Day: June 27, 2013

SmartZone Start-up Company, QTEK Receives ‘New Business Idea’ Award in State Competition

A growing MTEC SmartZone start-up company that developed an antimicrobial technology, earned an award in a business plan competition in East Lansing.

QTEK founders Bowen Li (MSE) and Amy Zhi received the “New Business Idea” award during the Statewide Business Plan Competition Award Ceremony, held on June 18 at Michigan State University. The event was hosted by Great Lakes Entrepreneur’s Quest (GLEQ), a support organization that assists entrepreneurs in starting, developing or accelerating high-growth businesses.

From Tech Today. Read more at MTEC SmartZone.

Start-up Company Wins State Award

Jim Baker, executive director of innovation and industry engagement at Michigan Tech, helped Li and Zhi craft their business plan, and Professor Jim Hwang (MSE) worked with Li on the underlying technology.

Read more at Tech Today.

Two publications by Joshua Pearce (MSE/ECE) were quoted by the Guardian in an article discussing the deficiencies of Obama’s climate policy plan.

From Tech Today.

Obama’s fracked-up climate strategy will guarantee global warming disaster

What about nuclear power? A 2008 study in the International Journal of Nuclear Governance, Economy and Ecology pointed out that the construction, mining, milling, transporting, refining, enrichment, waste reprocessing/disposal, fabrication, operation and decommissioning processes of nuclear power all release fossil fuel emissions. Also, nuclear power is not efficient enough to replace oil, gas and coal. To do so nuclear production would need to increase by 10.5 per cent every year from 2010 to 2050 – an “unsustainable prospect” requiring a “cannibalistic effect”, whereby nuclear energy itself must be used to supply the energy for future nuclear power plants.

Study author Dr. Joshua Pearce further argued last year that unless nuclear power adopts “improved technology and efficiency through the entire life cycle to prevent energy cannibalism during rapid growth”, the industry could “face obsolescence” compared to renewables.

Read more at The Guardian, by Nafeez Ahmed.