Las Vegas just became the largest US city to run solely on renewable energy
 

Amazing!!! Congrats Las Vegas!

https://mic.com/articles/163001/las-...ial#.meAE50n1Q

This is great news. Hopefully this will spread across the nation sooner than later.

I know!! I love this. I wonder what the next city to go 100% solar will be?

Rather misleading

quote: 100% of the city's municipal power, excluding commercial and residential buildings.

Commercial and residential is somewhere in the neighborhood of 90% of the power consumption in Las Vegas - 15% of that comes from Hoover Dam, the rest from the normal grid which is supplied by gas and coal fired plants.

I agree that it is a step in the right direction, but it's way overstated in that article

Also...Vegas power has always been renewable. The Hoover Dam generates it for the last 70 years or so.

It's about time. Several countries have been working on this, with Sweden leading.

Sweden?s recycling is so revolutionary, the country has run out of rubbish | The Independent

When you drive from LA to Vegas there a huge solar farm on the side of the freeway.... Looks massive.

Congrats to Vegas!

That's very nice, congrats !

They need to put up more panels. In places like Vegas Solar, Wind and the Hoover Dam can cut out most of the gas and coal-fired plants. They should press on with it.

nice for vegas :)

legendary town :pimp

Not only should they not do that...it would be cost prohibitive to even try.
That is why they didn't really do this...all the article is referring to is some government buildings.

Trying to use solar, wind and the dam for residential and commercial would bankrupt the economy in Las Vegas...they already get 15% of their power from the dam (and that is running at full capacity).

The residents of Las Vegas, as well as the casinos, would never back a plan to raise their own taxes and power costs to 100 times what they are now...just not going to happen.

ruined huffpost readers' party :1orglaugh

Some of the casinos here have their own solar plants. They are trying to get away from the energy company here and become self sustainable but it comes with a steep price to buy out of the energy contract.

On the other hand though, fuck Nevada government. They effectively killed off residential solar market by lowering the price in which they buy back energy from houses and businesses (net metering). All the solar companies soon left after that. I was in the middle of getting them installed on my house but they up and left.

We got the hoover dam, the ivanpah solar facility (can be seen on way to LA) and a few other solar fields for renewable energy. If they brought back residential solar incentives we would be all set.