Awesome. So, this is a picture of Solar Impulse, it’s a European built solar plane that’s just completed the first intercontinental, solar powered flight. Yesterday it took off from An airport in Madrid and, 19 hours later, landed in Morocco’s capitol, Rabat.
Brilliant! Harnessing the power of the sun, the Solar Impulse crossed the Gibraltar Straight at a blistering rate of 50 miles an hour. ok, so its not going to be setting any speed records soon, but the implications for sustainable travel are real and impressive. Jet fuel is the apex of highly refined, unsustainable power. To fly a plane powered by nothing but the sun is a great symbol of the kinds of shifts that will have to be made in the pursuit of sustainable transportation.
The Solar Impulse is a flagship for Morocco’s concerted effort to produce 2000 mega-watts of power from the sun, roughly 38% of the nation’s generation capacity, by 2020.
