This is nice. Would it be greedy to request some solar covered carports? Wouldn't add much to the cost, especially considering they would generate a lot of valuable electricity for many years. It's the future--just ask VW. Anyway, we need to start sometime. This would be a good place to do it.

A blink charger will suffice.

I'm not asking for EV chargers, though they ought to just as well throw a few in. Just a cool (literally) place to shelter your car that literally pays for itself, however slowly.

Anon3, I know exactly what can be expected to be produced from solar panels in this area. Most of the time the panels are producing, there will be very few if any EV cars charging (unfortunately). The power goes right to the grid and a tax credit will pay 30% of the cost of the carport at least through 2016, which is a vote to propagate this kind of fossil fuel-relieving infrastructure.

How many panels do you have covering these 100 spaces at your work? I'll give you a decent estimate of what they should be producing.

The lower efficiency non-crystalline panels are supposed to be very good in low light, but standard panels are not.

The few panels that I have at home (std polycrystalline) would cover an area of about one car, if rearranged to do so, and an average day's output (including shade and cloudy days) would charge a Leaf to about 1/3 capacity. So very roughly, a covering of 100 cars might be expected to fully charge 33 Leafs. That's an awesome amount of power, really. You can't do that with ICEs, unless you plant biofuel crops. Then it would take far more area, require it as arable land, and take a lot of work and other energy inputs to yield ethanol, and this would still have other problems matching up in an energy comparison.

But I'll wait to get the number of panels Anon3 actually is referring to. He should be able to stand back and count the rows.

By definition, their business is selling gasoline and diesel fuel (along with milk, beer, munchies, coffee, soft drinks, and lottery tickets) don't much think their heart is in electric vehicles.

Maybe one of the emerging solar energy concerns can be persuaded to throw some recharging stations into the lot there at Lakeshore Park.

They've got plans to completely redo Rocky Hill Ballpark as well, which even without river access, is still a highly used local part.

I like alternative fuel as much as the nearest hippie. I would love to plug my car in when I'm shopping the Farmer's Market at Lakeshore. If we're going to wax poetic about park dreams, I think sidewalks and trails to access Lakeshore would be smarter than paving more parking lots.

A more interesting conversation, to me, would be about the status of mental health care in Tennessee since the privatization of services formerly provided at Lakeshore. How many patients are in the streets? In prisons? In other healthcare facilities?

(link...)

It appears likely the state Legislature will approve Commissioner of Mental Health Douglas Varney's extensive plan to revamp East Tennessee's mental-health services, which includes closing Knoxville's Lakeshore Mental Health Institute and giving state funds to private providers.

at the corner of Lyons View and Northshore, he used to sit there on a bench for hours at a time and wave to all who drove by, often time getting a wave back, creating smile on an otherwise unknown person afflicted with truly unknown conditions.

The State barely can care for those with objectively identifiable physical ailments, don't know how they could manage and/or warehouse those whose minds were impaired with much harder to identify ailments or conditions.