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Low-cost system spots failing bridges; new sensor technology helps make bridges safer

Rice University researchers ‘armchair’ nanotubes could improve power grid’s efficiency

Russia offers Germany help on rare earths supply

Centre for Sustainable Energy Technologies invents heat-regulating building material

GE Lighting acquires Lightech, a technology leader in LED drivers and $10 million and GE collaboration light way for growth of Nuventix, maker of LED cooling technology

The too-smart-for-its-own-good grid: New technologies intended to boost reliance on renewable energy could destabilize the power grid if they’re not matched with careful pricing policies

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For the first time that I am aware of, it General Electric seems to have jumped on the Sach’s Law bandwagon and decided that solar power very soon will be competitive with fossil fuel and nuclear energy sources. In a recent interview with Bloomberg News, GE’s global research director, Mark M. Little, asserts that parity will arrive in three to five years.

From a business point of view, it should be noted that Little is glossing over a least one crucial distinction, namely that one has to differentiate between the a discussion about the wholesale cost (less costly per kilowatt-hour) of energy or the retail cost (more costly). But, you get the idea: GE sees a big change coming.

Little tells Bloomberg, “If we can get solar at 15 cents a kilowatt-hour or lower, which I’m hopeful that we will do, you’re going to have a lot of people that are going to want to have solar at home.”

GE also still has a significant footprint in the natural gas and wind turbine-generation business, so in a sense it is covering several scenarios. But the company has been putting some serious investments into thin-film solar R&D that are starting to pay off.

For one thing, GE became a major investor in 2007 in PrimeStar Solar, a maker of cadmium telluride thin-film panels, which just two months ago set the record (12.8 percent) efficiency for CdTe thin films. GE now fully owns PrimeStar and said in an April DOE blog post that it intended to soon build a 400-megawatt CdTe manufacturing facility. The company will be competing with CdTe panel maker First Solar, a company that has been singled out by market researchers, such as Lux, for its ability to continually reduce its manufacturing costs.

Little reiterated these manufacturing plans in the Bloomberg interview and says the facility will open in 2013. He notes that GE is developing many Smart Grid products and services. He specifically mentions its Nucleus consumer-grade power monitor product, announced in 2010, that integrates with personal computers and smart phones. The company is also working on complimentary metering devices.

The PrimeStar–GE relationship is a positive example of how government research can pay off in the commercial sector. The CdTe approach they use, according to the DOE, was developed at the National Renewable Energy Lab by a group led by Xuanzhi Wu. PrimeStar was launched in 2006 to commercialize Wu’s innovations.

I expect some of GE’s plans will be discussed later this summer at ACerS’ Ceramic Leadership Summit, where Krishan L. Luthra, technology leader in ceramics & metallurgy for GE Global Research, will be doing a presentation on emerging applications and challenges at GE

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According to a new report from Lux Research, the market for batteries, supercapacitors and fuel cells targeting transportation and smart grid applications will more than double from $21.4 billion in 2010 to $44.4 billion in 2015.

ACerS’ upcoming Ceramic Leadership Summit will introduce key figures in the energy storage technology sector that will expound on how to harness that $44 billion. The Energy Innovations track on Tuesday, June 10, will include talks on enabling a nuclear renaissance, current and future prospects of fuel cells, the strategic field of energy conversion. A representative from United Technologies will also present an industry perspective on energy storage, SOFCs and energy and emission reduction in gas turbines.

The Lux report, titled “Emerging Technologies Power a $44 Billion Opportunity for Transportation and Grid,” analyzes the prospects for several technologies, including batteries, supercapacitors, fuel cells in transportation and storage, distributed generation and transmission and distribution technologies on the power grid.

Some key findings are listed in the summary:

• Electric vehicle storage technology markets will nearly double from $7.7 billion in 2010 to $14.5 billion in 2015, a CAGR of 13.5 percent. Surprisingly, markets for electronic bike (e-bike) and scooter batteries will lead the charge, growing from $6.4 billion this year to $10.9 billion in 2015, a CAGR of 11 percent.
• Lead-acid batteries will drive 93 percent of China’s e-bikes in 2010, and dominate the micro-hybrid automotive market. However, lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries in e-bikes are growing fast, and have gained further momentum from plug-in and electric vehicles. The upshot: With a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22 percent through 2015, Li-ion battery markets are growing almost three times faster than those for lead-acid.
• Markets for emerging technologies in the power grid will skyrocket from $13.7 billion in 2010 to $30 billion in 2015, a CAGR of 17 percent. Here the largest market is the smart-grid, which will grow at an explosive CAGR of 23 percent, from $5.4 billion this year to $15.8 billion in 2015.

