Here comes the sun
15 Jan 2000
Australia: land of unending sunshine and strange hybrids such as the duckbilled platypus and this month's cover star, the koala. It's apt that BP Amoco has chosen this land to launch what many people will see as another strange hybrid: the solar-powered petrol station.
Yet this is no joke for the Anglo-American oil giant. A major investor in solar power for many years, the company believes that solar power is the best way to reduce the impact of service stations on the environment.
The station, in a suburb of Sydney, is the first of about 200 solar petrol stations to be built over the next two years. Costing $50million, the project will save around 3500tonnes of emissions each year, BP Amoco claims.
