By Kyle Kaminski, Record-Eagle
TRAVERSE CITY — Not all high school science projects come with a $25,000 price tag. Senior Caleb Brown admits his idea to install solar panels at Northport Public School is ambitious. The required paperwork and permits alone is bewildering. But when he tacked on the thousands of dollars needed to get the senior project off the ground — the concept seemed unfathomable.
“Once in the middle of the year, I was starting to think I didn’t know how I was going to raise all this money,” Brown said. Continue reading.
Photo: Record-Eagle. Northport Public School senior Caleb Brown said that his solar array project will be complete by mid-summer.
Building a model wind turbine or solar car is not out of reach for students, thanks to a unique program at the University of Northern Iowa. Inspired by the memoir, “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind,” about a young boy who built a windmill for his family’s electricity source, Fabulous Resources for Energy Education (F.R.E.E.) offers kits for students that put renewable resources into their own hands. The kits have been available for more than 10 years, according to Patricia Higby, energy education and outreach coordinator for the Center for Energy and Environmental Education (CEEE) at UNI, which oversees the F.R.E.E. program. Read more 
Once the plant is decommissioned, the greenfield site could “create some opportunity” for the neighboring biorefinery campus, said Burke, who serves as chairman of economic development on the Greater Omaha Chamber Board of Directors Executive Committee. The FCS site could also be a location for other power generation options besides nuclear. “Certainly, it could create some great economic development as well,” he said. Burke encouraged the public to come to the OPPD board meeting at 10 a.m. [June] 16 at Energy Plaza in Omaha.
