The Downtown Project isn’t the only organization handing out cash for promising business ideas. Nevada’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology will dole out a cool $100,000 on April 18 for the Donald W. Reynolds Governor’s Cup Collegiate Business Plan Competition. The annual contest encourages Nevada students to use their talents to “produce tomorrow’s businesses” and awards cash prizes to the top three undergraduate and graduate student groups.

Around 60 entries were submitted this year, and out of the 12 chosen as finalists, a few stood out as particularly intriguing: Tired of hearing about our dependency on foreign oil? CH4OICE, a graduate team from UNR, has developed an electrochemical process that converts carbon dioxide into renewable methanol, which can be used as an alternative fuel. Also on the energy front, Gymnerate from UNLV extracts energy from in-use workout machines to be put back into the grid, saving gyms money on their power bills. (Just think about how much lower those monthly gym fees would be if your treadmill helped power the AC.) Finally, while Solution Bar won’t aid the country’s fuel crisis or save you cash, the UNLV team behind it is hoping you’ll order one of its “molecular mixology beverages” should the science-themed specialty bar ever open.