Solar Decathlon Photo Essay

by Katherine Gustafson · 2009-10-15 10:12:00 UTC
Topics:

In honor of 2009 Blog Action Day, the topic of which is climate change, I bring you a report from the front lines of one of the year's most exciting alternative-energy events. The Solar Decathlon is in full swing on the National Mall in Washington, DC — for those in town, public viewing opens today and continues through Sunday.

Twenty teams of university students have designed and built solar-powered houses, which they have set up on the U.S. Capitol's front stoop for a hot competition. A team of judges is in the midst of deciding which team has created "the most attractive, effective, and energy-efficient solar-powered house."

Some of these houses will be mass-produced for people to live in — a step in the right direction as we continue to shrink our carbon footprint. A winner will be announced tomorrow morning (I'll bring you the breaking news), but in the meantime, I offer a photo essay of the teams setting up their creations on a windy day in the nation's capital last week.

The houses line a central boulevard under the watchful eye of the Washington Monument.

The University of Louisiana team created a house that can withstand hurricane-force winds.

Team Alberta from Canada built a house with systems programmable by a logic controller (the tower is part of the Smithsonian Castle across the street, not the solar house, though it would be cool if it was).

The University of Kentucky team's house is surrounded by gardens of native Kentuckian plants.

The Cornell University team made a house out of grain silos surrounded by hydroponically grown gardens to recall the vanishing farmland in the school's upstate New York.

Team California took advantage of its sunny environment by lining its house's entire roof with an unbroken plane of photovoltaic panels.

Tune in tomorrow to find out the big winner. So far the standings indicate that University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Team California are neck and neck. Regardless of who wins, planet Earth comes out ahead.

Photos courtesy of Katherine Gustafson

Katherine Gustafson
PREVIOUS STORY:
Blog Action Day 2009: Bloggers vs. Climate Change
NEXT STORY:
Stopping the Water Grab in Nevada

COMMENTS (2)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.