Daily Herald | Posted: Sunday, November 23, 2008 11:00 pm
Solar panels on graves power Spanish town
MADRID, Spain -- A new kind of silent hero has joined the fight against climate change.
Santa Coloma de Gramenet, a gritty, working-class town outside Barcelona, has placed a sea of solar panels atop mausoleums at its cemetery, transforming a place of perpetual rest into one buzzing with renewable energy.
Flat, open and sun-drenched land is so scarce in Santa Coloma that the graveyard was just about the only viable spot to move ahead with its solar energy program.
The power the 462 panels produces -- equivalent to the yearly use by 60 homes -- flows into the local energy grid for normal consumption and is one community's odd nod to the fight against global warming.
"The best tribute we can pay to our ancestors, whatever your religion may be, is to generate clean energy for new generations. That is our leitmotif," said Esteve Serret, director Conste-Live Energy, a Spanish company that runs the cemetery in Santa Coloma and also works in renewable energy.
In row after row of gleaming, blue-gray, the panels rest on mausoleums holding five layers of coffins, many of them marked with bouquets of fake flowers. The panels face almost due south, which is good for soaking up sunshine, and started working on Wednesday -- the culmination of a project that began three years ago.
The concept emerged as a way to utilize an ideal stretch of land in a town that wants solar energy but is so densely built-up -- Santa Coloma's population of 124,000 is crammed into 1.5 square miles -- it had virtually no place to generate it.
Iraq security pact poses dilemma for U.S.
CAMP CROPPER, Iraq -- The U.S. military is rushing to build criminal cases against some 5,000 detainees it deems dangerous -- including suspected members of al-Qaida in Iraq -- because the proposed security pact with Iraq would end its right to hold prisoners without charge.
The agreement, which is to be voted on by Iraqi lawmakers Wednesday, is primarily intended to set a timetable calling for American troops to leave Iraq by the end of 2011. But it also calls for control of security matters to shift to Iraqi authorities.
If passed, the deal would mean U.S. troops could no longer hold people without charge as they have since the 2003 invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein. Beginning Jan. 1, all detentions would have to be based on evidence, and the U.S. would have to prosecute prisoners in Iraqi courts or let them go.
"At the end of the day, if there's not enough facts to justify a court case, then we'll have to release," said Brig. Gen. David Quantock, the commander of the U.S. detention system in Iraq.
The Americans have evidence against only "a few hundred" of the most dangerous detainees, Quantock said, leaving open the possibility that thousands could find themselves back on Iraq's streets soon.