Alcoa, which actually stands for Aluminum Company of America, is the third largest aluminum producer in the world. Aside from its involvement in the aluminum industry, Alcoa has worked in a number of other major industries, including automotive, aerospace, building and construction, packaging, and (more…)

On Energy.gov, we’ve been showcasing a series of stories about innovations from our National Laboratories that have been successfully commercialized – and how they impact Americans’ lives. During 2010 alone, our National Laboratories engaged in more than 13,500 technology transfer transactions – from (more…)

A study quantifying each nation’s contribution to global carbon emissions based on its role in the supply chain of energy production — from resource mining to burning of fuels — suggests that pricing carbon at the point of extraction would simplify global efforts to curb emissions. (more…)

Last week, the X PRIZE Foundation and philanthropist Wendy Schmidt announced winners of the $1.4 million Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X CHALLENGE. Launched in July 2010 in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the competition inspired entrepreneurs, engineers, (more…)

As we all learned in kindergarten, every snowflake is unique.  Now, studies have shown that is not entirely true (see here if you are marginally interested in the science of snowflakes), but close enough.

Uniqueness may be good for snowflakes, but lousy for financial transactions. At least part of the problem (more…)

Now that Toyota’s Prius Plug-in Hybrid has been officially announced, we can begin the comparisons with the other plug-in electric vehicle with an extended driving range, the Chevrolet Volt. The underlying question is which is more important to consumers: electric driving range, or total vehicle (more…)

Abu Dhabi is staged to become one of the leaders in cleantech. With a recent multi-million dollar commitment to the development of renewable energy, this country which provides a large quantity of the world’s oil is poised to be a leader in renewable energy sources.

1 ) General Electric. In 2008, GE donated more (more…)

Streetlights do more than tell us when to be home — “Be back before they come on,” our parents would tell us – they also light the way and keep us safe. Nowhere is this more evident than in the sprawling camps of people displaced by the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti. In recent months, the lights (more…)

A roof is more than a way of keeping the rain off. Nowadays many people think of a roof as a place to put solar panels to collect all of that free sunshine. The problem is that not all roofs are created equal. Scientists from the University of Gothenburg have launched a tool that uses the actual conditions to (more…)

The planting of so-called “fertilizer trees,” indigenous tree species that draw nitrogen from the air and replenish the soil, has significantly improved the crop yields in five African nations over the last two decades, researchers say.

Since the 1980s, when the World Agroforestry (more…)