Bret Kugelmass: Welcome to the finale of the
world's first ever nuclear energy grand challenge.
Todd Allen: About a year ago,Bret Kugelmass
from the Energy Impact Center and I, dreamt
of this idea to have a prize competition about
nuclear waste.
Bret Kugelmass: Nuclear waste is not, and
never was a threat to public health.
But telling the public this directly does
not satisfy their valid feelings on the topic.
Todd Allen: Could we reimagine nuclear waste?
And find some way that it provides value,
and not just need to throw it away.
Alec Gallimore: Often when I talk about the
education we provide students at Michigan
Engineering, I say we want to help students
become wise beyond their years.
Wisdom comes from facing what we call "wicked
problems."
Overcoming negative perceptions of nuclear
waste, is indeed, a wicked problem.
Jonathan Fay: Working this year with the nuclear
prize has been a great privilege for us here
at the Center for Entrepreneurship at the
University of Michigan.
We've been working with students across campus
all year long to expose them to a holistic
view of what it takes to bring an innovation
to market.
Todd Allen: The idea is, you ask people to
reimagine the future.
So you end up with a solution, but you also
change the public narrative around the issue.
Alec Gallimore: And now, for the moment you've
been waiting for, the winner is SustainiUM.
Students, I'm inspired by your commitment
to this change.
Bret Kugelmass: By reinventing the future
of nuclear waste as a product, you are leading
the charge in truly effective persuasion.
Alec Gallimore: Now let's hear more from the
winning team.
SustainiUM: Every day the United States produces
over 12,000 tons of sewage sludge.
SustainiUM proposes ot take two negatives,
nuclear waste and sewage sludge, and turn
it into a positive: sustainable biomass.
Our system is compatible with existing technology
and uses the heat generated by spent nuclear
fuel to dry sludge.
Our conversations with 22 industry experts
have confirmed that this technology would
be readily accepted and welcomed by the target
customer, nuclear facilities, providing added
income, improved public perception, and environmental
benefits.
We thank all of our sponsors who supported
us on our path to developing this idea.
Thank you!
Alec Gallimore: And congratulations again
to all of you who participated.
You have demonstrated our aim to develop students
who are intellectually curious and socially
conscious.
We are proud of your work and your passion.
Bret Kugelmass: It's been amazing to watch
the collaboration between the University of
Michigan, Energy Impact Center, and our judges
from across the world.
Jonathan Fay: We really believe that it's
going to take an entrepreneurial mindset to
really solve the big challenges that face
us in the future, and certainly climate change
is one of those challenges.
Bret Kugelmass: We need a revolutionary mindset.
What we need...is you.
SustainiUM: First, as you can see in this
video, our inbound truck would deposit wet
sludge in a storage unit.
The wet sludge is then pumped into a drier.
Air which is heated by the dry cask, we show
3 dry casks in this model, is also pumped
into the drier.
A spiral pump at the bottom of the drier extracts
the dry sludge which is loaded on an outbound
truck.
