Joe Biden reports on 100 Recovery Act projects changing America

A new report released by US vice president Joe Biden has highlighted 100 projects funded or supported by the `Recovery Act' that are changing America through innovation.

With over $787 billion in funding, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is designed to rescue a rapidly deteriorating economy and putting the country on a path to recovery by putting Americans back to work quickly.

The programme aims at reinvesting in the country's long-term economic future, building a foundation for a new, more robust, and competitive American economy, Biden said in his report, `Transforming the American Economy Through Innovation.'

Of the total allocation, over $100 billion will be invested in innovative and transformative programmes.

The report explores four areas within those innovative programmes in which game-changing breakthroughs are being sought, and in some cases, new American industries are being born.

These include:

• Modernising transportation, including advanced vehicle technology and high-speed rail;
  
• Jumpstarting the renewable energy sector through wind and solar energy;
  
• Building a platform for private sector innovation through investments in broadband, Smart Grid, and health information technology; and
  
• Investing in groundbreaking medical research.

In 2009, the US had only two factories manufacturing advanced vehicle batteries that power electric vehicles and produced less than two per cent of the world's advanced vehicle batteries.

The Recovery Act is investing over $2 billion in advanced battery and electric drive component manufacturing, which will create 30 such factories with the capacity to produce an estimated 20 per cent of the world's advanced vehicle batteries.