BP Solar Profitable – Solar has Bright Future Ahead

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).

As you can probably guess, I'm torn between hoping for the best in light of that positive development and knowing that what BP's doing is incredibly small compared to what they could do if they really wanted to.

::ENN, ::BP Solar [by MGR]