Photos: Wind and Solar Power in Europe

A recent trip around Europe via high-speed rail revealed a landscape dotted with enormous wind turbines and solar installations. But no country on the continent has made a greater push towards renewable energy than Germany. In Germany there are residential rooftop solar installations all across the country thanks to feed-in tariffs from the German Renewable Energy Act of 2000. Besides Germany, I also saw lots of wind farms in the United Kingdom, France, Spain and other European Union nations.

Here are solar and wind photos from Germany and Spain.

EUROPE SOLAR AND WIND

GERMANY

SPAIN

Up in the Air: Barcelona to Tel Aviv

ISRAEL-CATALONIA CONNECTION:  Spanish Catalan surrealist painter Salvador Dali created the Candelabra of Peace, pictured above, which is displayed at Tel Aviv Ben Gurion International Airport. 

July 27, 2011 -- After traveling around Europe on high-speed trains for two weeks, my next destination was Israel. I flew from Barcelona El Prat Airport to Tel Aviv Ben Gurion Airport on Spanair. The flight across the Mediterranean Sea takes around four hours.

The two airports have a lot in common. They have both undergone renovations and expansions -- Barcelona added Terminal 1 in 2009 and Tel Aviv added Terminal 3 in 2004. Both airports are also accessible via commuter rail, although the train at El Prat only stops at Terminal 2 so you need to take a connecting bus to get to T1. It is about a ten minute ride from the T2 train station to T1 on the connecting bus.

Renowned postmodernist architect Ricardo Bofill designed the new terminal at El Prat and it is impressive. The layout brings in the natural light from a region blessed with lots of sunshine. And everything feels very open and expansive so passengers never feel claustrophobic or constricted, even while waiting at the check-in stand or security line.

Here are passengers at Sants railway station waiting to board the Rodalies commuter train bound for Barcelona El Prat Airport. Rodalies is the commuter rail service that serves Barcelona, and its metropolitan area as well as other parts of the province.

One big difference between El Prat and Ben Gurion is the level of security. It took less than five minutes to pass through the security checkpoint at El Prat with no tension or feeling of suspicion. Ben Gurion on the other hand is the most secure commercial airport in the world. With enemies of the Jewish State all around, the Jewish State's only international airport has no alternative but to be the safest place to fly to on the planet. That's why it can take a long time to get through Ben Gurion Border Control and it can take even longer to exit Israel. They don't take chances. It can be a maddening experience for a Jewish American like myself or any visitor to The Holy Land for that matter. Who wants to be looked at with suspicion? Who wants to be singled out? Who wants to feel uncomfortable or make other people feel uncomfortable because they were born with darker features? It is not fun at all. But it is a necessary evil that millions of innocent people have to go through humiliating security procedures because of the very real security threat of a handful of medieval-minded Muslim fanatics.

Before going through passport control, international travelers walk through the concourse at new Terminal 3. Visitors are greeted by Jerusalem stone on the walls and biblical mosaics. It is an impressive entrance to Israel.

And after sitting for twenty minutes and then being asked questions by the border control security (something I've gotten used to when traveling abroad alone) and getting my passport stamped, I was officially in Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel!

Israel Railways operates the Ben Gurion Airport Railway Station, located in the lower level of Terminal 3. The commuter train station is easy to get to from the other terminals and zips you from Ben Gurion to central Tel Aviv, Haifa or Modi'in. Here is the train at Tel Aviv Savidor Central Railway Station.

Since it was late at night and the buses stopped running (Tel Aviv does not have a subway system) I hopped in a Sherut (shared taxi in Hebrew) for the fifty shekel ride to the Florentine district where my hostel was located. The taxi ride was a real adventure, but that is a story for my next blog post on Tel Aviv.

Here are more photos of the trip from Barcelona to Tel Aviv. Click here to see the set on Flickr.

Green Traveler: Barcelona, Spain

July 23-27, 2011 -- Barcelona is a bike-friendly city because of its excellent bicycle infrastructure, including center and left side bike lanes on major boulevards. When bike lanes are located in or near the center of a major two-way avenue and are physically separated from traffic by dividers, then bikers don't have to worry about being crunched between parked cars and moving vehicles on the right side of the road and it makes for a safer experience for both bikers and drivers.

Here is an example of a physically separated two-way bike lane on the left side of a one-way avenue in Barcelona.

Bicycle traffic signals are another safety measure to help make it easier for bikers in Barcelona.

Many Barcelonians take advantage of the city's bike sharing system, called Bicing. Currently the network consists of more than 400 stations and over 6,000 bicycles for the 80,000 annual riders.

Bicing is only available to residents of Barcelona who purchase an annual membership so it limits the options for short-term visitors. However, one option is taking a bicycle tour of Barcelona through a tour company like Travel Bound. This chopper did the job navigating the streets of this historic port city.

Barcelona is building up its electric vehicle charging infrastructure. For EV drivers there are designated parking spaces like this one to juice up.

And like other major European cities, Barcelona has an excellent public transportation system. The Funicular de Montjuic gets passengers up the hill from the Barcelona Metro Parallel station to the Parc de Montjuic station.

Click here for more observations of Barcelona on Josh's Travel Blog.

Here is video of the Barcelona Metro, Funicular and the airport train.



Here is video of the bike tour around Barcelona.



Here are more photos of Barcelona. Click here to see the set on Flickr.

Riding the Rails: Paris to Barcelona

July 23, 2011 -- After a brief one day visit to Paris, I hopped on a TGV high-speed train heading south from Gare de Lyon railway station to Spain through the French countryside and Mediterranean coast via Nimes, Montpelier-Saint-Roch, Sete, Agde, Beziers, Narbonne and Perpignan . After a transfer at Figueres-Vilafant to a Renfe high-speed train, I headed to my last destination in Europe -- Barcelona, the capital of Catalonia.

It is hard to describe the feeling of speeding past vineyards and palm tree-lined coastal villages at nearly 200 miles per hour. It is amazing. I hope one day Americans will be able to experience true high speed rail like what the citizens of France, Germany, Spain, China, Japan and other nations enjoy.

And I hope that on that beautiful day in the United States of America when our trains travel over 200 mph, that we can look out the window and see wind turbines like these near the France-Spain border powering our country with clean, domestic energy.

Here are more photos and video of my train trip from Paris to Barcelona. Click here to see the photo set on Flickr. The 30-minute video shows scenes of the spectacular French and Spanish countryside and Mediterranean coastline.