Solar Impulse: Last Trip from Washington, D.C., to New York

            The ultimate goal for Solar Impulse was to fly across the globe powered solely upon the sun's rays. So far, it has accomplished many goals in the last three years: in 2010, it flew for 26 hours straight; in 2011, it flew from Belgium to Paris, France and in 2012, a prototype had completed the first intercontinental flight connecting from Europe to Africa. This year, it proposed a challenge to fly across United States from the East coast to the West. 

The itinerary featured: from San Francisco (California) to Phoenix (Arizona) to Dallas (Texas) to St. Louis (Missouri) ending in the last haul to Washington, D.C., and New York

The fourth leg from St. Louis to Washington, D.C., has been completed successfully while the trip from Washington D.C., to New York is steadily approaching. You can view updates and the schedule for the rest of the historic flight here.

There are also many videos of their stops featured here.

Wipe out your electric bills!

      Some countries have already begun piquing their curiosity and experimenting with solar technology. What about the United States? Are we also far behind when the countries around us are advancing their resources?

     No. It seems California is advancing as well, as we speak. Compared to the East Coast, the West Coast has more tendencies to support such technology. Due to the warm weather conditions, with the support of the communities as well as many government grants and programs, there has been many rooftop solar installations on residential and commercial buildings. They are even free of charge after incentives for businesses and  off grid rebates for homes that are struggling to pay their bills on time.

     The east coast, on the other hand, are not so Eco friendly. Therefore, Our fellow neighbors settled in the east coast took their matters into their own hands by purchasing portable gas powered generators, powering their own appliances through the use of gasoline. But these generators have no value outside power failures, especially when gasoline can never be produced but bought. For example, homes that were affected by hurricane "Sandy" had no way of getting their hands on gasoline when it was limited in supply. Therefore, the government had provided gas stations with limited amounts of gasoline. The government had no choice but to set up a gas rationing plan, "odd-even", restricting cars with odd-numbered license plates on odd days as well as even-numbers license plates on even days. The rationing had been going on for until weeks end.