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Here is what we are hearing:

ClearEdge Power lands world’s largest utility fuel cell deal

Fuel cell maker ClearEdge Power has scored the mother of all utility deals: a 50 MW, $500 million deal with Austrian utility Güssing Renewable Energy. ClearEdge Power VP of Marketing Mike Upp tells me in an interview that Güssing will run the entire distributed network of fuel cells off of biogas, produced from the area’s forest and agricultural bi-products.

MGI: QuesTek helps develop software to model precipitation in multiphase and multicomponent systems

Thermo-Calc Software AB and QuesTek Innovations LLC have jointly developed TC-PRISMA, a powerful new user-friendly software package available from Thermo-Calc Software AB for modeling precipitation in multicomponent and multiphase systems, which is used in conjunction with well-established Thermo-Calc and DICTRA software. TC-PRISMA evaluates concurrent nucleation, growth and coarsening, and incorporates key models and algorithms from QuesTek’s PrecipiCalc precipitation simulation software. Charlie Kuehmann, QuesTek’s President and CEO, commented, “The launch of TC-PRISMA software is very timely given President Obama’s recent establishment of the Materials Genome Initiative. TC-PRISMA is an important new tool for materials design engineers to computationally design materials.

China’s cement growth slows in November 2011, but flat glass output accelerates

China’s building materials showed different momentum of growth in November 2011, with a slowing cement output growth and a speeding plate glass, according to latest statistics from the country’s top economic planner. Cement output growth in November 2011 stood at 11.2 percent year-on-year, 6.1 percentage points lower than previous year, while plate glass production expansion reached 7.1 percent year-on-year, quickening by by 0.5 percentage points from previous year. Still, China’s cement output reached 1.89 trillion tonnes in the first 11 months of last year, an increase 17.2 percent year-on-year, 1.6 percentage points faster than previous year. The output of flat glass, a sector fraught with overcapacity and duplicated construction problems, rose 17 percent year-on-year to 6.82 trillion weight boxes in the January-November period of last year.

AGA cookers go greener with aerogel ‘Cool Covers’

Designed as a simple retrofit option for the AGA Classic, Cool Covers are aerogel insulated and magnetically attach to the underside of hob lids to obstruct heat transfer from the hob plates to the lids. Not only do Cool Covers reduce total cooker energy consumption, but they also cut CO₂ emissions by up to 0.55 tons/year, decrease kitchen temperatures in summer, and act as self-cleaning spatter guards to keep the lid liners clean.

Lux Research picks E Ink, Cypak, Cambrios as top companies in printed, organic, and flexible electronics

Partnerships are key to the success of companies in printed, organic, and flexible electronics. To see which companies are best candidates for alliances, Lux Research applied the Lux Innovation Grid to rate technology developers in displays, organic photovoltaics, smart packaging, transparent conductive films and thin-film batteries, in a new report. ”Successful projects require bringing together companies to support the three key areas of expertise: materials, equipment and devices,” said Jonathan Melnick, Lux Research analyst and the lead author of the report. “Few, if any, companies have best-in-class capabilities in all of these areas, so picking partners with care is an essential component of a successful strategy.”

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Credit: P. Wray; ACerS.

Two weeks ago, researchandmarkets.com offered a study on the US’s advanced ceramics markets. Now, the research firm is offering a similar study about the markets for advanced ceramics in China with a focus on oxide and carbide materials.

The report starts with a broad overview and then goes into specifics such as market drivers and inhibitors, market size by end-user industry, markets structures and a summary of advanced ceramics suppliers. It then delves into data on specific market segments, including the power, chemicals, metals, machinery, automotive and electronics markets.

Each segment in the €3769 (~$5100) report covers pricing data, current business leaders (and their products), competitors, revenue streams, capacity and current projections.

Some of the companies operating in these markets that are profiled in the report include:

• Shandong Luyang Share
• Aokerola Group
• Xi’an HV Porcelain Insulator
• Saint-Gobain
• CARBO Ceramics
• Shandong Gold Phoenix Group
• Tangshan NGK
• Suzhou Insulator
• Dalian Insulator
• Shandong Wanqiao
• Zibo Industry Ceramics
• Jiangxi Pingxiang Long Fa
• Luoyang Resistant LLC
• Beijing Sinoma
• Huayan Ceramics
• Zibo Xinnaida Refractories
• Yixing Orient Petroleum Proppant

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SEM image of Dysprosium hydroxyfluoride fibers. Credit: PPNL.

A few days ago, Xinhua News agency reported that three rare earth mining districts near Ganzhou city have been order to halt production by year-end. In fact, production at one of the mines has been halted already, according to Li Guoqing, director of the city’s mining management bureau.

This is a huge problem, because, as Japan’s Nikkei news service reports, Ganzhou is the #1 producer of dysprosium. Dysprosium plays a critical role in many clean energy technologies and is one of the elements the DOE has highlighted as being of critical concern in regard to future supply disruptions and affects on critical technologies. The DOE is also concerned because dysprosium has no suitable replacement.

Ganzhou is also the producer of other heavy rare earths.

Nikkei also reports that it believes all three mines have exceeded their annual quotas,  and production will likely be suspended at least until the end of the year.

Continuing with the Xinhua story, it says:

It is unknown when production will resume, as they have to wait for directives from the provincial government, Li said. The notice also told the counties to set production quotas to rare earth mines to prevent over-exploitation. …To control environmental damage and protect resources, China has announced various policies, such as suspending the issuance of new licenses for rare earth prospecting and mining, imposing production caps and export quotas, and implementing tougher environmental standards.

