Editorial: Capitalizing On Worcester's Strengths
At the nine colleges based within the city of Worcester's borders, there are roughly 2,118 full-time college faculty members. And note that total doesn't include part-time or adjunct professors.
In other words, there's an awful lot of brain power here.
And Worcester has done a fairly good job of capitalizing on that brain power over the years. After all, Craig Mello was just another researcher at UMass Medical School until he gained worldwide attention as a Nobel Prize Winner.
But the city shouldn't sit back and relax on its intellectual laurels. It should be actively seeking more ways to tap into the academic brain trust that makes this city unique.
One way to do that is to capitalize on some of the expertise on cutting-edge fuel cell technology already housed at Worcester Polytechnic Institute's campus.
Rep. Robert Spellane, D-Worcester, has filed a bill at the legislature seeking to establish the Massachusetts Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Institute at WPI, which already has a Fuel Cell Center. Fuel cells use hydrogen gas - which can be obtained from a wide variety of sources without significant environmental impact - to create electric power. The technology can be used to power everything from hotels to cars.
Through the proposed legislation, the institute would be established, and the state would kick in $2 million per year for the next five years to fund it. The labs at the fuel cell institute would be available to all colleges and businesses within the state looking to do research into the technology.
Spellane's bill piggy-backs on recommendations made in a 2006 report commissioned by the Massachusetts Legislature that called for the state to invest $25 to $30 million in the fuel cell industry. That report detailed the state's fuel cell industry, stating that the commonwealth is "home to more than 60 companies involved with fuel cell and hydrogen technologies, making it one of the largest clusters in the world." And those early-stage companies are only expected to grow.
Having a fuel cell institute backed by state support at WPI only makes economic sense for the region, particularly in light of the current state of affairs in the global energy market place.
The nation and the world's reliance on oil is a high-priced addiction that is finally driving people to take alternative energy sources - like fuel cells - seriously.
Granted, fuel cells aren't ready for mass commercialization, but they are being used. Southborough's Protonex Technology Corp., which makes fuel cells, won its largest contract to date this year when the U.S. Army agreed to pony up $3.5 million for a product development contract.
And beefing up research into fuel cell technology, like Spellane's legislation proposes, would only help the technology come down in price to meet the escalating cost of oil. It would also ensure that Worcester is the heart of that research.
Massachusetts has been dragging its feet in many respects when it comes to investing in fuel cell research. Our neighbor to the south - Connecticut - has a 4-year-old fuel cell research center at the University of Connecticut, as well as major commercial players in the industry, including United Technologies Corp., headquartered there.
While the Nutmeg State has edged out ahead, there's still plenty of room for Massachusetts, and Worcester, to benefit from the technology when its demand spikes.
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