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University of Rochester wins U.S. National Geothermal Student Competition

University of Rochester wins U.S. National Geothermal Student Competition University of Rochester, U.S. (source: flickr/ Deep Kapadia, creative commons)
Alexander Richter 28 Jun 2013

The University of Rochester won the U.S. National Geothermal Student Competition by the U.S. Department of Energy following a final round competition between four schools at the recent GEA National Geothermal Summit.

For the third year, the U.S. Department of Energy had selected four semi-finalists to advance to a final round of the National Geothermal Student Competition, which was held in conjunction with the GEA National Geothermal Energy Summit in Reno, Nevada June 26-27, 2013

The Competition is an inter-collegiate contest that positions geothermal energy as a contender in the global race for clean energy.

This is an effort at America’s leading research universities harnessesing the excitement of geology and geoscience to explore solutions and technologies that could reduce the cost and risks of deploying geothermal energy.

Emphasizing a White House pledge to accelerate science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education, the nationwide student competition selected four student teams based on project concepts that could lead to breakthroughs in their home states.

The final four Semi-Finalists pitched their plans to develop a geothermal enterprise in their home state/region to a panel of geothermal experts drawn from the private and public sector yesterday at the U.S. GEA National Geothermal Summit in Reno, Nevada.

The scores and order of placement below reflects the combined totals of the business plan grade and the presentation grade.

  1. University of Rochester
  2. OIT
  3. Cal Poly Pomona
  4. University of South Dakota

The University of Rochester receives an award of $5,500 to complete their business plan, addressing barriers to geothermal development and sound technical solutions.

Source: Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education,