Agency Watch
An Overview: What is Happening at the Federal and State AgenciesStatement By The Press Secretary On Transparency In The Energy Sector
(White House, July 23, 2010) The Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which President Obama signed earlier this week, includes a landmark provision that requires energy and mining companies registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to disclose how much they pay to foreign countries and the U.S. government for oil, gas, and minerals. This provision is an essential new tool in promoting transparency in the oil and mineral sectors. This legislation will immediately shed light on billions in payments between multinational corporations and governments, giving citizens the information they need to monitor companies and to hold governments accountable. It will shine a sustained light on the relationship between corporations and governments in the oil and mineral sectors, and make impossible the kind of back-room dealings that cost taxpayers in lost royalties. Click here to read more…
Government Opportunities
Current Funding and Procurement OfferingsFeatured Opportunity – July 21, 2010
PV Technology Incubator – The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has issued a Solicitation for Letters of Interest (LOIs) to U.S. Small Businesses for the development of prototype photovoltaic (PV) cells and modules. The PV Technology Incubator project represents a significant component of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) business strategy of partnering with U.S. industry to accelerate commercialization of photovoltaic system research and development (R&D) to meet aggressive cost and installed capacity goals. The PV Technology Incubator supports the goals of the DOE Solar Energy Technologies Program (SETP), which aggressively funds a diverse set of PV technologies that will help solar electricity achieve high penetration across the United States and grid parity by 2015. This is accomplished by helping promising technologies take the first step towards crossing the barriers to commercialization. [Read more...]
Powerful Partnerships
Success Derived from Leveraging Government OpportunitiesSecretary Chu Announces Six Projects To Convert Captured CO2 Emissions From Industrial Sources Into Useful Products
(DOE, July 22, 2010) Washington, D.C. – U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced today the selections of six projects that aim to find ways of converting captured carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from industrial sources into useful products such as fuel, plastics, cement, and fertilizers. Funded with $106 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act -matched with $156 million in private cost-share -today’s selections demonstrate the potential opportunity to use CO2 as an inexpensive raw material that can help reduce carbon dioxide emissions while producing useful by-products that Americans can use. ”These innovative projects convert carbon pollution from a climate threat to an economic resource,” said Secretary Chu. “This is part of our broad commitment to unleash the American innovation machine and build the thriving, clean energy economy of the future.” Click here to read more…
Related News
Articles of Interest in the Science & Technology ArenaAn Invisibility Cloak Made Of Glass
(R&D Daily, July 22, 2010) From Tolkien’s ring of power in The Lord of the Rings to Star Trek’s Romulans, who could make their warships disappear from view, from Harry Potter’s magical cloak to the garment that makes players vanish in the video game classic “Dungeons and Dragons, the power to turn someone or something invisible has fascinated mankind. But who ever thought that a scientist at Michigan Technological University would be serious about building a working invisibility cloak? That’s exactly what Elena Semouchkina, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Michigan Tech, is doing. She has found ways to use magnetic resonance to capture rays of visible light and route them around objects, rendering those objects invisible to the human eye. Click here to read more…