Classroom merges with real world hands on technology

Crowder College doesn't just talk about cleaner energy it offers students from around the country and around the world opportunities to apply what they know in outstanding ways to push forward technologies in creative and unique ways.

Two of Crowder's more famous activities are the international solar car race each year and the solar bike race. Additionally Crowder College is unique in the nation as the only two year

community college to compete in the solar decathlon, an event held in Washington DC each year. It was at Crowder College that the first solar car to go from coast to coast was built and as a College we keep moving forward by adding more hands-on environmental education classes like the first biodiesel degree and certificate programs in the nation.

As you tour our MARET site you are seeing only what we have done. The future is very exciting! We have more environmental degrees in development, cutting edge technologies in the works for the building of the MARET center, businesses coming to Crowder to take advantage of our unique incubation system, and so much more. Many marvel that a two year college could do so much and have active community and student participation but our unique spirit and Can-Do attitude makes us regularly remove obstacles that no one thought could be budged.

Energy Efficiency and Renewable energy (EERE) Homepage for Geothermal

Hot water below ground can be tapped (article, Since Spin)

"f we could extract all the geothermal energy that exists underneath the United States to a depth of two miles, it would supply America’s power demands (at the current rate of usage) for the next 30,000 years. Getting at all that energy is not feasible—there are technological and economic impediments—but drawing on just 5 percent of the geothermal wealth would generate enough electricity to meet the needs of 260 million Americans. The Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) asserts that reaching that 5 percent level, which would produce 260,000 megawatts of electric power and reduce our dependence on coal by one-third, is doable by 2050."
(Source: URL:DiscoverMagazine.Com by Prachi Patel-Predd published online April 3, 2008)