Published

3 years ago

November 7, 2023

Alice Rush

Castillo Engineering and RECON Corp., an EPC and solar contractor, have partnered on a 15 MW portfolio of five community solar projects in Illinois.

Part of the Illinois Shines or Adjustable Block Program, each of the 3 MW community solar projects will use bifacial solar modules and FLEXRACK by Qcells solar trackers, and will each provide pollinator-friendly habitats.

The projects will begin construction before the end of the year. Once complete, Castillo Engineering and RECON will have collectively completed over 60 community solar projects in Illinois totaling over 200 MW.

“We selected Castillo Engineering for these projects due to their extensive community solar experience within Illinois,” says Scott Walker, president at RECON. “Castillo Engineering also offers a streamlined design approach due to their in-house civil and electrical teams, which helps with optimizing designs – from fault current ratings to equipment pad design.”

Castillo Engineering’s team was able to optimize and reduce the cost of mid-voltage equipment through utility fault current insights on all five of these projects. Voltage drop and wire sizes for direct current circuits were also reduced after assessing the impact of the bifacial modules. Additionally, the firm’s in-house civil engineering team was able to optimize the access road to incorporate existing conditions, reducing permitting time and costs for each of these community solar projects.

The post Castillo Engineering, RECON Working on 15 MW of Community Solar appeared first on Solar Industry.

Castillo Engineering, RECON Working on 15 MW of Community Solar

Renewable Energy

Remembering Buckminster Fuller, 20th Century Super-Engineer and His Beliefs about Humanity

Published

9 hours ago

October 29, 2026

Alice Rush

Fuller’s words here have been echoed through the ages, e.g., Mahatma Gandhi’s note: “The world has enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed.”

The problem: Most people living in our capitalist civilization care very little about what Bucky here called “livingry.” The typical person in the developed world thinks almost nothing about starving children and even less about recasting world society into a place where we take care of the wellbeing of everyone.

He was one of the great minds that have ever graced our planet, IMO.

Remembering Buckminster Fuller, 20th Century Super-Engineer and His Beliefs about Humanity

Renewable Energy

Corporate Greed from the Consumer’s Perspective

Published

12 hours ago

October 29, 2026

Alice Rush

Six months ago, our local CVS drugstore had a manager, a handful of employees answering customers’ questions, checking them out at the cash register, stocking shelves, etc.

Last month, I noticed that most of these employees were gone, and the former manager was now stocking shelves. I also noted long lines of customers waiting for an automated checkout machine to become available.

Last week, I saw the former manager working at a nearby grocery store.

Also, the pharmacy is now closed for an hour for lunch. When I asked about this, I was asked, “Don’t you think we employees deserve to eat lunch?” I responded, “Of course I do. But can’t CVS afford to staff the pharmacy so customers are not inconvenienced?”

This is certainly not a unique–or even rare–occurrence; it seem that CVS is like most large corporations, driven by cost-cutting, while abusing their employees and their customers.

Corporate Greed from the Consumer’s Perspective

Renewable Energy

Honesty in Politics Is Rare

Published

15 hours ago

October 29, 2026

Alice Rush

Barack Obama read the actual GOP agenda to a roaring Atlanta crowd Wednesday: a $1 trillion tax cut for millionaires and billionaires, paid for with higher health care costs and Medicaid cuts. Plus a war in Iran that everyone warned would push prices up. “(Democrats will) ban hamburgers and make everybody eat tofu,” he joked.

This is certainly not the only baseless assertion one hears today. I love this one: Democrats will bring you the freedom of North Korea and the affluence of Cuba. I suppose this is what happens in political rhetoric, especially when it’s addressed to our country’s least educated people.

In actual fact, Democrats, if empowered to do so, will bring you the affluence, healthcare, and education level of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, New Zealand, Iceland, Costa Rica, and the rest of the world’s social democracies.