EPA Grant Encourages Students to Develop Green Technology

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is currently accepting applications for Phase I of the “P3” Grant Competition, which provides funding to teams of college students who design sustainable technologies.

The People, Prosperity and the Planet (“P3”) Grant has two phases: Phase I awards $15,000 to winning teams to develop their idea. Then, in order to reach Phase II, they must complete their design and share it at The National Sustainable Design Expo in Washington D.C. The winners of Phase II are awarded $90,000 to develop their idea into a reality.

Fifteen university teams earned the P3 Grant, including the Butte College Sustainable Community Development Institute for the “Rice Hulls as Alternative Building Project”; SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry for “Sustainably Overcoming Hindrance to Struvite Recovery from Anaerobically Digested Dairy Manure,”; Princeton University for “Wind Energy for Haiti: A Rapidly Deployable Renewable Energy System”; and Vanderbilt for “Don’t Eat Your Spinach: Nature Inspired Biohybrid Solar Cells”.

The EPA website encourages students who work in interdisciplinary teams, involving departments of “chemistry, architecture, industrial design, business, economics, policy, social science and others,” to apply for the P3 Competition.

The EPA will be accepting applications for the P3 Grant (2012-2013) until December 11, 2012. To learn more information, please click here.