the global financial markets are in a death spiral, the polar ice caps are melting, and the U.S. Congress can't get its act together to pass the solar investment tax credit extension, because there's good news from a higher authority: The Vatican's going solar.
Yes, the first Photovoltaic Papacy is upon us.
Workmen began installing some 2700 solar panels on the rooftop of the Pope Paul VI Hall in Vatican City on Monday. The crystalline-silicon-cell-based modules were donated by SolarWorld (get it? German company, German-born pope?) and are worth about $1.4 million, according to reports. When completed, the 2000-square-meter rooftop array will provide about 300,000 kilowatt-hours of Roman sun-based electricity for the 6000-seat venue.
Vatican sources say that the PPVI solar installation won't be the last either: more panels are planned for the roof of the employee cafeteria building.
I have a few questions though.
What is the carbon footprint of the Catholic Church, and should the calculation include the collective footprint of all its members?
What is the Vatican's position on feed-in tariffs?
Has Pope Benedict XVI, the first photovoltaic pontiff, blessed the new solar array site or will he perform the blessing once the engineers are ready to flip the switch on the system?
And who is the patron saint of photovoltaics anyway?
Not St. Jude, I hope.
