RTI to develop biomass fuel

tool name

tool name

RTI says its new lighting is better

Not happy with the fluorescent glow emanating from the bank of lights over your cubicle?

RTI International says it may have a solution. The Research Triangle Park think tank announced Monday that it has developed new lighting based on nanoscale technologies that produce purer light and do so more efficiently than the common incandescent bulb.

RTI's technology was funded with a $1.5 million grant from the Department of Energy's Solid-State Lighting Program. RTI and other investors contributed another $300,000 to the program.

Biofuel grants will bring jobs

A giant nonprofit and a technology startup in the Triangle each snagged a slice of a $78 million federal stimulus grant to promote biofuels research. Both grant recipients are hiring engineers, project managers and other scientists for the research efforts.

The U.S. Department of Energy announced the grants as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The grants will pay for research in advanced biofuels and processing technologies.

Palmer Labs, an 18-month-old Durham company, qualified for nearly $1.5million in stimulus grants. The 14-employee company expects to hire four people this year with the money. Palmer Labs will be doing research in using algae as a renewable fuel and will test algae growing techniques.

Duke Energy grabs hold of West winds

As Duke Energy works to meet North Carolina's recent mandate to produce renewable energy, an unregulated division is whipping up wind power in Wyoming and Texas.

Duke Energy Generation Services develops, owns and operates power plants for large users such as utilities, municipalities and industries in 18 states. More recently, it has focused on harnessing the winds of the West.

Two years after its first wind acquisition, Duke operates 500 megawatts. Its customers include Wal-Mart's Texas operations. It is developing up to 5,000 megawatts more -- the capacity of more than four of Duke's nuclear reactors -- in a dozen states.

RTI to develop software for Army

There's a new chapter in the Triangle's blossoming "serious games" industry.

RTI International has won a $70 million contract to develop simulation software that will be used to train Army soldiers who maintain and repair Abrams tanks.

The Research Triangle Park think tank has provided trainers for Army vehicles since the early 1990s. Now RTI will produce high-tech training software and simulators.

Iraqis train to govern (09/29/2003)

BAGHDAD -- The birth of Baghdad's local government already has passed into legend among the rapidly swelling group of expatriates who have come to rebuild Iraq: Amal Rassam did it, they say, by buttonholing Iraqis on the street.

"We're going to have these meetings," she said. "We don't know where they'll lead, but you need them. Please come and bring three or four friends."

For more than a month, Rassam, an Iraqi-American anthropologist from New York City, was the sole Baghdad representative of Triangle-based RTI International. The nonprofit group in April won a $167 million contract from the U.S. Agency for International Development to nurture local government in 180 cities and villages in postwar Iraq.