Solar Decathlon 2011 Teams announced by Department of Energy

The Department of Energy announced the 20 teams from five countries and four continents competing in next year’s solar-power showdown in the nation’s capitol. Team New Jersey will be represented by a collaboration between Rutgers University and New Jersey Institute of Technology.

The DOE Solar Decathlon challenges collegiate teams to design, build, and operate solar-powered houses that are cost-effective, energy-efficient, and attractive. The winner of the competition is the team that best blends affordability, consumer appeal, and design excellence with optimal energy production and maximum efficiency.

• Click here for more information on Team New Jersey
• Learn more about the Solar Decathlon
• Read U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Press Release

Rutgers introduces courses to explore 'big picture' issues

By Brian Whitley/The Star-Ledger
November 24, 2009

NEW BRUNSWICK -- College students interested in complex issues, such as climate change, have long faced an unappealing choice: plow through survey class after survey class, gleaning the basics from multiple subjects, or cram reams of extracurricular reading into their schedules.

Through a different method of teaching, administrators at Rutgers University hope they’ve solved that dilemma.

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Byrne Seminar Students Get Spin in Electric Vehicle

Nineteen first-year students studying air pollution learn about how electric vehicles could cut oil use and smog. 

Federal Grant

Recyclemania Video

Video of REI interns doing something visual and innovative for Recyclemania (which is tied to waste and energy ... if we all ran around campus to do our recycling instead of using vehicles).

Who said interning in Purchasing was boring!

Graduate Certificate in Engineering Geophysics Spring '09 Seminar Series

Announcing a New Certificate Program:
Engineering Geophysics is a certificate open to graduate students in engineering and science (see website http://gsnb.rutgers.edu/engeo/ ). The certificate program is designed to give participating graduate students a competitive edge in research and the job market by guiding cross-over in courses between engineering and science tailored to each individual.
The seminar series is compiled from offerings by the participating graduate programs.
pdf Download schedule (pdf) (21 KB)

IOOS and Offshore Wind Power Meeting - February 2nd, 2009

Rutgers President Richard McCormick delivered the Welcoming Remarks at the Offshore Wind Energy Meeting on February 2, 2009.

Offshore wind energy development projects are progressing in several states along the U.S. eastern seaboard. Projects in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia are already well into in the planning phase. Each of these development projects requires a suite of meteorological, oceanographic and other observations to support siting, installation and operation of offshore wind farms in U.S. coastal waters.

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Rutgers University awarded "Energy Educator of the Year".

Board of Public Utilities Recognizes New Jersey's Clean Energy Leaders

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NJN Video on Carbon Capture

Patrick Regan, Senior Correspondent in Science and Technology for NJN News covers the Rutgers Energy Institute's Carbon Capture and Sequestration Symposium on October 27, 2008 in this video. The video clip, "Carbon Capture," broadcast on October 29, 2009 and is available directly from NJN at http://www.njn.net/newspublicaffairs/science/

Fuel of the future

New Rutgers research team takes lessons from natural photosynthesis to develop a bioinspired water oxidation catalyst: A renewable source of hydrogen fuel

Hydrogen remains the most promising fuel of the future owing to its carbon-free high-energy content and potential to be efficiently converted to either electrical or thermal energy. However, most of it on earth is locked up in a stable form we know as water. The development of inexpensive yet effective catalysts from cheap earth-abundant materials remains the greatest technical barrier limiting access to this renewable source of energy. The second challenge is mating this catalyst to a suitable photovoltaic device to enable solar energy to power the chemical transformations needed to extract the hydrogen and oxygen. To date, the most efficient system for using solar energy to split water is nature's photosynthetic enzyme called the Water-Oxidizing Complex (PSII-WOC). The catalytic core of this enzyme contains a CaMn₄O_x cluster that is present in all known species of oxygenic phototrophs and apparently conserved since the emergence of this type of photosynthesis ca. 2.5 billion years ago. Professor Charles Dismukes, a new arrival with appointments in the Department of Chemistry & Chemical Biology and the Waksman Institute, has coauthored work presented at the American Chemical Society meeting in Washington D.C. which describes an abiotic synthetic mimic of the PSII-WOC system. The ACS paper was featured in a news account in the September 4th issue of Science Magazine.

Rutgers Scholars Propose Creation of Energy - Grant University System

Editorial: Future Energy Institutes
Paul G. Falkowski and Robert M. Goodman
Science 7 August 2009: 655.

The landmark energy bill wending its way through congress this summer seeks to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases and supports the development of alternative energies, including solar and wind power. It’s a bill that aims to create both a “green” U.S. economy and a sustainable environment.
At this critical juncture, America must take an equally sustainable view toward investing in the brainpower required to confront the world’s complex energy issues.

Rutgers receives $7.65M in federal grants to study clean energy

September 3, 2009 - Three federal grants totaling $7.65 million have been awarded to the university to fund graduate research in clean and sustainable energy and continue other research projects previously funded by the National Science Foundation.
Officials said that the awards are the fifth and sixth of such grants the foundation has awarded Rutgers over the past six years. Only a handful of universities have received two of these grants in 2009. 
The energy research grants are funded under the National Science Foundation's five-year Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship program, which supports students pursuing doctorates in fields that cross academic disciplines and have broad societal impact.

Solar Panels at Rutgers

Construction of the seven-acre solar farm on Livingston Campus is set to begin Fall 2008 and be in operation in Spring 2009. It will be the largest solar energy project in the State and will generate more than 1500 megawatt hours of electricity in the first year which is about 10% of the electrical demand on Livingston Campus. More than 7000 solar panels about four-feet high will reduce the university's carbon dioxide emissions by more than 1350 tons per year (saving more than 28 hundred barrels of oil or 640 tons of coal) and will offset the need to purchase power from PSE&G or draw on the capacity of the university's gas and oil-fired cogeneration plant.

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<< news coverage at WHYY >>

Air Force, industry leaders discuss future of energy at forum

Air Force Print News Today.  Published: June 5, 2008

"Air Force and energy industry officials discussed various energy conservation and alternative energy sources at the Air Force Sustainable Energy Conference June 2."
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Letter - Find Our Energy Expertise

The New York Times.  Published: July, 13, 2008

To the Editor:

“Lawmakers Re-energized on Energy” (news article, July 9) reveals how the lack of a strategic energy policy has hurt America.
Energy policy should be developed and guided by apolitical science and technology expertise, not the politically motivated, knee-jerk reactions we are witnessing in Congress.
The next president needs to engage the extraordinary expertise in our national laboratories, universities and research centers to develop the best long-term, permanent solutions to the energy problems facing America and the world.
Energy policy today will have an impact on America for decades. It is time to put politics aside and start solving the problems facing us and our children.

Paul Falkowski Roscoff,
France, July 9, 2008
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