Worshipping The Sun  

TreeHugger recently had a post up on BP's solar division becoming profitable this year. BP seem to be a step or two ahead of most oil companies in adapting to oil depletion.

BP Global, formerly known as British Petroleum, has been trying to distance itself from its old name and image, even going as far as to say that "BP" now stands for "Beyond Petroleum". How much of this is greenwashing and empty PR coming from the #2 corporation after WalMart? Probably most of it, but still, their solar division is one of the largest solar companies in the world, employs 2000 people in at least 4 countries and – best of all – was profitable in 2004. That's good news for the solar industry which, as a whole, has grown 40% last year.

The Sun is still a small player compared to dead-dinosaurs & co, and BP says that solar probably won't have an impact on climate changes before 2020 (not sure that means much coming from them, or that they can be sure of anything - although they must know a fair bit about global warming, being one of the premier carbon pushers around), but now that they are making money with el sol, the pace should quicken and new players should be tempted to toss their hat in the solar ring (said the optimist - the pessimist is reading this).

Elsewhere in the world of solar power, the SF Chronicle reports on the increasing use of solar power in California.

Back here in Australia, large scale solar power projects are still unheard of (other than the planned solar tower), but smaller scale applications do seem to be becoming more widespread, particularly in remote areas for powered infrastructure like telecommunications repeater systems (This is also increasingly common in India). I've also noticed in recent years that some roadside assistance phones in Perth now have solar panels mounted above them.

Finally, in Russia, the Planetary Society is building a "solar sail" powered spacecraft, and down at the other pole, polar explorer Ben Saunders wants to work out how to replace his gas stove with a solar power system for creating water from snow during an Antarctic expedition.

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