Environmental Education For Children

In Michigan, DTE Energy & the University of Michigan put on a Clean Energy Prize Competition for students.

Currently, 8 Teams have advanced to the Semi-finals, and according to a press release from DTE Energy, the new business ideas range from:

A system to enhance electric vehicle batteries
A new method to produce a gas used in solar cell production
Plans for turning food waste into fuel and more!

What do the students have to do? Teams have to develop business plans that promise to move a new, clean-energy technology from the laboratory to the market place.

How much $ is at stake? 1st Prize $50,000 2nd Place gets $25,000 3rd Place - $10,000 and 4th Place $7,000.

Below is what each of the 8 Teams are doing:

Advanced Battery Control: offers a proprietary smart battery management system, which will radically enhance battery utilization in electric vehicles.
Carbon Perks: a service that motivates people to incorporate energy efficient practices into their lifestyles while helping utilities reduce the costs of providing peak power.
Enertia: brings to market a multiple patent-pending innovation that will harness ambient kinetic energy and extend the lifetime of wireless electronic devices tenfold, while at the same time replacing toxic electrochemical batteries.
Food Waste Energy: manufactures and installs anaerobic biodigestors that help restaurants save energy and waste disposal costs by producing natural gas from food waste on site.
Green Silane: produces silane gas for customers on-site in a manner that is flexible, low-cost, and environmentally benign, revolutionizing the supply chain for this critical input to semiconductor, flat-screen display and photovoltaic panel production.
Ice Mitigating Systems: developed a two-fold approach to counter the effects of ice on offshore wind turbines. The solution, which addresses the turbine blades and its structural foundation, will be licensed to manufacturers and the company will provide the necessary consulting services to implement these systems.
ReGenerate: manufactures and leases modular anaerobic digestors to institutional food service operators, transforming food waste discards into on-site renewable energy as well as nutrient-rich fertilizer products that will be cobranded and sold through retail outlets.
Smart Energy Inc.: providing the bridge between the Smart Grid and consumers, empowering consumers with control over their energy usage and appliances.