BP Solar Decathlon
Getting involved in the environment isn’t exactly a new trend, but it’s been important for quite a few years now at the rate of global warming and many other environmental issues coming up. With this, there’s no surprise that the BP Solar Decathlon has sprouted up. BP has recently partnered with the U.S. Department of Energy and is sponsoring the Solar Decathlon. It’s an annual event where 20 university teams from around the world design, build and operate livable, every-efficient, and completely solar powered homes. It’s a week long competition in the National Mall, located in Washington DC. It’s from October 11th to October 19th.
They’re sponsoring this event as part of their commitment to discovering cost effective and clean energy solutions for everyday living. They’re currently one of the main corporate sponsors, and the only energy company to sponsor the 2007 Solar Decathlon. They’ve been involved since the first competition back in 2002. BP is investing $500 million into the Energy Biosciences Institute in which the company will partner with the University of California Berkeley, the University of Illinois and the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab to find bioscence solutions to reduce the impact of energy consumption on the environment.
Many people each year are spending quite a bit of money to upgrade their homes. Some of them put in new wiring, others install new piping for their main plumbing needs. What many people don’t do is consider looking into Solar Power. While it’s a bit pricey to install at first, its also more cost effective and you aren’t exhurting unnatural gasses back into the environment that could potentially harm you down the road. If you had an area of 200 square miles covered with solar panels, you could provide all the electricity that the world would ever need. BP’s jointly-owned Nerefco wind farm generates enough zero-carbon energy to power 13,000 average homes. wind can potentially provide around a 10th of the world’s power. That would then cut down dioxide emissions by a billion tons a year.
If you’re interested in learning more about this decathlon and are unable to make it to Washington D.C. then you can gladly check out their blog. BP has created this blog where all of the teams as well as on-site reporters will be posting throughout the competition.