Sun Worship

By the new year, the Vatican will go solar. In September, engineers began installing 2,000 solar panels designed by the German firm SolarWorld and given to the Vatican as an Epiphany gift. “If the three wise men from the East came to Bethlehem today,” said SolarWorld CEO Frank Asbeck in a press release, “they would in all probability bring a solar cell in addition to gold, frankincense, and myrrh.” The Vatican hopes soon to meet the European Union’s target, set for 2020, of getting 20 percent of its energy from renewable sources.