UT Austin is ranked the #3 university in the country for Clean Tech
By dmwogan | January 10, 2010
Check out the latest ranking of clean tech academic institutions from Shawn Lesser of Sustainable World Capital:
3. The University of Texas in Austin The University of Texas at Austin is a historical leader in energy innovation, R&D and teaching. With abundant oil and gas on its own lands, and deep connections to the energy industry, UT has directly profited from its energy leadership and its graduates have populated the highest executive ranks of the world’s energy companies (CEO of ExxonMobil, CEO of ConocoPhillips, President of Shell are just a few examples). The good news is that UT is using its leadership of the conventional energy industry as a launching pad for continued leadership in the cleantech revolution. Those same oil and gas companies are investing aggressively into cleantech and they turn to UT for the expertise and people to make those innovations work. The inventor of the lithium-ion battery, John Goodenough, is a professor of mechanical engineering at UT. The university also is a leader in algae based biofuels. UT is a part of a multimillion dollar DARPA-sponsored project to produce jet fuels from algae. UT Austin was also awarded $35 million in research on carbon sequestration by the Department of Energy. Notable cleantech spinouts include: ActaCell,Advanced Hydro, Graphene Energy, Organic Fuels, and Inspired Solar
We're right behind MIT and UC Berkeley, which is some good company to have. I'm excited our work in algae is getting attention, too.
Historically, our strengths have lied in conventional energy sources (i.e., oil and gas) and we're in a unique position to use what we've learned in the past and apply it to the new problems and challenges with alternative fuels and energy.
#2 in Football and #3 in Clean Tech isn't too shabby, is it?
