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Leaders of the Fuel Cell Pack
Fuel cell forklifts like the one shown here are used by leading companies across the U.S. as part of their daily business operations. | Energy Department file photo.

The Energy Department’s "Business Case for Fuel Cells 2011" report illustrates how top American companies are using fuel cells in their business operations to advance their sustainability goals, save millions of dollars in electricity costs, and reduce carbon emissions by hundreds of thousands of metric tons per year.

Utility to Purchase Low-Carbon Power from Innovative Clean Coal Plant
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory demonstrated coal gasification in large-scale field experiments at the Rocky Mountain Test Facility (above) near Hanna, Wyoming. Coal gasification and sequestration of the carbon dioxide produced are among the technologies being used in the Texas Clean Energy Project. | Photo courtesy of <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/">llnlphotos</a>.

An innovative clean coal demonstration project in Texas, supported by the Office of Fossil Energy, recently took a big step forward.

Saving Clams in the Halibut Capital of the World
Homer, population 5,364, known far and wide for its importance to Alaska's commercial fishing industry, spent $847,000 to conduct an initial energy audit and implement energy efficiency improvements that will drop the city's energy bill by $100,000 annually -- a reduction of approximately 14 percent. | Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Since 2010, officials of the Alaskan municipality Homer have spent $847,000 to conduct an initial energy audit and implement energy efficiency improvements that will drop the city's energy bill by $100,000 annually, a reduction of approximately 14 percent.

Lessons Learned: An Ongoing Dialogue About Smart Grid
EPB’s $226 million Smart Grid Investment Grant project, part of the Energy Department's Recovery Act funding has allowed upgrades on its distribution system and the installation of “smart” switches and sensor equipment for 164 distribution circuits as well as the deployment of approximately 1500 smart switches system-wide. Thanks to these smart grid technologies, EPB saved thousands of hours of outage time for their consumers. | DoE photo

Assistant Secretary Patricia Hoffman explains lessons learned from the recent Southeast peer-to-peer workshop in Charlotte, North Carolina. Many of the attendees represented awardees from the Energy Department's Recovery Act programs, and while they demonstrated success in their work, there was a consistent theme of community involvement as essential to that success.