Shed some light on the Power & Light District
 By Mark Forsythe The Kansas City Post The Kansas City Business Journal reports that Kansas City Power & Light has signed on with Cordish & Co. to be the primary sponsor of the Power & Light District. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but KCP&L will sponsor around 200 events per year starting when the district opens (hopefully) in March. Of particular interest to me was the mention that KCP&L will also pay for a clock tower that will be built as the centerpiece of the district. The tower will have a wind turbine and an electronic display that will light up whenever there's enough wind to generate electricity. Sounds pretty cool... for an entry in a junior high science fair. Parent company Great Plains Energy CEO Mike Chesser thinks the Power & Light District will be "a real opportunity to get our message out to our customers in the region about opportunities for energy efficiency and renewable energy." That's all well and good if you want the message to be "renewable energy is a novelty." Surely Great Plains and KCP&L can be more creative than a wind turbine firing up a light bulb. How about solar power? Using "light" to generate "power?" Power & Light District? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? KCP&L has a fantastic opportunity to show that renewable energy is not just available, it is viable. Surely some architecture firm could design a clock tower with integrated solar panels that is both tasteful and functional. What a magnificent showpiece that would be! Instead of "lighting a display" the solar array could be tied into the power grid with a real-time web display that shows when the array is generating power. Now that would be something worth seeing! Why not do both? Have the wind turbine and solar panels? Denver is already using solar power to run their luggage conveyor system at their airport. San Francisco has a huge installation at Giants Stadium. San Diego powers part of its water treatment facility with solar. C'mon KCP&L! We can't do one little clock tower? Get outside the box a little! Don't let another opportunity pass us all by. |
posted by Mark at 1:29 PM
Comments on "Shed some light on the Power & Light District"
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DaveKCMO said ... (2:29 PM) :
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Anonymous said ... (9:17 PM) :
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Capt. Geoffrey Spaulding said ... (1:00 PM) :
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Jeff McIntire-Strasburg said ... (6:17 PM) :
post a commenti think a green skyscraper -- think NYC's new bank of america tower -- is in the works for an adjacent property, and this is just foreshadowing. 13th and grand and 14th and baltimore will both be empty lots soon...
you used architect and tasteful in the same sentence...
this town's architects stink up the joint. el dorado can't design any art that cannot be plugged in. HOK did an awful 1960's east german building and hid it with a huge TV on the front. HNTB can't design anything that's not a box (bartle, 1201 walnut, etc).
Fantastic idea Mark...which means such logic will never see the - ahem- "light of day."
-Groucho
Mark -- Thanks so much for the link to Green Options. It's good to see that KC is taking these steps... maybe St. Louis will look westward for inspiration...