First Photos From the European Solar Decathlon

An anonymous reader writes "The 2010 Solar Decathlon Europe kicked off today in Madrid, Spain, with a stunning array of solar-powered prefab homes. Seventeen teams from around the globe are battling it out in the center of the city to see who has the most efficient solar-powered and eco-friendly house. Just as in the competition in Washington DC, the teams will be graded on minimal energy use, innovative architecture and engineering, sustainability, and more. Check out these exclusive photos from the event for a first look at the most exciting houses in this year's competition."

Judge a marathon based on 100 yards in the middle?

[Rogerborg]

You want to know which design is more efficient? You need to monitor the mining, refining, shipping, construction and maintenance for the next 20+ years (or until we have fusion power, which largely moots the problem). Judging efficiency based on a sample of a couple of days is like measuring tails and extrapolating that cats and elephants must be about the same size.

Re:Major Solar Energy Marketing Campaign in Progre

[drinkypoo]

Anyone have any more info on why NOW they're doing such a large marketing push for solar? Is wind that big of a threat to solar?

It's obvious that it's all about the BP spill. People are saying "what can we do to stop this from happening again?" The best answer is "stop offshore drilling" but it's not realistic unless we reduce our dependence on oil.

Re:Judge a marathon based on 100 yards in the midd

[elashish14]

I'm sorry. Maybe they should just scrap the competition then. It's clearly a total waste and provides no true innovation or inspiration for its corporate sponsors and/or onlookers.

Anytime a scientific story gets posted to slashdot, what annoys me most is when commentors take on the annoying stance of impatiently asking why it isn't functional immediately. It's ridiculous. So I suppose all modern inventions were developed overnight. The first computers were core i7's, right? It's not like we ever started out with punch-cards or anything like that.

Sure, this won't give us an understanding of whether the entire production process for a solar economy is feasible. Let's look at it this way: if we didn't have competitions like this, why would we ever even bother asking?