Global Steel Production Hit Record High in 2012
Worldwide steel production steadily increased last year, led primarily by gains in North America and Asia. Although the pace of growth slowed slightly, total steel production in 2012 still hit a record high level. Worldwide crude steel production rose from 1.53 billion metric tons in 2011 to 1.55 billion tons through the end of 2012, representing a 1.2 percent year-over-year increase, according...
Read More »Will Coal Surpass Oil as the World's Top Energy Source?
If current trends continue, coal is poised to match - or potentially overtake - oil as the world's most widely used energy resource in the next five years. However, demand is expected to weaken in the U.S. due to the shale gas boom, causing difficulties for the domestic coal industry. According to a recent report from the International Energy Agency (IEA), demand for energy has been increasing...
Read More »NAM Announces Immigration Coalition to Improve STEM
This week, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) announced a newly formed immigration coalition that aims to improve STEM education and drive industry competitiveness in the U.S. Coalition members, who represent education groups, businesses and national associations, are leveraging the new group as a opportunity for immigrants to fill the high-skilled labor gap, a detriment to...
Read More »Are Biomass and Biofuel Environmental Solutions for the Future?
Biomass is a manufacturing and industrial term that has become thrown around quite a bit in recent years, as more and more companies and industries try to find ways to take their waste products and recycle and re-use them. Landfills are filling up fast, and the incredible amount of carbon footprint industrial waste leaves is a concern to manufacturers and customers alike. But what exactly is...
Read More »The Environmental Defense Fund Touts State Successes in Cleantech
The economy is on everyone's mind. What to do about it, however, probably depends on which way you lean politically. While the Chamber of Commerce, a conservative lobbyist group for American businesses, recently released a plan of action for the economy that includes a no-holds barred approach to developing the domestic fossil fuel industry, the solutions are very different in environmental...
Read More »Employment Outlook for STEM Professionals Is Robust -- and Moving Beyond Traditional Occupations
STEM occupations generate the technological changes that shape all other occupations, and the outlook for such jobs is encouragingly positive. Here's a birds-eye view of the growing demand for STEM careers. From 2000 to 2010, growth in STEM jobs (7.9 percent) was three times as fast as employment growth in non-STEM jobs (2.6 percent) in the United States. In 2010, there were 7.6 million STEM...
Read More »Chamber of Commerce Unveils Policy Priorities to Repair U.S. Economy
Like most Americans, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has the state of the U.S. economy on its mind. The organization recently issued its 2013 American Jobs and Growth Agenda, a plan to stimulate the economy and lower unemployment through a series of key policy measures - some of which are likely to stir debate. [The] over-riding objective of this ambitious plan is to generate stronger economic...
Read More »Expert's Corner: The Government Market in 2013
Although U.S. government budgets appear to be improving, manufacturers may soon find themselves struggling to land government contracts, as upcoming budget battles are poised to hinder economic health unless they are quickly resolved. GovPro.com's Michael Keating sheds light on how deficit-ceiling combat in Congress could hog-tie the government market in his latest Expert's Corner. The U.S....
Read More »Red Ink
In Red Ink, author and Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist David Wessel explores the fiercely debated but often misunderstood federal budget, taking an in-depth look at the many political and economic interests that guide government budget processes. David Wessel, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning reporter, columnist, and bestselling author of In Fed We Trust, dissects the federal budget: a topic that is...
Read More »Manufacturers Are Diving Into Big Data - Should You?
Industrial companies of all sizes are confronting massive volumes of data - financial transactions, logistics stats, RFID and bar-code data, images, web analytics, social media streams, machine data, sensor readouts - all streaming in at high velocity and in a dizzying variety of formats. This big data concept has emerged in recent years as an important new decision-making tool for manufacturers....
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