Please find below the
Semi-Finalist Evaluation
Judges'' comments
We appreciate the thought and broad research put into this proposal. A national clean energy/green bank or other national financing mechanism for clean energy is an interesting and popular idea. This is one of the strengths, but also one of the challenges of this proposal.
By focusing on an idea that already has been introduced and received significant attention, a high bar is set to have this idea meet the novelty or thoroughness criteria. We do appreciate the ties to the international community, but feel this novel aspect is not as relevant to the U.S. government contest prompt.
The author makes a compelling case about the seriousness of the threat posed by climate change and why there's urgency for the US and world to take action to address climate. However, less information is presented about the specifics of how a green bank would work to contribute to this, what its impact would be to finance projects that would reduce emissions, how this would occur, etc. As an example, it's unclear exactly how the federal government would be able to capitalize the bank -- and whether it could be done by executive action alone or would require legislation.
Most importantly, the cost of this project is exceedingly high, and as such we question its economic and political feasibility. I'm not convinced that a national green bank would be able to make money out of nothing, as this proposal describes. I would encourage you to dig deeper on two fronts. First, you should figure out where the additional money is literally coming from. While it may look like leveraged money comes from nowhere, it actually comes from other uses, which means that investors need to view this use more positively than wherever else they would put their money. Second, I would encourage you to think about how desirable this level of leverage is. For example, does this proposal lead to a $500 billion portfolio that could be significantly weakened by a small budget change in the US federal government?
In other words, we feel as it is written now, the proposal is neither feasible nor novel enough to warrant advancement to the semi-finalist round though.
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