It’s not yet clear to me how the US and its business community will react, but the Nikkei story reveals some of the responses in Japan:

Mitsubishi Electric Corp. and some other major Japanese producers of electrical machinery have started raising air conditioner prices because of surging prices for dysprosium.

“There are efforts to kick off (dysprosium) production in Russia and Vietnam, but it will likely take at least five years,” said Nobuhiko Kawamura, general manager of Showa Denko KK’s rare-earths division. The firm, which produces dysprosium-based alloys in Jiangxi Province and elsewhere, sees potential for global dysprosium supply shortages in two to three years should China continue with its strict regulation of rare-earth production.

Even so, magnet manufacturers and other firms with dysprosium dealings mostly reacted to Monday’s news with calm. “Because we thought it might happen, the news comes as no surprise to us,” said a official at Hitachi Metals Ltd., the leading maker of rare-earth magnets.

But a major trading house is alarmed because it will not likely be able to find alternative sources of dysprosium and other rare-earth metals quickly.

Stay tuned.

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Credit: Capital Refractories.

I am currently in Missouri at the St. Louis Section/Refractory Ceramics Division 47th Annual Symposium that runs through March 24, 2011.

The organizers, who include people such as Mary Reidmeyer (Missouri S&T), James Hemrick (Oak Ridge National Lab), Dave Tucker (CE Minerals) and Ben Markel (Resco Products), put together a stellar schedule that includes presentations from Dale Zacherl from Almatis, Rajan Srinivasacharya from Momentive Specialty Chemicals, Xiaoyong Xiong from Imerys-Damrec, Jeff Smith from Missouri S&T and Victor Carlos Pandolfelli from Brazil’s Universidade Federal de Sao Carlos.

At lunch, the St. Louis Section will honor The Refractories Institute’s Rob Crolius with the T.J. Planje Award, named in recognition of the contribution to the former dean of what years ago was called Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy, the precursor to Missouri S&T.

While the ACerS groups’ refractories symposium has racked up nearly 50 years of recognizing cutting edge research and academic—industry partnerships, it was just pointed out to me that, coincidentally, China will be holding its 1st International Refractory Production and Application Conference May 10-12, 2011 in Guangzhou.

China’s refractory efforts are worth monitoring. Clearly, at lot of refractories attention is going to be aimed at that nation’s steel industry and basic metal production. But, at the risk of sounding like I am repeating myself, it is worth remembering that the Chinese Academy of Science recently announced its goal of transforming its status from world participant to world leader.

Indeed, one of the leading topics at the China’s first refractories conference will be the “status and outlook into the development during the 12th Five-year Plan period [2011-2016] of China’s refractories industry.”

Aside from applications such as blast furnaces, continuous casters, high power electric arc furnaces, etc., organizers of the conference say they intend to also cover refractories for non-ferrous metals, cement, glass and ceramic industries, plus green, monolithic, low-carbon and non-carbon refractories.

The lesson, perhaps, is that the West must not get so wrapped up in the thrill of the more whiz-bang, high tech ceramics and glass sectors that it forgets about the fundamental work that must continue in the refractories field. China, India, Russia are poised to be challengers in world markets and world research. Refractories R&D needs to be vigorously supported in the United States, Europe and South America in order for it to continue to contend with investments and commitments being made elsewhere.

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Chinese rare earth exports, 2009-2011, in metric tons:

First the good news: China appears to be increasing rare earth export quotas for the first half of 2011 - compared to the second half of 2010 – by over 80%. The bad news: The new quotas represent a 35% drop compared to the same period in 2010, and a 33% drop compared to the first half of 2009.

In other words, the short term may be a small improvement over the previous six months, but nevertheless a change that is not inconsistent with recent declines in the output of rare earth elements from China.

Where China ultimately is going with these REE quotas in 2011 isn’t clear, nor does recent history provide any clear cut guide. For example, quotas in 2009/H2 actually increased by 31% over 2009/H1 (28,417 metric tons versus 21,728 tons, for a year total of 50,145 tons).

The influential Bloomberg New Service reported on the quota this morning, headlining (and inaccurately reporting the numbers - Bloomberg editors don’t read their own archive) the story as an 11% cut.

On the other hand, one of the writers at the Rare Metal Blog took the “glass half full” approach with the story, “China INCREASES export quota by 82%” (emphasis in the original).

Traders on some stock exchanges thought they could read China’s mind and early in the day share in U.S. mining company Molycorp shot up by about 12% compared to the previous day’s closing price.

But, according to a New York Times story posted this afternoon (with accurate numbers), China apparently wants to head off some of the gloom:

“In what seemed to be an effort to reassure traders and users of rare earths, the commerce ministry said in a follow-up statement late Tuesday on its Web site that it had not decided what the total export quotas would be for all of 2011 … The ministry said on Tuesday night that companies should not make guesses about the total export quotas for next year based on the initial reductions issued earlier in the day.

“We will be considering the production of rare earths in China, domestic demand and sustainable development needs to determine” the full quotas for the entire year, the ministry Web site quoted its foreign trade department director as saying, without naming the director.”

Apparently the reassurance worked: Molycorp’s closing stock price was a decline of 6%

Although some speculate about economic and business decisions are behind these moves, Chinese officials have recently been saying that environmental concerns are a factor in making quota decisions. Again, from the NYT:

“Until a few months ago, Chinese officials said that their rare earth policies were aimed at forcing foreign industries to move high-tech factories to China so as to have access to Chinese rare earths. But as trade frictions have increased, they have given greater emphasis to environmental concerns.

A Chinese official said on Tuesday that pollution worries about rare earth mining were sincere.

‘The government is paying more attention to environmental protection, and is retiring older facilities and older technologies,’ said the official, who insisted on anonymity because of the political implications of rare earth policies, and declined to discuss specifics of the quotas.’

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