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Breakthrough Facility to Trap Solar Energy in Molten Salt
One of the greatest problems of large scale solar power facilities is that they do not produce electricity at night, and when they do produce power, it is constantly fluctuating with the sun's strength. Under development in the deserts of Tonopah, Nevada is a new technology that will effectively store solar energy in the form of molten salt. When the sun goes down, thermal energy from the salt will be able to produce electricity for eight to ten hours.
Not Your Average Tree Lighting
This year, the U.S. Department of Energy showed its holiday spirit in traditional ways at its annual holiday party – with holiday cookies and punch at its downtown headquarters building. But, with a fun energy twist, Secretary Chu's holiday tree was lit using a 150 W fuel cell instead of the local electric grid. The Trulite KH4 portable hydrogen fuel cell was able to combine hydrogen gas (from its HydroCell fuel cartridges) and oxygen from the air to produce electricity and heat. The other byproduct of this process – water – was recycled within the 23-lb unit.
Market dynamics driving more companies, communities to try microgrids
Just before Christmas, I wrote a piece on three smart-grid trends I'll be watching in 2012 and touched on microgrids as one of them. Lo and behold, cleantech research firm Pike Research is out with a new report this week suggesting that microgrids are poised for a breakthrough year.
Never Mind Solyndra: Fuel Cell Industry Growing with Government Support
political hay has been made over the collapse of Solyndra, which was supported by government funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Government isn't qualified to pick technological winners and losers, said detractors; support for renewable energy is political, they said. But government has a long history of encouraging emerging technologies, and that continues, from energy storage to fuel cells.
ClearEdge Power Inks One of the Largest Fuel Cell Deals Ever
ClearEdge Power, a fuel cell startup that closed a $73.5 million VC round in 2011, just scored one of the largest fuel cell orders in the 150-year history of fuel cells. The firm builds proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells that produce electricity and heat from natural gas. It just inked a 50-megawatt supply agreement with Austria's Güssing Renewable Energy (GRE). The first phase is the delivery of 8.5 megawatts of fuel cells over the next three years. That's about 1,700 5-kilowatt modules. Phase two is 20 megawatts by 2020 in what ClearEdge says is a $500 million agreement.
Biomass and Electricity, Part 2
On Monday, I wrote about a new way to use landfill gas to make electricity from a renewable source. The five-kilowatt ClearEdge module runs hydrogen through a fuel cell to make electric current. It's about the size of a kitchen refrigerator.ClearEdge PowerThe five-kilowatt ClearEdge module runs hydrogen through a fuel cell to make electric current. It is about the size of a kitchen refrigerator.Another pathway for converting gas to electricity is fuel cells, which produce electricity with no byproducts except distilled water and a little bit of waste heat. But their carbon footprint depends on where they get their own fuel, hydrogen.
U.S. Sec. Of Energy: Cheaper Batteries Mean More Electric Cars
You're probably well aware that some of our fellow journalists in the mainstream media aren't big fans of plug-in hybrid and pure electric cars at the moment. But U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu has reiterated his support of electric cars, predicting that electric cars will command a major market share by 2020 thanks to dropping battery prices.
Why So Many Critics After 17,000 Electric Vehicle Sales in First Year?
Figures this week showed that the first mass-produced electric cars in the United States, the Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt, had total sales of 17,345 in 2011, the first year in which they were available. Compared with sales of 9,350 gas-electric hybrids in 2000, the first year the Honda Insight and Toyota Prius were offered in the U.S.—where total hybrid sales have now topped 2 million—17,000 might seem like a decent start for EVs.
Hyundai introduces guarantee for Sonata hybrid battery
Hyundai Motor America CEO John Krafcik said at the Detroit auto show that the company would begin offering a lifetime battery guarantee on the lithium polymer batteries in the Sonata hybrid. Hyundai will guarantee the battery on the Sonata hybrid.He said the offer was viable because of the "superior performance in durability" of the lithium polymer batteries, which are lasting in the range of 275,000 miles in the company's tests. Hyundai conducts powertrain testing and calibration work at its 170-person technical center in Superior Township.
R&D Magazine is now accepting entries for the 2012 R&D 100 Awards!
The Official R&D 100 Entry Page is now open to accept entries for the 2012 R&D 100 Awards, the 50th anniversary of the competition. Before you visit this page, please download the official R&D 100 Awards Entry Form. This form is the official guide for your 2012 entry. The competition is open to any new technology that was first available for sale or licensing in the 2011 calendar year, and which meets the qualifications detailed in the entry form. The deadline for applications is March 16, 2012. Sign up for the R&D 100 mailing list to receive updates about the awards program and application process.
The sky's the limit, it seems, with graphene
It looks like nothing more than microscopic chicken wire, but a number of Massachusetts institutions are betting that graphene, a form of carbon built in layers one atom thick, will spark a new technology boom. One of the strongest and most highly conductive materials ever measured, graphene is so lightweight and versatile that its potential uses seem limitless: as a replacement for silicon that will make superfast computer chips; as a fabric that will create "smart'' clothing; even to make solar energy panels that can be rolled up or folded.
What If Electric Cars Were Better?
