LED lights slowly improving

Submitted by acohill on Wed, 12/31/2008 - 09:08.

LED lights are slowly improving, and a new manufacturing process using silicon instead of more expensive sapphire may bring down the cost of LED "light bulbs" within two years. Like record players, CD players, and VCRs, light bulbs will seem quaint and horribly old-fashioned to the next generation of kids, who will have grown up with LED lighting as normal.

Nanocoating for solar cells increases efficiency

Submitted by acohill on Fri, 11/14/2008 - 09:19.

A newly-developed nano-engineered coating that can be applied to solar cells decreases reflectivity and allows the solar cell to use almost all of the sunlight hitting the surface--over 90% efficiency. In comparison, the best previous record for solar cell efficiency is about 60% utilization of light hitting the surface. The coating also allows cells to be mounted in a wider variety of orientations and still generate significant power.

While wind and solar technologies are improving, both have significant limitations. Solar panels don't generate any power at night, and wind turbines generate no power on windless days. Denmark, which generates a lot of power from wind turbines, had a stretch of 57 windless days that precipitated a nationwide power crisis. Long term, coal and nuclear power will have to continue to provide base load capacity in the U.S., and new, smaller nuclear reactor designs (less expensive and safer) will be a key part of reducing dependence on fossil fuels.

Segway inventor builds electric car

Submitted by acohill on Mon, 11/10/2008 - 08:53.

Up in New Hampshire, a new electric vehicle is undergoing road tests. New Hampshire is not normally counted as one of the big auto-producing states, but the move to electric vehicles is likely to bring some new players into the field. As a side issue, the government might have more impact by giving a few million dollars to every firm in the U.S. working on electric vehicle technology rather than trying to bail out the high cost Detroit manufacturers.

Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway two wheel electric vehicle, is now road-testing a small electric car powered by batteries, with a Stirling engine that recharges the batteries as needed and can also run the heater and defroster. The Stirling engine runs on almost any kind of combustible fuel, including gas, diesel fuel, and biofuels. Kamen has stayed away from the more complicated hybrid designs that use both a gas engine and an electric motor to propel the car. In Kamen's design, the electric motor does all the propulsion, just like Chevrolet's Volt design.

Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) challenge the electric grid

Submitted by acohill on Tue, 10/28/2008 - 14:05.

Electric utilities and electric car manufacturers are beginning to sit down and talk to each other. At the Austin Alt Car Expo, representatives from the two groups shared opportunities and concerns. One very big concern is how the electric grid will handle the additional power load represented by electric cars. The electricity does not come out of the air for free, and a few solar panels on the roof of such cars will not keep the batteries charged up if you have a commute of more than a mile or two each way.

The biggest problem is managing the time of battery recharging. If everyone drives their electric car home and tries to plug it in at 5:15 PM, the power grid would melt down. So what is needed is a smart grid that can talk to the car and schedule charging at a time when the electric grid can handle the load, like later in the evening.

And that means you need a very reliable and robust community broadband network that enables two way communications between smart house power controllers, smart car power controllers, and electric utilities. Design Nine is working with VPT Energy Systems to design this system.

30 megawatts of power on a flat bed trailer

Submitted by acohill on Wed, 10/08/2008 - 09:04.

New Mexico continues to roar far ahead of the rest of the country with a wide ranging mix of game-changing economic development strategies. The state seems to be successfully attracting the brightest and best entrepreneurs and businesspeople in the country, and economic developers in the state are greasing the skids with investments in space, energy, and entertainment.

The latest news out of New Mexico is a firm called Hyperion Power Generation that has licensed nuclear power technology from Los Alamos National Labs. The company has designed a 30 megawatt nuclear power plant that can be delivered by tractor trailer--one tractor trailer--for the basic reactor component.

The system uses a form of nuclear fuel that self-limits the amount of heat generated, and the basic design is so safe that the technology has been licensed by the Federal government for unattended operation. The firm plans to manufacture 4,000 of the version 1 design, and expects to be able to deliver them in less than twelve months from receipt of an order.

Wave energy may power Google

Submitted by acohill on Mon, 09/22/2008 - 08:07.

Google's power hungry servers continue to send the company out to look for cheaper sources of electric power. According to this article, the search giant is studying the idea of putting massive banks of servers on giant barges tethered in the ocean, where wave energy would generate the power needed for the servers.

Electric cars in Kentucky

Submitted by acohill on Tue, 09/16/2008 - 15:28.

Zap electric cars will be built in Kentucky. They have been built in China, but the cost of hauling them from China has become too expensive. So manufacturing is moving closer to customers, and the Energy Economy is going to unfold much like this--getting energy and energy saving devices as close to customers as possible.

Power grid is not ready for wind

Submitted by acohill on Thu, 08/28/2008 - 09:05.

The New York Times has a story about an emerging problem with wind power: the power grid can't handle it. Putting massive new energy generation sources out in the middle of nowhere won't work if you don't have high capacity power lines that can carry the electricity to where it is needed. So one of the hidden costs of wind power (or solar, or any other new generation source) is getting the power to the right place at the right time.

On a smaller scale, home-based electric generation projects (e.g. Vehicle To Grid (V2G), roof-mounted solar panels, etc.) are already looking at this problem. Design Nine is part of a team led by VPT Energy Systems that will be studying how to develop components and overall system designs for integrated energy systems that include plug-connected vehicles and distributed energy resources (supported by the Energy Department’s Sandia National Laboratories). Part of the solution, both on the small scale of home-based energy sources and on the large scale energy sources like wind farms and solar panel farms, is to have a robust and reliable broadband network that allows dynamic and interactive control of both electric loads and electric generation facilities.

Communities that begin addressing broadband and electric power as two parts of the same basic infrastructure challenge have a powerful economic development advantage, with the side benefit of potentially evolving quickly into a "green" community with renewable energy sources that help keep energy costs lower.

Air travel becoming an expensive luxury

Submitted by acohill on Wed, 08/27/2008 - 07:48.

This brief report discusses the fact that airlines are dropping nonstop flights even to and from major cities like New York. For business, this is devastating, as the increased cost of tickets can, to some extent, be moderated via other cost-cutting measures. But sending business people on trips that take all day instead of three or four hours is devastating, because you can't recover the lost time spent traveling.

Like it or not, business videoconferencing is going to become much more important more quickly, and bandwidth (or the lack of it) will determine how much it is used in any particular community or business area.

Power and broadband drive economic development

Submitted by acohill on Fri, 08/22/2008 - 09:25.

In a series of broadband planning meetings earlier this week, I heard about several companies that were seriously considering moving their operations to another city if the local electric power infrastructure was not improved. The firms said they were experiencing multiple outages per month that often lasted an hour or more.

It is not just "old" manufacturing businesses that are vulnerable to electric power interruptions. Any firm that uses IT to manage their business (i.e. almost all businesses) can be affected by power outages, and sudden power outages can not only stop business and manufacturing processes, but can also stop ecommerce as well, if the servers taking orders are offline because of power interruptions.

Economic developers: When was the last time you asked your businesses about the reliability of their electric service? Do you want to lose a relocation prospect because of lack of quality electric power?