WINNERS AT MIT: The Picasolar team from the University of Arkansas.

  • WINNERS AT MIT: The Picasolar team from the University of Arkansas.

The Boston Globe reports that a startup enterprise from the University of Arkansas has won $250,000 as the winner of the MIT Clean Energy Prize.

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Picasolar is developing technology to improve the efficiency of solar panels. It beat 56 teams from 38 schools for the $150,000 prize, supplemented by a $100,000 prize from the Department of Energy.

Clean energy? Who needs it when we have pipelines and Canadian sand full of tar ready for pumping through Mayflower? It’s just a scam. Ask any Republican or Rush Limbaugh. About the green energy industry or climate change.

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Also: Did they actually win $250,000 without benefit of $25 million in city taxpayer money to build a tech park? Something’s definitely amiss.

Here’s more about Picasolar. The backgrounds of the group are really interesting. A thumbnail on their project:

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The Hydrogen Selective Emitter (HSE), offers solar cell manufacturers the advantage that is necessary to become profitable in the solar industry. With our HSE technology, manufacturers could increase profits from negative $1 up to $34 per solar panel based on efficiency gains and silver cost savings. For our average 4 million panel customer, that is an increase of $140 million in revenue.

The team earlier won $25,000 in the Donald Reynolds Governor’s Cup competition in Arkansas.

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