Approach #2 - Will Technology Win?

by Cailyn Kreitz

·      Incentives from the government and private organizations help motivate companies and inventors to come up with sustainable solutions to today’s environmental problems. Nonprofit organizations like the X Prize Foundation, stimulate and encourage research and innovation through “high profile, incentivized prized competitions.”

·      Governments could remove subsidies to oil companies that keep oil prices artificially low. This could encourage private companies to further develop methods of renewable energy.

·      The government could also increase tax credits to individuals and companies to research and develop renewable energy resources. In our nation, Residential Renewable Energy Tax Credits offer citizens tax credits for using more efficient sources of energy, and the Production Tax Credit grants companies that generate energy from renewable resources a discount, that help them produce at lower costs.

·      Penn State also supports the Green Energy Challenge, where students have to audit a building and make recommendations as to how that building could be more energy efficient. Can this actually affect significant change or are such efforts trivial?

·      Penn State University takes part in the Dow Sustainability Innovation Challenge, an international competition focusing on sustainability, that rewards students and Universities for their innovation and research in some of today’s most pressing environmental and society issues. Are programs such as this at our nation’s universities effective? Should more awards like this be offered to graduate students?