Joined: Mar 04, 2005 Posts: 2584 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2008 1:03 am Post subject: Re: Future Energy Technology News
Breakthrough Technology Produces Hydrogen From Chemical Residuals
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In a major sustainability milestone for the industry, InEnTec Chemical LLC yesterday announced it successfully completed demonstration of its mobile Plasma Enhanced Melter(TM: 102.64, -4.10, -3.84%) (PEM(TM: 102.64, -4.10, -3.84%)) system for four of the world's largest chemical companies to produce ultra clean, hydrogen rich synthesis gas (referred to as "syngas") from chemical residuals that would normally be treated as hazardous waste and incinerated. This follows a recent announcement by Dow Corning to adopt InEnTec Chemical's technology for application at its Midland Michigan plant.
"We are excited to be able to help some of the nation's leading chemical companies meet their commercial sustainability goals," said Gary Cook, Chief Executive Officer of InEnTec Chemical. "This is the beginning of a new era -- the commercialization of transforming hazardous waste into valuable products. As far as we know, no one has previously found a way to extract the chemical or product value out of these materials on a commercial scale."
The demonstrations showed that organic residuals can be easily processed in the PEM(TM) to produce a high quality syngas. The syngas can be used to make high purity hydrogen, methanol, hydrogen/carbon monoxide ("HyCO"), and other products used by chemical and refining plants. The use of chemical residuals as feedstock to produce hydrogen and other products reduces the amount of non-renewable natural gas that would otherwise be used to make these products.
foxbusiness _________________ Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
Joined: Mar 04, 2005 Posts: 2584 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2008 9:07 pm Post subject: Re: Future Energy Technology News
DuPont eyes $1 billion in solar revenue by 2013
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E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. will double the manufacturing capacity of its electronic materials plant in Dongguan, China, as part of a move to grow its solar energy products business to $1 billion in five years, the company said Monday.
The materials technology company said it'll ramp up production of its Solamet thick-film metallization paste for solar cells as it eyes the booming business of generating precious electricity from the sun.
"The photovoltaic industry is in the midst of a substantial surge globally, and demand for solar as a renewable energy source will continue to increase," said Timothy McCann, vice president and general manager in charge of DuPont Electronic Technologies.
In previous articles I have discussed the possible change for American society that could come about through an epiphany of solar power onto the landscape of our energy industry. Solar power has several defining characteristics that make it a disruptive technology - a paradigm shift not unlike the move from wood to coal to steam to oil. It rivals the Internet for the kinds of changes it could bring about in an exceedingly short time span.
In the 21st century the role of refined silicon is going to expand into power generation and lighting. I think the move will be from a centralized view of power production to a de-centralized or "mesh" build out of power. This migration could also transform our ailing automobile and construction industries, which I will explain later in this missive.
seekingalpha _________________ Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
Joined: Mar 04, 2005 Posts: 2584 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Tue Jun 10, 2008 9:11 pm Post subject: Re: Future Energy Technology News
Glass Microspheres To Carry Hydrogen, Deliver Drugs, Filter Gases And Detect Nuclear Development
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What looks like a fertilized egg, flows like water, gets stuffed with catalysts and exotic nanostructures and may have the potential of making the current retail gasoline infrastructure compatible with hydrogen-based vehicles of the future -- not to mention also contributing to arenas such as nuclear proliferation and global warming?
The answer is contained in the June issue of The Bulletin, the monthly magazine of The American Ceramic Society, which carries the first news of a never-before-seen class of materials and technology developed by scientists at the Savannah River National Laboratory.
This unique material, dubbed Porous Wall-Hollow Glass Microspheres (PW-HGM), consists of porous glass 'microballoons' that are smaller than the diameter of a human hair. The key characteristic of these 2-100 micron spheres is an interconnected porosity in their thin outer walls that can be produced and varied on a scale of 100 to 3,000 Angstroms.
