At an event today in Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced the 20 collegiate teams selected to compete in the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2013 and unveiled the competition’s location, the Orange County Great Park in Irvine, California. — energy.gov
The following teams have been selected from around the world to compete in Solar Decathlon 2013:
6 Comments
This is a real miss-step in my opinion. This competition did two things very well, it showed that solar housing was viable in a climate that represents a broad range of the US. It also put alternative energy at the feet of policy makers. Removing the Decathlon from the National Mall was a mistake. Removing it from Washington is a huge mis-step. Moving the competition to a climate that is known for its abundance of sun and dry climate reinforces the stereotypes that exist about alternative energy.
Perhaps moving it to Pittsburgh, or Cleveland, or Memphis, or New Orleans would makes sense, but Southern Cali?
caffeine, complete agree. as you indicated being on the mall or at least in DC made it readily visible to both policy makers and newsmakers/media elite.
Seems that with the new location marketing will need to be a even bigger need/focus in order to catch attention of general public.
This is bad - really, really bad.
I should clarify - congrats to the selected schools, very nice to see some new ones on the roster, but the logic behind the move to Southern California is totally beyond me. I grew up in Maryland, and have lived and visited all over the world, and I can say that the climate here in the central northeast really has everything. Southern California, where I was born, and where I returned to live for a year after grad school, is like the non-climate, and Irvine is a total non-place. Ridiculous.
This is a huge mistake - I believe one of the points of Solar Decathlon originally (correct me if I'm wrong) was to essentially force lawmakers to confront the reality / meaning of good passive design, no? Also - huge amounts of school groups, families, etc come from all over America to see the Mall every day - the event reached such a broad audience of folks who are likely not ordinarily exposed to such ideas. The (so-called) "Great Park" in Irvine - planning & development faults aside - on a functional level is simply way out of the way. It's not even near Disneyland, the beach, or any of the mainstream OC tourist hot-spots. Frankly you have to make a special effort to even FIND the darn park. ARGH.
And that's aside from climactic issues, and issues with the developer-driven economic/urban model of southern california, of which the so-called "great park" is emblematic.
also, for those non-californians wondering, Yes, that picture above is what passes for a "Great Park" in orange county.
-- On a side note... the SciArc / CalTech match-up sounds intriguing.
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