Solar Panel Installation in US is Soaring -- WSJ; Nuclear Waste Plant Construction Slows

Before I get to the energy links below, just a bit of trivia. When I substitute teach middle school and high school (which I love to do), I never make students stand/recite the Pledge of Allegiance. No one told me one way or the other what the rules were, but common sense told me that this would be a non-starter for my school day if I got into that issue first thing in the morning. Well, it turns out -- I did not know this -- "In the 1943 case West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, the court ruled that Jehovah's Witnesses in grade school may not be forced to salute the flag and recite the Pledge of Allegiance." Common sense would suggest this applies to more than just Jehovah's Witnesses. That might be an interesting point of discussion when they come knocking on your door.

By the way, it was also the Jehovah's Witnesses that successfully argued before the US Supreme Court that they could not be forced to carry the state motto "Live Free or Die" on their license plates, New Hampshire, Wooley v. Maynard (1977).

What a great country, or what?

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Link here.  google sun peeks through in solar

The US is on pace to install as much solar power this year as it did in this century's entire first decade; at least 2,500 megawatts, the equivalent of more than two nuclear-power plants. The US added about 742 megawatts of solar capacity in the second quarter, or enough to power about 150,000 homes...

The story is worth reading.

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Also, in today's WSJ -- how would you like a nuclear waste plant in your back yard -- the thought makes an oil pipeline pale in comparison.  Google waste-plant dispute builds

Data points:

• Hanford, Washington (state)
• a $12.2 billion project
• 65 acres for the project
• sits on the 586-square mile Hanford site which produced plutonium for atomic weapons in WWII
• Bechtel Corp
• will house four (4) nuclear facilities
• it is being designed as it is being built -- repeat, it is being designed as it is being built
• already leaks have been discovered: the threat of leaks has been a concern for decades

So, there you have it.