The SRNL team is involved in more than a half dozen programs and collaborations involving the PW-HGMs in areas such as hydrogen storage in vehicles (Toyota), gas purification and separations, and even very diverse applications including abatement of global warming effects, improving lead-acid battery performance and nuclear non-proliferation. Applications such as the development of new drug delivery systems and MRI contrast agents are also blossoming in the medical field (Medical College of Georgia).
sciencedaily _________________ Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
Joined: Mar 04, 2005 Posts: 2584 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Tue Jun 10, 2008 11:58 pm Post subject: Re: Future Energy Technology News
Toyota to start lithium-ion battery output in 2009
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Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Wednesday its battery joint venture with Matsushita Electric Industrial Co (6752.T: Quote, Profile, Research) will start limited production of lithium-ion batteries in 2009, moving into full-scale production the following year.
The joint venture, called Panasonic EV Energy Co, currently produces nickel-metal hydride batteries used in Toyota's gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles.
Many big automakers are working in partnership with battery makers on developing vehicle-use lithium-ion batteries, which can store more energy in smaller packages and are seen as crucial for lowering costs and extending the cruising distance of pure electric vehicles.
Toyota, the world's biggest automaker, also said in a statement it would establish later this month a battery research department to develop next-generation batteries that would outperform lithium-ion batteries.
reuters _________________ Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
Joined: Mar 04, 2005 Posts: 2584 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2008 12:20 am Post subject: Re: Future Energy Technology News
Fusion reactor faces cost hike
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A massive international nuclear fusion experiment planned for Cadarache, France, is set to cost up to 30% more than anticipated and be delayed by as much as three years, governments will learn next week.
Construction has not even begun on the ITER fusion reactor, which has been beset by political wrangling since its inception. Now its seven international backers are to be told they will have to come up with an extra €1.2 billion–1.6 billion (US$1.9 billion–2.5 billion) on top of its current €5-billion construction budget if the project is to be realized.
A report from a group of scientific advisers says the additional money is needed for critical design changes and for coordinating between the participant nations. And the experiment, already delayed, will not be completed until anywhere from one to three years after its current 2016 due date.
But ITER officials maintain that the new budget and schedule are achievable and that the review could not have come sooner because the ITER organization was only formed in 2006. “A good, rigorous review could only be done now,” says Neil Calder, a spokesman for the project.
nature _________________ Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
Joined: Mar 04, 2005 Posts: 2584 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2008 1:00 am Post subject: Re: Future Energy Technology News
Knights in shining armor
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The upcoming NewSpace 2008 conference will feature a panel on it. The International Space Development Conference in Washington, DC featured no less than three—yes, three—sessions on space solar power, or SSP, to use the shorthand term, plus a dinner speaker who addressed the same subject. With all of this attention, one would suspect that there has been a fundamental technological breakthrough that now makes SSP possible, or a major private or government initiative to begin at least preliminary work on a demonstration project. But there has been none of this. In fact, from a technological standpoint, we are not much closer to space solar power today than we were when NASA conducted a big study of it in the 1970s.
The second reason is a 2007 study produced by the National Security Space Office (NSSO) on SSP. The space activist community has determined that the Department of Defense is the knight in shining armor that will deliver them to their shining castles in the sky.
The NSSO study is remarkably sensible and even-handed and states that we are nowhere near developing practical SSP and that it is not a viable solution for even the military’s limited requirements. It states that the technology to implement space solar power does not currently exist… and is unlikely to exist for the next forty years. Substantial technology development must occur before it is even feasible.
Although NASA has a bad public record for cost overruns, the DoD’s less-public record is far worse, and military space has a bad reputation in Congress, which would never allow such a big, expensive new program to be started.
Again, this is not to insult the fine work conducted by those who produced the NSSO space solar power study. They accomplished an impressive amount of work without any actual resources.
thespacereview _________________ Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
Joined: Mar 04, 2005 Posts: 2584 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2008 8:26 pm Post subject: Re: Future Energy Technology News
Reversing Winds: America's Rediscovery of Manufacturing
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Over the past three years, the U.S. wind industry has enjoyed a relatively stable policy environment. The federal production tax credit (PTC), the primary economic driver for wind, has been in place without interruption since August 2005 -- after being extended for two years in the energy policy act of 2005, and extended for one additional year (through 2008) at the end of 2006. In addition, more than 10 additional state renewable energy standard (RES) programs have been put into place, bringing the total number of states with an RES to 26 plus the District of Columbia. During that time, total wind capacity grew by 150% and the annual market size more than doubled.
