Having just returned from watching several events at the Beijing Olympics, I feel that this is a good a time as ever to post some pictures of the Olympic venues I’ve visited. As 80 to 90 percent of the streetlights around the Olympic venues are solar, and solar power provides around 8 million kilowatt-hours of energy for Beijing’s Olympic facilities, it wouldn’t be far-fetched for me to declare solar one of the heavyweights in the renewable energy playground of these Games. Below, some quick glances:
The Beijing Olympic Basketball Gymnasium, which features a rainwater recycling system, easily cleaned glassand other environmentally-friendly attributes.
The Beijing Wukesong Sports Center Baseball Field, a venue built solely for the Olympics. After the Games are over, the baseball field will be torn down. Although they are difficult to see in the picture, solar panels jut into the sky alongside the lights.
A 130 kW solar system from Suntech Power powers the National Stadium, more popularly known as the “Bird’s Nest.”
The National Aquatics Center—appropriately, the “Water Cube”—is coated in a plastic material which allows solar heat into the building.
The lampposts along the Olympic Boulevard are powered by 66 kW of building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) from Canadian Solar.
With their fleet of hybrid, hydrogen cell and biodiesel-powered Olympic Village and public transportation vehicles unveiled for use during the Games, advanced rainwater collection systems and 43-wind turbine-large wind farm, among other examples of advanced alternative-energy technology, these Olympics have more than just its already impressive solar credentials to boast of.
That is impressive but I only hope that China can reach more deeply with solar power. Their track record on pollution is, as most know, terrible. Maybe more people there will be fed up and push the government to provide more alternative energy sollutions.