Being green when I was in college meant recycling at most. But the students at Butte College in Oroville, California, will go a lot further, thanks to the Central Valley sunshine.

我在讀大學的時候，說到環保最多就是把手邊的東西重復利用。但是，位于美國加州奧洛維爾市巴特學院的學生走得更遠，他們建造了巨大的太陽能電池陣列，靠著中央大峽谷的充沛陽光自給自足。

The college now hosts 25,000 photovoltaic panels on its campus, which includes a 928-acre wildlife refuge. Those solar panels will produce 6.5-million kilowatt-hours of electricity per year. That's enough to power more than 9,000 US homes—and it's more than enough power for the college, even though it operates its own water system and sewage treatment facility.

該所學院的校園里，現在安置有2萬5千塊太陽能電池板。校園中還有一個占地928公頃的野生動物避難所。這些太陽能電池每年可以發電650萬千瓦時，這些電力可以供應超過九千個美國家庭，足以滿足校園用電的需求。現在巴特學院的一切用電都來自于太陽能，甚至還用這些電驅動學校自建的自來水和污水處理系統。

In effect, the college will be making more electricity from the sun than it needs and can send clean electricity back into California's grid. They call it being grid-positive. I'd call it a positive development in higher education.

實際上，學院利用太陽能發的電超過了自身需求，多余的電力匯入加州電網。有人稱之為“回饋電網”，我更愿把它叫做高等教育的積極開發。

That's because the arrays will also allow Butte students to get real world training for the green jobs of tomorrow, much like the semiannual Solar Decathlon, which pits students from schools around the country against each other to design and build solar-powered houses. Oh, these crazy college types, what will they try next—saving the world from climate change?

因為，建造這些太陽能電池陣列可以讓巴特學院的學生獲得實際的工作經驗，為他們以后從事環保工作打下基礎。就像半年舉辦一次的太陽能十項全能比賽一樣，給全國各地的學生提供了一個設計建造太陽能房屋和彼此較量機會。

嗯，這些學院的技術狂人下一步會干出什么事？——會不會是改善氣候，挽救世界？敬請期待