It is no coincidence that over the same period, the U.S. found its stride — in this case, that stride being a rapid clip — in expanding domestic manufacturing capacity for wind power components. Dozens of new manufacturing facilities serving the wind industry have been brought online across the U.S. the last few years.
Three years, however, is not sufficient time for any industry to build an optimal long-term business plan; it is merely enough time to offer the U.S. a taste of the manufacturing boom that the wind industry would spur with truly longterm and stable policy. In spite of this growth, manufacturing expansion is still hindered by the lack of policy stability holding back wind power; that is, wind power manufacturing's growth rate is falling short of its potential — and what the industry ultimately desires.
renewableenergyworld _________________ Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
Joined: Mar 04, 2005 Posts: 2584 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2008 8:42 pm Post subject: Re: Future Energy Technology News
Towering fuel cell
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The New York Power Authority (NYPA) has inked a $10.6m deal with UTC Power that will make the redeveloped World Trade Center the site of one of the largest fuel cell installations in the world.
The fuel cells will provide 4.8MW of power for the Freedom Tower and three other new towers under construction at the World Trade Center site in lower Manhattan, supplementing the renewable power and other clean energy the rebuilt towers will receive via power lines from off-site sources.
theengineer _________________ Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
Joined: Mar 04, 2005 Posts: 2584 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2008 8:53 pm Post subject: Re: Future Energy Technology News
Double post _________________ Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
Last edited by Graeme on Thu Jun 12, 2008 7:47 pm; edited 1 time in total
Joined: Mar 04, 2005 Posts: 2584 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2008 11:15 pm Post subject: Re: Future Energy Technology News
Algenol Trains Algae to Turn Carbon Into Ethanol
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The company has signed an US$850 million deal with a Mexican company BioFields to grow algae, one of the planet's first life forms, that has been trained to convert water, sunlight, and the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide into motor fuel.
Woods said Algenol will use a process he invented in the 1980s to coax individual algal cells to secrete ethanol. That way, the fuel can be taken directly from the vats where the algae is grown while the organism lives on, using far less energy than drying and pressing the organisms for their oil.
Algenol plans to make 100 million gallons of ethanol, about the average annual capacity of one traditional US distillery, in Mexico's Sonoran Desert by the end of the 2009. By the end of 2012, it plans to increase that to 1 billion gallons -- more than 10 percent of current ethanol capacity in the United States, the world's top ethanol producer.
Algenol operates the world's largest algae library in Baltimore, Maryland to study the organism that can grow in salt or fresh water, and expanding the technique to locations beyond Mexico. The company is targeting to build algae-to-ethanol farms on coasts in the United States.
planetark _________________ Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
Joined: Mar 04, 2005 Posts: 2584 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Thu Jun 12, 2008 3:14 am Post subject: Re: Future Energy Technology News
This story was also posted by Peepers on the front page:
House approves Amtrak funding
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A nearly $15 billion Amtrak bill passed the House on Wednesday as lawmakers rallied around an alternative for travelers saddled with soaring gas prices.
The bipartisan bill, which passed by a veto-proof margin of 311-104, would authorize funding for the national passenger railroad over the next five years. Some of the money would go to a program of matching grants to help states set up or expand rail service.
Besides the $14.9 billion provided for Amtrak and intercity rail, an amendment to the bill would authorize $1.5 billion for Washington's Metro transit system over the next 10 years.
The White House has threatened a veto, saying the bill doesn't hold Amtrak accountable for its spending. But similar legislation has passed the Senate, also with enough support to override a veto.
CNN _________________ Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
Joined: Mar 04, 2005 Posts: 2584 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Thu Jun 12, 2008 4:21 am Post subject: Re: Future Energy Technology News
Energy storage sector hailed as the next big thing
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A new report from Lux Research subtitled Making Sense of the Next Big Thing predicts that the $41 billion (£21 billion) market will grow by 55% to $64 billion by 2012. It notes that venture capital in the field rose 74% to $709 million last year.
Of all the markets studied, bulk energy storage for utilities was touted as holding the biggest potential. The unpredictability of wind and solar power currently limits their share of the grid, whereas storing excess energy for later release enables a steadier – and therefore more lucrative – supply.
