University of California-Irvine and Rochester Institute of Technology’s Golisano Institute for Sustainability launched the Reducing Embodied-Energy & Decreasing Emissions Institute to improve the efficiency and competitiveness of U.S. manufacturing.
The Department of Energy is providing up to $70 million to fund the institute through its Manufacturing USA initiative, with a matching sum contributed by a consortium of 85 private-industry partners. The goal of the program is to create new clean energy efforts.
The institute will focus on reducing the cost of technologies needed to reuse, recycle and remanufacture materials such as metals, fibers, polymers and electronic waste. Participants aim to achieve a 50% improvement in overall factory energy efficiency by 2027.
Programs promoting manufacturing efficiency with research activities at UCI include the DOE-sponsored Clean Energy Smart Manufacturing Innovation Institute at the California Institute for Telecommunications & Information Technology and the Institute for Design & Manufacturing Innovation at the Henry Samueli School of Engineering.
Manufacturing USA works with academia, industry and federal partners to increase U.S. manufacturing competitiveness and promote a robust and sustainable national manufacturing research and development infrastructure.
The Rochester Institute of Technology is the main headquarters for the institute, comprised of several universities, national labs, companies, state governments and trade associations and foundations.
