My Own Political Party

On another environmental note, BP has teamed up with the United States Department of Energy to sponsor the BP Solar Decathlon. The Solar Decathlon is an event that occurs every other year. Twenty university teams are challenged to build energy-efficient, solar powered houses. The end of the event takes place on the National Mall in Washington, DC from October 11th through the 19th.

BP is the only energy company sponsor this year of the Solar Decathlon. They have been involved in the competition since the beginning in 2002. BP has created a blog where all the teams can write posts about their progress throughout the competition.

In the United States, most of the oil companies have the reputation of only caring about oil and nothing else. It is refreshing to see a company such as BP expanding its research into alternative forms of energy. Besides participating in the Solar Decathlon, BP is investing in other areas as well. For instance, they are currently investing $500 million into the Energy Biosciences Institute. This Institute (along with the University of California Berkeley, University of Illinois and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab) will look for bioscience solutions reducing the impact of energy consumption on the environment.

BP has also created a website that can help you reduce your impact on the environment. I tried out the greencurve and found that I was better than average, but not by much. There is still some things that I can do to improve my impact on the envrionment!