A Vatican Radio territory in north Rome once blamed for electro-smog will become a solar farm

Associated Press

ROME (AP) — Pope Francis has decreed that an area of northern Rome long used by Vatican Radio will now house a field of solar panels to fuel Vatican City. Francis issued a decree citing the Vatican’s pledge in U.N. climate treaties to curb carbon emissions. The solar farm will be developed at Santa Maria di Galeria. The 430-hectare site enjoys extraterritorial status and was inaugurated in 1957 as a base for Vatican Radio. But residents in the 1990s began complaining about health problems that they blamed on electromagnetic waves from the towers. Vatican Radio has since reduced its hours of transmission because of cost-saving technological advances in internet broadcasting.