Pope Pursues Heavenly Power With (100 MW PV) Plant Harnessing Sun

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http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601130&sid=aN2RJ9ob3OoY&refer=environment

April 17 (Bloomberg) -- On pasture land a day’s walk north of Rome, the inventor of radio Guglielmo Marconi set up a broadcasting service in 1931 for the Vatican.

The world’s smallest state now intends to build the biggest solar plant in Europe for 500 million euros ($660 million) on those same 740 acres near the medieval village of Santa Maria di Galeria, project engineer Mauro Villarini said in an interview.

Advised by German solar-panel maker Solarworld AG, the Holy See is running counter to many governments that say harnessing sunlight on a grand scale is too costly to help curb global warming, especially in the deepest recession since World War II.

“Now is the time to strike,” Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo, the Vatican City’s governor, said in an interview from his study overlooking the Michelangelo-designed Basilica of St. Peter’s. “One should take advantage of the crisis to try and develop these renewable-energy sources to the maximum, which in the long run will reap incomparable rewards.”

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