2007 Solar Decathlon

Have you heard about the BP Solar Decathlon yet? It is an annual event held in a week-long competition on the National Mall in Washington, DC by 20 university teams from around the world to design, build and operate a livable, very efficient and completely solar-powered house. This event is sponsored by BP with the U.S. Department of Energy and will be held from October 11 to 19.

It’s good to see an energy company committing to alternative energy instead of relying solely on fossil fuels as our only source of energy. They are one of the main and only energy sponsors for this year’s Solar Decathlon and have been involved with the event since 2002. I am hoping that other energy companies will follow suit. They have set up a blog where all the participating teams and on-site reporters can write updates on the competition so you can read all about it regularly at www.bpsolardecathlon.com.

This event reflects BP’s commitment to finding alternative energy source; they are investing $500 million into the Energy Biosciences Institute with the University of California Berkeley, the University of Illinois and the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab to find bioscience solutions to help reduce the impact of energy consumption on our fragile environment. I am happy to know that there are big corporations out there that do care for our planet and they deserve our support.