Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
University of Rochester's solar energy graduate program
gives the tools necessary to not only study solar energy technology,
but to become entrepreneurs and leaders in the field.
While they earn their doctorate in engineering or science, students are
taught the business and politics of alternative energy.
"Very often scientists and engineers are very good people technically
and scientifically but they are fairly ignorant of the economic and business
questions as well as the public policy questions.
What we want is we want them to become not just players
but in fact entrepreneurs in the field."
"My research involves looking at the interaction of silver nanoparticles
and light, and how that might be used to enhance the scattering of the light
into silicone solar cells. It's important because the price of solar cells
is obviously a big hinderance to adopting photovoltaic technology
and hopfully shifting away from a more fossil fuel based energy economy."
"We will have two international components to our program.
The first one will bring our students to European laboratories
where they will learn and practice the technology that has been developed.
The second internship is going to be in Africa, in one of three African countries
we have selected. They will go there to do field work as well as to help teach
courses in African universities. In quite a few countries in the developed world
we have a situation where the cost of electricity is extremely high
which makes some of those renewable technologies immediately affordable, immediately possible.
We would like some of our students, as a result of their studies,
to actually go in this field and develop solutions that can be used to
improve the quality of life of people in those countries."
"We have focused this program on energy available from the sun
because the sun is largest possible source of energy.
However, today the technological solutions that have been implemented
are not really good enough. They are either too expensive or the
technology degrades over time. So there is an enormous potential
on the one hand and a very big technological need on the other hand.
So this is why we thought this was going to be what we would call
a low hanging fruit."
"Our new program is extremely multi-disciplinary
and will produce students who are not traditional students.
Those students of course will be firmly grounded in the science
and technology behind their dicoveries. But they will also have
acquired a wealth of knowledge that the traditional science and engineering
students do not have. So in a sense this could be a template,
could be a model for other multi-disciplinary initiatives that will eventually change
the nature of higher education, especially at the graduate level."
This is the University of Rochester.