In the spirit of yesterday’s post, I wanted to share one of my “genius ideas” to get the ball rolling. (Whether this is genius or not is up for debate). 

In my city, like many around the United States, there are huge swaths of land that have been completely paved over for parking. Miles and miles of parking lots with no cover whatsoever. 

Here are the problems I’ve identified with this:

• They make the area miserably hot (especially your car)
• You have to walk a LONG way in the heat or pouring rain to get inside whatever building you’re aiming for
• They serve no purpose other than just “being there” for parking

So my “genius idea” was this:

What if we put “coverings” over all the parking lots in the area? ALL of them. And THEN, put solar panels on top of all the coverings?

The benefits, in my mind, are outrageous!

• Covered, shaded areas that keep you dry and cool
• A beneficial, second-order effect of creating clean energy from something that was once basically useless open area
• That clean energy could then be used to power the buildings nearby, cutting down on carbon emissions and fossil fuel usage and potentially saving them tons of money on their energy bills

My wonderful wife also came up with the idea that you could power giant fans hanging from all the coverings with the solar power to keep things breezy and cool as well. 

Now, I currently don’t have the means to make this happen. And as much as I would love for this to be my million dollar idea, I don’t yet see how to make it happen. 

But I’m sharing it with you so that you might start thinking about your own genius idea. AND so that someone with more knowledge, means, and abilities than me could make this into a feasible project. 

Have you starting ideating yet? Have you come up with your million-dollar idea?