Cleantech Competitions Make Meaningful Contributions to Sustainability
Wally Rippel, whom I interviewed for both my last book and current effort, led a team of college kids at Cal Tech in an electric vehicle race against MIT – in the 1960s! That’s not just yesterday, is it?
Fortunately for the world, over the last half century there have been many thousands of good-natured competitions in cleantech through the years, where teams of (mostly young) people vie to develop the best, fastest, lightest, and most efficient gizmos possible – many of which have made meaningful progress in the world’s quest for sustainability.
Readers may want to follow this year’s Solar Decathlon, sponsored by the US Department of Energy.
I have to challenge you on that one… Althoguh Cleantech competitions may indeed make meaningful contributions to sustainability, your example of the EV race in 1960 seems like a counter-example. If that competition had made a meaningful contribution, wouldn’t we have had widespread EV adoption before the 60’s college kids were reaching retirement age, as they must be today?
I suppose I could have chosen a better example.