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Today is the last day of ARPA-E’s first big public event - the Energy Innovation Summit. Yesterday, DOE Secretary Steven Chu used the conference to announce that ARPA-E is allocating an additional $100 million in stimulus funds, “to accelerate innovation in green technology, increase America’s competitiveness and create new jobs.”

This is the third round of funding rooted in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Chu said the new monies would be tartgeted in three areas:

Grid-Scale Rampable Intermittent Dispatchable Storage (GRIDS): Efficient grid-scale energy storage systems, “that provide energy, cost and cycle life comparable to pumped hydropower, but which are modular and can be widely implemented at any location across the power grid.” In particular, ARPA-E is asking for technology prototyping and proof-of-concept R&D efforts for both existing storage technologies and “over-the-horizon” storage concepts.

Agile Delivery of Electrical Power Technology (ADEPT): Materials for advances in soft magnetics, high-voltage switches and high-density charge storage. In particular, ARPA -E is looking for three things from the ADEPT program: 1) integrated chip-scale power converters for solid-state lighting, microinverters for photovoltaics and single-chip power supplies for computers; 2) cost-effective, kilowatt-scale inverters for grid-tied photovoltaics and variable-speed motors; and 3) solid-state medium-voltage energy converters for solid-state electrical substations and wind-turbine generators.

Building Energy Efficiency Through Innovative Thermodevices (BEET-IT): New approaches to air conditioning buildings that can be retrofitted into existing systems. In particular, ARPA-E is seeking 1) systems with refrigerants with low global-warming potential; 2) more efficient air conditioning systems for warm and humid climates; and 3) vapor compression AC systems for hot climate.

ARPA-E has already funded 37 projects from its first solicitation for proposals related to energy storage, biofuels, carbon capture, renewable power, building efficiency and vehicles. The DOE division says it is still evaluating nearly 500 concept papers sent in from its second solicitation that focus on biofuels, carbon capture and batteries for electric vehicles.

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Expect to see the DOE, the EPA and other federal agencies make some major announcements next week to coincide with the big Copenhagen conference. The DOE, for example, just issued a news advisory that it will be holding a news conference that will include a fascinating group that includes Secretary Chu, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property David Kappos, Arun Majumdar, director of the new Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy and “green technology patent holders.” So, next week should be interesting for the science community.

Along the same vein, today the DOE announced nearly it was investing nearly $1 billion in three projects planned by some of the major utilities located in coal-producing regions in the U.S. that “demonstrate advanced coal-based technologies that will capture and sequester or put to beneficial use carbon emissions.” The DOE monies are supposed to also leverage more than $2 billion in private-sector funds, presumably from the utility companies, themselves, and their partners.

The agency says the general goals are to 1) reach a CO₂ capture efficiency of 90%, 2) develop capture/sequestration methods that add less than 10% to the cost of electricity for gasification systems and less than 35% for combustion and oxycombustion systems, and 3) capture and sequester or put to beneficial a minimum of 300,000 tons of CO₂ per year.

The 10-year American Electric Power Company (Columbus) project involves a chilled-ammonia process to capture and store CO₂. According to the DOE, after AEP captures the CO₂ it will be treated, compressed, and sent via pipeline to  injection sites located near the capture facility. Two injections sites (saline formations) are located approximately 1.5 miles below the surface. Besides AEP, the big players in the project ar APCo, Schlumberger Carbon Services, Battelle Memorial Institute, CONSOL Energy and Alstom.

Southern Company Services (Birmingham) will have an 11-year project to retrofit a CO₂ capture plant on a 160 megawatt flue gas stream at an existing coal-fired power plant. The CO₂ will be compressed and transported through a pipeline, and up to one million metric tons per year of CO2 will be sequestered – also saline formations. SCS is also going to test the use of pumping CO₂ underground to increase oil recovery in existing petroleum wells. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries America, Schlumberger Carbon Services, Advanced Resources International, the Geological Survey of Alabama, EPRI, Stanford University, the University of Alabama, AJW Group and the University of Alabama at Birmingham are also involved.

Finally Summit Texas Clean Energy will be spending eight years attempting to match a 400-megawatt gasification system in Texas with carbon capture technologies that they hope will be 90 percent efficient. Like SCS, Summit is says it will used pump the CO₂ into oil wells. The Univ. of Texas will design and assure compliance with monitoring, verification and accounting program goals.

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