MIT's cool solar house

So here is a short blog action post about the environment:
As you know, I've been geeking out, following the Solar Decathlon (see links below) this week and last. MIT's team has made a house that is specifically designed for weather typical of the Northeast. So, yes, that's an entirely solar house that runs through the snowy winter, for those of you who think it isn't possible.

To meet decathlon requirements, the house must be "powered exclusively by the sun.... attractive and easy to live in. They must maintain a comfortable temperature, provide attractive and adequate lighting, power household appliances for cooking and cleaning, power home electronics, and provide hot water. These houses must also power an electric vehicle to meet household transportation needs." Sounds pretty good to me.

Here is the MIT team site, with CAD models.
Here is the page with photo tours of the final build of each of the teams.
Here's the link to current scores and standings, which update frequently. (MIT's not doing so well as of this posting, but hey, that was an ambitious project.)
Here's the page for video tours. They're pretty short, yet took a while to download for me, so I'm going back to reading specs and checking out the pretty pictures.

I wish they held this competition every year, instead of every two! And I wish they would give me one of the houses to live in and blog about! They're so cute!