I considered buying solar panels for my house, until I saw the price tag. Apparently I’m not alone.

Duke Energy wants to change that with an out of the box pilot program that the utility hopes to launch in North Carolina, pending state regulatory approval.

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Here’s how it would work: You volunteer the roof of your home or business. Duke Energy installs solar panels free of charge. The utility pays you a small fee for “renting” your roof, but owns all the electricity the panels generate — which goes directly into the power grid.

Dave Scanzoni, Duke Energy’s communications director, says the program would allow the utility to study “distributive generation, which means instead of a major base load power plant, having many small, mini power plants that would be largely distributed in a wide service area.”

Another way to look at it: Many power consumers would become, in a sense, power generators.

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By David Mac Dougall, Baghdad Bureau

We spent most of last week in Fallujah, arriving back in Baghdad yesterday (Saturday); and now we’re preparing to go out again on Tuesday afternoon.  That means preparing equipment, washing clothes, finding cold-weather gear, packing the satellite, editing gear, cameras and back-up equipment too.  Lots to keep us busy!

This coming week marks one of the big dates in the Baghdad Bureau calendar: Thanksgiving.  It might be the time when people back in the US tuck into turkey, but in Iraq we traditionally try to get out and broadcast live with troops, putting as many of them as possible on TV and on the internet.

For the past few weeks we’ve been doing Thanksgiving “shout-outs” giving soldiers and marines we meet the chance to say hello to their friends and families back home, to be broadcast this week on FOX News.  So far I’d say we’ve recorded close to a hundred of them - in Kirkuk, Baghdad and Fallujah.  If you see military personnel on TV from Iraq this week, chances are we met them and had some fun in front of the camera.

Here’s a few final photographs from our embed with Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 4th Marines in Fallujah last week: watch out online Monday for a special KFC “webisode” which we’re putting together exclusively for the On The Scene blog… and of course, watch out for our Fallujah stories to air this week in the run-up to Thanksgiving on FOX News Channel.

With gas prices dropping, the hype surrounding fuel cell/electric/hybrid/hydrogen/fuel efficient cars may not be as  critical as just a few months ago, but it can be said that the makers are still steering in that way. Everyone is here in Los Angeles at the convention center downtown and everyone has their latest fuel concept cars. While many are fantastic looking, the concept is still just that… a dream. Ford did unveil its new Mustang and it looks great, but GM and Chrysler didn’t send any of their main executives to Los Angeles and the theory is, the business climate has them out of the spotlight. The companies say it’s because they had no major unveiling. What do you think and what are you looking for in a car these days? Anything catch your eye?

Here is our behind the scenes look:

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By FNC Contract Reporter, Courtney Walsh

Italians live longer than most people. They also consume huge amounts of olive oil — a staple of the Mediterranean diet.

Most Italians are convinced that the two are related. Indeed the ancient Romans so revered olive oil they once used it for currency.

Nowadays Italian olive oil is sold throughout the world. But even if it has “extra vergine” (extra-virgin) and DOP on the label, signifying that the oil is from the first pressing of Italian olives, the quality varies greatly.

Earlier this week we had a chance to talk with some farmers in Southern Tuscany. They believe their oil is special, not only because of the copious use of “organic” fertilizer (ie dung) but also because of the way the olives are harvested.

What’s their secret? Find out more below:

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