GREEN RICE: Generating Revenue from Electrical Energy Naturally to Reduce the Impact of Carbon Emissions

Mon, 02 Dec 2013 19:00:00 -0500

The primary NSF strategic goal for the IGERT SUN program is to educate the next generation of leaders in guiding society toward a solar-based, sustainable energy future by training doctoral students who can see beyond the boundaries of traditional methodologies and disciplinary viewpoints, and who can integrate scientific excellence with societal and policy insights. This project illustrates how, from the onset, the IGERT SUN curriculum has been effective in fostering learning and collaborative thinking, and in encouraging interdisciplinary approaches to the complex issues involved in moving from a fossil-fuel-based society to a sustainable solar energy world.

The 2012 IGERT SUN cohort has shown teamwork in their organized approach and a willingness to tackle complex issues in an innovative way. A secondary NSF strategic goal for the program is to foster innovative research in the field of solar energy by providing the renewable energy community with innovators with the ability to make connections between problems from multiple solar energy sectors and find novel solutions to those problems. This project is an example of how the students are being trained to translate coursework into integrative project proposals across solar energy sectors. The project is novel in its approach and enhances collaborative discovery by students outside of their individual comfort zone.