South Carolina Looking to Develop Cleantech Cluster

There seem to be no shortage of US regions looking to jump on the cleantech based economic development opportunity. Earlier this month, he Department of Energy chose Clemson University’s Restoration Institute to build and operate the world’s largest test facility for wind turbine drive trains. This is expected to kick-start a development of a wind-energy cluster in the region.

The Department of Energy estimates that South Carolina could gain 10,000 to 20,000 new jobs related to the wind energy industry in the next 20 years.

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Alberta’s ‘Heartland’ set for chemical processing industry cluster

The province of Alberta (Canada), has long enjoyed the wealth created as a result of the oil sands reserve. During the past few years, there has been an ongoing debate of how to also best benefit from the processing and value-add of the bitumen.

The provincial government are currently considering several proposals with long-term plans for an integrated cluster of chemical industries. More info

US Federal Government will invest $366M in Energy Innovation Hubs / Clusters

U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu has presented a plan outlining how the DoE will invest up to US $122 over five years in each three hubs.

DoE will review proposal in the coming months from prospective clusters/hubs.

The overall objective is bring together a multidisciplinary team of researchers to accelerate R&D and to shorten the time from discovery to technological development and commercialization  promising energy-related technologies.

The three hubs/clusters will focus on:

• production of fuels directly from sunlight
• improving energy-efficient building systems design
• computer modeling and simulation for the development of advanced nuclear reactors

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