One company aiming to capture this market is Canadian firm VRB Power Systems, which markets vanadium redox-flow batteries (VRBs). Unlike conventional large-scale batteries, VRBs can charge and discharge indefinitely without losing capacity. They also lack toxic metals and does away with the need to dispose of harmful chemicals.
citywire _________________ Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
Joined: Mar 04, 2005 Posts: 2584 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Thu Jun 12, 2008 4:27 am Post subject: Re: Future Energy Technology News
New form of "wind power" designed to work in urban environments
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But now, a U.S. company is offering a propeller-free personal windmill that can be set up in city or suburb. The president of Mariah Power, Mike Hess, demonstrates what he calls the "Windspire."
"This one generates 25 to 30 percent of the power in your house, but if we are building a three kilowatts version, which is only twice the width, same height, then it generates 100 percent of your power requirements," Hess said.
This new system was part of an environmentally friendly exhibit at the U.S. Botanical Garden in Washington. The design was inspired by a 3,000 year-old windmill the Egyptians used to grind wheat.
onglobaltrends _________________ Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
Joined: Mar 04, 2005 Posts: 2584 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Thu Jun 12, 2008 7:50 pm Post subject: Re: Future Energy Technology News
What Is The Best Biofuel?
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I've spent most of my professional life in academia. However, my early years were devoted to biomass engineering in industry, and, over time, I also gained broad experience from three years as a Special Assistant in the U.S. Senate, helping start several companies and serving on the board of Hawaii Biotech during its important transition period. For about a third of century I have in various capacities been involved in a wide range of processes to convert biomass into a liquid fuel. I've chaired a range of bio-energy conferences and for the specific field of methanol from biomass, assisted in securing funds in the neighborhood of $25 million to conduct experiments and participate in economic assessments of this option.
You can refer to the biomass section of Chapter 2 of SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Planet Earth (see box on right) for the details, but by all common, economic and scientific sense, the simplest of alcohols, methanol, should be the sustainable fuel of choice over ethanol. I was thrilled when Nobel Laureate George Olah published Beyond Oil and Gas: The Methanol Economy. All the science and future speculation you wish to know can be found in this book about this alternative.
In a direct-methanol fuel cell (DMFC) the methanol is oxidised at the anode in the presence of liquid water. The reaction, which requires a catalyst, turns the methanol and water into protons and electrons (in other words, dissociated hydrogen atoms) and carbon dioxide. While the electrons pass along an external circuit as an electric current, the protons diffuse through a membrane to the cathode, where they recombine with the incoming electrons to form hydrogen atoms that react instantly with oxygen to make water. With pleasing symmetry the water is then channelled back to mix with the incoming methanol. Even though DMFCs produce carbon dioxide, the amount is small enough for the cells to count as a much greener technology than batteries. Some companies also think the new cells could be safer than batteries, which can burst into flame if short-circuited.
The efficiency of a DMFC is determined by its membrane. One of the most commonly used sorts is made of Nafion, a polymer developed by DuPont from a variation of Teflon. Nafion, however, can be expensive and it allows some methanol to seep through, which wastes fuel. Researchers are therefore trying to come up with more efficient membranes—and one group, led by Paula Hammond of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), appears to have done so.
Successful work like that at MIT will help to make DMFCs cheaper and more efficient, which will, in turn, make them even more attractive as power sources for portable devices. Already, some companies are predicting that sales of refuelling cartridges could run into the billions within a few years of them coming into the market.
economist _________________ Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
Joined: Mar 04, 2005 Posts: 2584 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Thu Jun 12, 2008 9:50 pm Post subject: Re: Future Energy Technology News
Brown says world needs 1,000 extra nuclear power stations
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Gordon Brown has signalled he wants Britain to play a major role in the race to build an extra 1,000 nuclear power stations across the world as part of his vision for ending the global "addiction to oil". The Prime Minister, who will be flying to Saudia Arabia for an emergency oil summit next week, said in spite of the risks of terrorism, Africa could build nuclear power plants to meet growing demands for energy.
He promised that by the end of the month the Government would publish its plans for a 700 per cent increase in energy from renewable sources such as wind farms, wave power, biomass, and solar energy.
But he made it clear that nuclear must play an increasing role in Britain's energy.
independent _________________ Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
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