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Advanced fiber-reinforced polymer composites, which combine strong fibers with tough plastics, are lighter and stronger than steel. These materials could lower overall production costs in U.S. manufacturing.

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The video opens with the title, “Advanced Manufacturing: Using Composites for Clean Energy” above a waving American flag.

VOICE OVER: It's been called the start of a new industrial revolution: the development of advanced reinforced composite materials.

On-screen: “Clean Energy”

VOICE OVER: At the core of this manufacturing revolution is a focus on vastly reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions. By putting these advanced materials into our manufacturing mainstream we can lower overall production costs and ultimately drive the adoption of a new clean energy way of life.

On-screen: Various shots of composite materials in production and applications for advanced materials including wind turbine blades.

VOICE OVER: Advanced composites can be designed and engineered for thousands of applications and attractive performance characteristics like being flexible, strong, lightweight, tough, durable and long lasting.

On-screen: Various shots of composite materials in production and applications for advanced materials.

VOICE OVER: Nearly everything now made of metal could be made with advanced reinforced composites. Increasingly, cars and other vehicles include more parts made of composites, dramatically cutting weight and adding strength, and improving fuel economy.

On-screen: The text, “Lightweight Vehicles” and various shots of cars, and trains, and airplanes in motion.

VOICE OVER: Weight is also reduced -- and strength added -- when high-pressure hydrogen and natural gas tanks are overwrapped with liners of fiber-reinforced polymers. With lighter metal casings, transporting these tanks is much more fuel-efficient.

On-screen: A hydrogen or natural gas tank in production being wrapped with fiber-reinforced polymer, and trains and trucks transporting goods.

VOICE OVER: The very essence of clean energy is wind power. With wind turbines, the challenge has been to extract as much energy from the wind as possible. Turbine blades made of new advanced composites can be made longer, stiffer, lighter, and more responsive to sudden shifts in wind speeds than older blades.

On-screen: The text “Composite Blades: up to 240 feet long” with various shots of a worker inspecting a wind farm and wind turbine blades being tested at a test facility. 

VOICE OVER:  For vehicles on the road, for high-pressure hydrogen and natural gas tanks, and for wind turbines, fiber reinforced composites offer a game-changing technology. And as manufacturing innovation accelerates the use of advanced composites, we'll see them applied to an ever-broadening array of manufactured products and components – saving fuel, saving energy, reducing waste, and contributing to a cleaner, and greener, planet.

What does that mean for us? A future that is sustainable, energy efficient, powered by innovation and American-made.