Electric vehicles are still too expensive and have too many limitations to compete with regular cars, except in a few niche markets. Will that ever change? The answer has everything to do with battery technology. Batteries carrying more charge for a lower price could extend the range of electric cars from today's 70 miles to hundreds of miles, effectively challenging the internal-combustion motor.
IBM is developing 500 mile range lithium-air car battery
The electric vehicle has to overcome three major hurdles if it is ever going to be a success with consumers. They need to charge fast, be cheap to buy, and have a decent range between charges. At the moment, the range of electric vehicles is around about 100 miles on average, which may be adequate for most journeys, but certainly isn't good enough. The issue is the battery technology in use today that relies on lithium-ion, and whose make-up is rather heavy and energy density not really high enough for use in a vehicle. IBM has been developing an alternative though, using a type of battery previously thought unsuitable for long-term use in electric vehicles. It's called a lithium-air (Li-air) battery and uses carbon instead of metal oxides so it is therefore a lot lighter than an equivalent lithium-ion battery. As it uses oxygen there is no need to store a fuel, so Li-air also has a very high energy density, around 1000x that of lithium-ion batteries.
The Next Big Thing(s) in Tech
All of the technology products we use today--from touchscreens to tablets to social networks--were once the "next big thing in tech." Experts predicted that each of these things would become a part of everyone's tech life, before most of us had even heard of them. Of course, experts also predicted that Apple would go out of business before 1998. No prediction of the future is perfect (not even if you're Tom Cruise in Minority Report), but that isn't going to stop us from making our predictions for the next big thing in tech.
China Sets New Record For Renewable Energy Storage
BYD Co., which counts Warren Buffett as an investor, has completed the world's largest lithium-ion battery project to bottle wind and solar electricity in China, which will likely see more large energy storage projects as a result of its ambition to add lots of renewable energy. The Chinese electric car and battery maker finished the 36 megawatt-hours storage farm in December for the State Grid Corporation of China, a transmission company with a massive plan to pair storage with wind and solar power plants, said Micheal Austin, vice president of BYD America on Tuesday. BYD's batteries will help to store electricity from the first phase of the plan, which includes 100 megawatts of wind and 40 megawatts of solar energy systems in the northern province of Hebei.
Axion Power Chosen for Battery Mini Power Cube in Zero Energy Building in Washington DC Naval Yard
NEW CASTLE, Pa., Jan. 4, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Axion Power International, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: AXPW), the developer of advanced leadcarbon PbC® batteries and energy storage systems, announced today that it was awarded a purchase order from SilTek Inc. confirming their participation in a Zero Energy Building in the Washington DC Naval Yard. Axion will be providing an array of its PbC batteries, system electronics and battery management system that together will serve as an example of Axion's "mini-Cube" concept based on the scalability, up or down, of its primary PowerCube™. The mini-Cube, which will provide demand response energy storage that will be grid network tied, will be linked to a 32kW solar panel array and will supply standby power service for this Zero Energy Administration Building. The project is underwritten by the US Navy, and the purchase order calls for Axion's work to begin in January with the full 36 PbC battery mini-PowerCube system to be completed in the first quarter of 2012. The principal contractor for the project is Herndon VA-based SilTek Inc.
The Convoluted Economics of Storing Energy
As I reported in Tuesday's paper, some companies think that one form of renewable energy is going to open a window for another — that solar photovoltaic panels, which convert sunlight directly into electricity, are going to increase the grid's need for a type of solar energy that can be stored. That would be solar thermal power, which harnesses heat from the sun and converts it to steam to make electricity as the need arises, especially when the sun has disappeared behind a cloud or dropped below the horizon.
Storehouses for Solar Energy Can Step In When the Sun Goes Down
If solar energy is eventually going to matter — that is, generate a significant portion of the nation's electricity — the industry must overcome a major stumbling block, experts say: finding a way to store it for use when the sun isn't shining. That challenge seems to be creating an opening for a different form of power, solar thermal, which makes electricity by using the sun's heat to boil water. The water can be used to heat salt that stores the energy until later, when the sun dips and households power up their appliances and air-conditioning at peak demand hours in the summer.
How damage from March's earthquake, tsunami taught Nissan invaluable lessons
The 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan in March taught Nissan some valuable lessons about its electric vehicle model, the Leaf, The New York Times reports. Japanese carmakers were significantly impacted by the natural disasters, as the majority of the nation's automobile manufacturing plants are located in the hard-hit Northeast. Nissan officials affirmed that its production facilities were walloped by the tsunami and earthquake, but none of the electric vehicles caught fire.
Air Battery to Let Electric Cars Outlast Gas Guzzlers
ONE of the biggest drawbacks with owning an electric vehicle (EV) is range anxiety - a driver's nagging fear that the battery charge will not get them to their destination. Now IBM claims to have solved a fundamental problem that may lead to the creation of a battery with an 800-kilometre (500-mile) range - letting EVs potentially compete with most petrol engines for the first time.
US Plans Innovation Center for Advanced Batteries
The Obama administration intends to open a new advanced battery research center this year, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu told an audience at the Detroit Economic Club on Tuesday.
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