Our 2011 PBS Special

AIRED APRIL 8, 2011 9:30 PM

Watch the 2011 PBS Special

With gas prices climbing daily and an uncertain future for nuclear power, many are wondering: How will the U.S. kick its 18 million barrel-a-day petroleum habit? The answer might lie in a microscopic single-cell plant, a landfill or an iconic building.

In 2010 & 2011, we asked you to tell us what innovations will shape our energy future. We narrowed down a pool of hundreds to just seven finalists and featured them on our 2011 PBS special.

Who won?

You selected Planet Forward’s 2011 Innovators of the Year as Danny Kennedy and Jamie Hestekin.

What does that mean? It means you’ll be hearing from them again: we’ll follow Danny and Kennedy on television and online for one year to see if their ideas succeed.

Here’s a list of all our 2011 finalists:

• Kevin Surace, CEO of Serious Materials, retrofit the Empire State Building.
• Jamie Hestekin and a team of students at the University of Arkansas are converting algae into fuel.
• Michael Mendez and his team at Sapphire Energy, is turning algae into Green Crude.
• Danny Kennedy, founder of Sungevity, is reducing the cost of going solar.
• Linda-Rose Myers, president of Eco-Tech Fuels, aims to convert trash into high performance synthetic fuel.
• Al Dahlberg is building coalitions to create infrastructure for electric vehicles.
• Gary Dirks at Arizona State University’s LightWorks project uses the principle of solar power to design synthetic systems.

Experts

A panel of experts weighed in and provided feedback on the innovator’s ideas based on originality, sustainability and commercial viability. These include: Thomas Connelly, Jr., executive vice president and chief innovation officer for DuPont, Jennifer Granholm, former governor of Michigan, and Andrew Revkin, who writes the Dot Earth blog for the New York Times.

Photos

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