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New York Times
25-06-2025
- Business
- New York Times
How Sin City Is Powered by the Sun
Visuals by Bridget Bennett Text by Max Bearak Lights pulsate. Numbers spin. Air conditioners battle the desert heat. The Las Vegas Strip is America's emblem of excess — and extravagant energy use. But while visitors may find plenty of reasons to feel remorse when their Vegas sojourn ends, absolution might be found in the city's renewable energy boom. Some of Vegas' iconic casinos, convention centers and hotels — and thousands of households across the city, too — are using the sun to save money and better the planet's odds at tackling climate change. Today in Nevada, around a third of all energy demand is met by solar panels. The state has the highest solar electricity generation per capita in the country, as well as the most solar-industry jobs per capita. It comes down to cost. Take the Strip. It uses more electricity than 300,000 households, which is more than the rest of Las Vegas combined. The state's biggest employer, MGM Resorts International, which has 11 properties on the Strip, is betting on solar. 'It gave us control of what we're going to pay for energy over the next few decades,' said Henry Shields, MGM's vice president for research and analytics. MGM installed 26,000 panels on the roof of Mandalay Bay, an enormous casino and convention center at the Strip's southern end. Then, northeast of the city near a place called Dry Lake, on a valley slope tilted toward the rising sun and dotted with sagebrush and red barrel cacti, MGM teamed up with a solar energy company to build an array of 322,000 panels. The panels now provide 90 percent of MGM's daytime power. And the company is investing in a similar facility, coupled with large batteries for storage, that will power things into the evening. 'For a long time, the hospitality industry wanted to make power consumption invisible — like, just come here and forget about that kind of thing,' said Michael Gulich, MGM's sustainability executive. 'Now we advertise it.' n 2019, Nevada pledged to produce half of its electricity from renewables by 2030. That goal is enshrined in its state constitution. Solar energy companies have flocked to the state. On a surface level, it's easy to see why: 97 percent of annual daylight hours in and around Las Vegas are unblemished by clouds. Off the Strip, away from the guys dancing in gorilla costumes, the gals in American-flag bikinis and the tipsy tourists stumbling around in Tommy Bahama shirts, is a much quieter city. And it is one where scarcity, not excess, is front of mind. Water use is strictly policed. Lawns are banned. Southern Nevada has a water patrol that drives around ticketing those who violate conservation rules. 'People here saw the writing on the wall years ago,' said Lauren Boitel, who directs ImpactNV, a sustainability non-profit founded by the state and former casino executives. 'I've been here 35 years,' she said. 'We've decreased the water we use per capita by half, even as the population has doubled. We're world leaders even if Vegas usually gets dinged for this perception of waste.' That other Vegas, an expanse of strip malls and gated communities spread across an enormous arid plain, is also home to the greatest concentration of residential rooftop solar in the continental United States. State and federal tax credits help. The city makes it easy, too. 'You're pretty much in and out of our office with a permit in 30 minutes,' said Marco Velotta, the city's chief sustainability officer. The demand for rooftop solar comes from all kinds of people, local installation companies the corner of Man O War Street and Real Quiet Drive, in a subdivision called Lamplight Estates, one man named Dave, who was decked out in a National Rifle Association hat and shirt, said his decision to install solar came down to cost. 'People just want to be efficient, you know,' he said. He declined to give his full name. Autumn Hood – who called herself a real believer in sustainability – made a similar point. Rooftop panels have saved her money and made her feel more independent. But any climate concerns were secondary. Both said they could pay off their investment through savings on electric bills in less than 10 years.
Times
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
The Comedy About Spies review — just the type of inventive humour we need
For years, I wondered why that whodunnit spoof The Play That Goes Wrong had managed to pull in audiences around the world. Had I suffered a sense of humour failure? What a pleasure, then, to discover that the Mischief team's latest masterclass in mayhem is funnier, faster and even more absurd. The Sixties espionage farce that the co-writers Henry Lewis and Henry Shields have brought to the Noël Coward rampages through a potpourri of Cold War plots and sub-plots while adding an affectionate nod towards the James Bond series. Matt DiCarlo's intricately calibrated production is a miracle of comic timing and ensemble acting. There's a particularly hilarious sequence in the first act when the action ricochets around four hotel rooms, generating waves of chaos reminiscent
Daily Mail
13-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
PATRICK MARMION reviews The Comedy About Spies at the Noel Coward Theatre: A head-spinning winner, spy spoof hits comedy gold
The Comedy About Spies Mischief Theatre, the team behind The Play That Goes Wrong, did it again last night with yet another hit for theatreland. They strike comedy gold in their latest caper: a Sixties spy spoof that is like Johnny English meets Basil Fawlty in a Piccadilly hotel. It's bigger, better and more brilliantly bungling than ever. Written by and starring Mischief's two Henrys – Lewis and Shields – it left me in awe at how it's possible to devise something so complicated... and actually pull it off on stage. The idea itself is simple: Russian agents in London are about to get hold of a weapon 'so powerful it could take down the USA'. But a ruthless CIA agent, aided by his Brooklyn mom, has been tipped off and means to stop them. What nobody has counted on is Bernard (Henry Shields), a baker from Tadworth, aiming to propose to his uncertain girlfriend Rosemary (Adele James). Or failing thesp Douglas Woodbead (an orotund Henry Lewis), in town to audition for a new Bond film – despite being best known as the face of haemorrhoid cream on TV. An undercover French farce running through four bugged bedrooms, a lobby, roof gardens, a lift shaft and a laundromat, it's more complex than prime number theory. The idea itself is simple: Russian agents in London are about to get hold of a weapon 'so powerful it could take down the USA' Yet director Matt DiCarlo's at one point literally 'floorless' production is slick as an oil spill on an ice rink. Chris Leask amuses as Russian spy Sergei; while Dave Hearn, as his US counterpart, lays on abseiling and pratfalls. But it's the two Henrys who steal the show. Shields, as the baker whose proudest moment was standing up to the KGB (Kent Guild of Breadmakers). And Lewis, as the constantly defeated yet invincibly resolute actor who identifies Bond in his audition as 'ooh-seven'. Running at 120 minutes, I started counting to see if it really was a laugh a minute. Actually, it's more like three – making it a 360, all-round, head-spinning winner. The Comedy About Spies runs at London's Noel Coward Theatre until September 5.
