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I saw this interesting story in Grist, about a new mall being planned in upstate New York. And not just any mall; at a planned size of 800 acres, with plenty of shops, restaurants, and the occasional golf course, the new project, grandiosely titled DestinyUSA, is appropriately being called a retail city.
So why should anyone care about what Grist refers to as a "a massive temple to American-style hyper-consumerism"? Well, here's the twist: the mall will be powered entirely by renewable energy. That's right, not a drop of fossil fuels will be used in either building or maintaining Destiny USA. Given the sheer size of the new mall, this will require an incredible amount of renewable energy. As the article points out:
Congel's renewable-energy goals for DestiNY are world-class indeed. To take solar, DestiNY would produce and consume "at a minimum 32 megawatts of solar electricity," according to Pietrafesa. To put this in perspective, 32 MW would not only be the world's biggest solar installation, it would account for one-third of the total solar capacity installed annually in the United States.
The complex would also consume a minimum of 28 MW of electricity from fuel cells (with hydrogen derived from renewables), said Pietrafesa, which in turn would increase the total amount of installed "electricity-generating" fuel-cell capacity in the country by roughly 60 percent. DestiNY would also rely on a minimum daily feed of 120 MW from biodiesel and biomass combined, and 44 MW of wind power -- both mind-boggling numbers as well.
Congel has gone so far as to predict that DestiNY could accelerate economies of scale to the point where the price of renewable energy would become cost-competitive with fossil fuels in as little as a decade, thereby revolutionizing the energy industry far sooner than experts forecast.
Well, critics point out in the article that Congel (the developer behind Destiny USA) may be a tad optimistic about the impact of the project on global energy prices. With that said, I think the critics are missing a key point. There's no need to jumpstart the global renewable energy market; other countries, such as Germany with wind power or Japan with solar power, are already leading the way in researching and using new renewable energy technologies. It is the U.S. that has fallen behind the rest of the world in developing its use of renewable energy. So the Destiny USA project could be instrumental in expanding the U.S. renewable energy market beyond the current six percent of total energy consumption.
At the very least, such a massive shopping area could go a long way towards legitimizing renewable energy, by showing the public the practicality of using alternative sources of energy for their own homes or businesses. The developers also have some bold showcases of their own that are planned for the Destiny USA project. They do have 800 acres to play with, after all; there are only so many Starbucks you can put in such a place. So in addition to 150 acres of enclosed green park space, the mall will also feature a state of the art research and development park to promote the development of new technologies in the fields of renewable energy, sustainable design, and other related areas.
I don't know if Destiny USA can meet all of its ambitious goals, either in terms of its environmental or economic impact. 20 million visitors a year sound like a bit much to me, even for a one of a kind mall. If you want to be cynical about it, you could argue that the 100% renewable energy goal will be easily outweighed by the fossil fuels consumed by visitors hell bent on indulging in the religion of shallow materialism, and that the renewable energy target was simply used to secure massive tax breaks at the local, state, and federal levels.
But hey, this is an optimistic site, and I for one think this can only help the environmental movement. After all, let's be realistic, the choice is not between Destiny USA and some kind of nature reserve. It's a choice between a massive new mall powered by renewable energy or a massive new mall powered by conventional energy sources. So not only am I looking forward to the impact this grand new retail paradise will have on renewable energy, I'll even drop by for a visit someday. You know, to do some shopping, of course.