EPA’s P3 Award Winners Celebrate a Green Future

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced the university teams who won the annual People, Prosperity and the Planet (P3) competition. The P3 award competition encourages college students to apply technology in innovative ways to tackle global environmental challenges.  P3 designs must be economically profitable, which is why each winner receives funding up to $75,000 to commercialize their designs.

“Scientific innovation has long been a driving force behind the U.S. economy,” said Lek Kadeli, acting assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Research and Development. “The ingenuity displayed by this year’s People, Prosperity and the Planet award winners shows that we can look forward to a bright future where economic growth and environmental sustainability go hand in hand.”

Winners of this year’s awards and their projects are:

University of Arizona - Development of Sustainable Integrated Aquaculture Systems with Assessment of Environmental, Social, and Economic Implications

Columbia University - Multifunction Energy Platform Pilot

Drexel University, Syntactic Selective Near Infrared Scattering Architectural Coatings

University of South Florida - Water Awareness, Research and Education in east Tampa: A Pilot Collaboration Involving USF, Young Magnet Middle School, and the East Tampa Community

Massachusetts Institute of Technology - A Novel Solar Thermal Combined Cycle with Bio-methane Carbon Capture for Distributed Power Generation

University of Tennessee at Knoxville -  The New Norris House: A Sustainable Home for the 21st Century

2009 P3 Honorable Mentions are given to:

• Appalachian State University - Closing the Carbon Loop: Growing Algae Using Sustainable CO2 from Bio-waste
• Appalachian State University - Fair Trade Ethanol: Fuel Production from Coffee Wastes
• Gonzaga University - Green Energy for a Dormitory in Kitale, Kenya
• Johns Hopkins University - Development of an Economical and Sustainable Irrigation Ram Pump for Community Gardening in South Africa
• Lafayette College - Using CODE-PSI to Promote Integrated Sustainable Water and Economic Systems in Yoro, Honduras
• Missouri University of Science and Technology - Residential Building Adaptive Energy Management System (R-BAEMS) Design
• University of Arkansas at Fayetteville - Production of Butanol from Biomass using Novel Membrane Reactor
• University of California - Davis - Implementation of Green Roof Sustainability in Arid Conditions
• University of California - Los Angeles - Eco-Friendly Solid State Photodecarbonylation for the Synthesis of Biologically Active Natural Products
• University of Pittsburgh - Main Campus - Removal of Arsenic from Groundwater Using Naturally Occurring Iron Oxides in Rural Regions of Inner Mongolia (China)
• University of Tennessee - Knoxville - Advancing the Production and Use of Biodiesel Through the Micro-refining of Waste Glycerol

Winners of 2009 P3 ‘Other Awards’ are:

American Society of Civil Engineers and Engineers without Borders Award to Johns Hopkins University - Development of an Economical and Sustainable Irrigation Ram Pump for Community Gardening in South Africa

YCOSST Award to University of Pittsburgh - Main Campus - Removal of Arsenic from Groundwater Using Naturally Occurring Iron Oxides in Rural Regions of Inner Mongolia (China)

The P3 Award competition was held at EPA’s Annual National Sustainable Design Expo on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., April 18-20. Each year, the expo showcases innovative, cutting-edge technologies designed by the P3 teams along with sustainable policies and technologies developed and implemented by government and state agencies and nonprofit organizations.

Support for the competition includes more than 40 partners in the federal government, industry and scientific and professional societies. This year’s expo was co-sponsored by Beyond Benign, a nonprofit organization that educates people on green chemistry.

Images: EPA