Narrator: This is Science Today. The University of California , Davis was awarded a one million dollar grant to create the nation's first center for energy efficiency, which will bring together leaders in academia, industry and the investment community to advance innovation. Andrew Hargadon, an associate professor at the Graduate School of Management and an expert on innovation in business and technology transfer, is the founding director of the UC Davis Energy Efficiency Center.

Hargadon: If you look at the history of energy use in the U.S. , efficiencies always bring more money to the bottom line. And so our trick is going to be developing the science and putting it in a business model that makes it clear for the businesses, for the consumers, that they are going to make money by saving money.

Narrator: The focus of the UC Davis Energy Efficiency Center will be three-fold – reducing fuel use in our cars, saving water and energy in the agricultural industry and reducing electricity usage in homes and in office buildings. For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.