[COSEAfaculty] FW: Department of Energy Awards $156 Million for Groundbreaking Energy Research

Thu Sep 29 13:53:14 CDT 2011

Two of these went to Texas....very cool.

===============================================

Grady Price Blount, Ph.D., Professor of Physics and Dean,

College of Science, Engineering & Agriculture (CoSEA)

Texas A&M University-Commerce

Commerce, Texas 75429-3011

Telephones:  903-886-5781 (office)      325-716-0450 (cell)     

===============================================

Talent hits a target no one else can hit.

Genius hits a target no one else can see.

                                    -Schopenhauer

 <http://www.solardecathlon.gov/> 

 <http://www.solardecathlon.gov/> 

From: DOE NEWS 
Sent: Thursday, September 29, 2011 1:18 PM
To: NONMEDIA at LISTSERV.ENERGY.GOV
Subject: Department of Energy Awards $156 Million for Groundbreaking
Energy Research

THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY 

Office of Public Affairs

________________________________

News Media Contact: (202) 586-4940

For Immediate Release: Thursday, September 29, 2011

Department of Energy Awards $156 Million for Groundbreaking Energy
Research Projects 

New ARPA-E Projects in 25 States Will Accelerate Innovation in Clean
Energy Technologies, Increase America's Competitiveness and Create Jobs

Washington, D.C. - Arun Majumdar, Director of the Department of Energy's
Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), today announced 60
cutting-edge research projects aimed at dramatically improving how the
U.S. produces and uses energy. With $156 million from the Fiscal Year
2011 budget, the new ARPA-E selections focus on accelerating innovations
in clean technology while increasing America's competitiveness in rare
earth alternatives and breakthroughs in biofuels, thermal storage, grid
controls, and solar power electronics.   Demonstrating the success
ARPA-E has already seen, the program announced this year that eleven of
its projects secured more than $200 million in outside private capital
investment.

"These innovative projects are at the forefront of a new technological
frontier that plays a critical role in our future energy security and
economic growth, "said Majumdar. "It is now more important than ever to
invest in game-changing ideas that will build the technological
infrastructure for a new, clean energy economy."

The projects selected are located in 25 states, with 50% of projects led
by universities, 23% by small businesses, 12% by large businesses, 13%
by national labs, and 2% by non-profits. Prior to today, ARPA-E has
awarded $365.7 million in funds to approximately 120 groundbreaking
energy projects within seven program areas. This most recent round of
selections brings the total to 180 projects, 12 program areas and $521.7
million in awards at ARPA-E to date.

Summaries of the new programs and an example project from each are
below. Information on all projects announced today is available HERE
<http://arpa-e.energy.gov/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=QHWJySjQEbk%3d&tabid
=454> .

PETRO: Plants Engineered To Replace Oil ($36 million)

ARPA-E funds breakthrough technologies that optimize the biochemical
processes of energy capture and conversion to develop robust, farm-ready
crops that deliver more energy per acre with less processing prior to
the pump.   If successful, PETRO will create biofuels from domestic
sources such as tobacco and pine trees for half their current cost,
making them cost-competitive with fuels from oil.

*         Example PETRO Project: University of Florida - Gainesville,
Florida ($6.3 million). 

The University of Florida project will increase the production of
turpentine, a natural liquid biofuel isolated from pine trees. The pine
tree developed for this project is designed both to increase the
turpentine storage capacity of the wood and to increase turpentine
production from 3% to 20%. The fuel produced from these trees would
become a sustainable domestic biofuel source able to produce 100 million
gallons of fuel per year from less than 25,000 acres of forestland. 

REACT: Rare Earth Alternatives in Critical Technologies ($31.6 million)

Rare earths are naturally-occurring minerals with unique magnetic
properties that are used in many existing and emerging energy
technologies. Rising rare earth prices have already escalated costs for
some energy technologies and may jeopardize the availability and
widespread adoption of many critical energy solutions by U.S.
manufacturers. ARPA-E funds early-stage technology alternatives that
reduce or eliminate the dependence on rare earth materials by developing
substitutes in two key areas: electric vehicle motors and wind
generators.

*         Example REACT Project: Pacific Northwest National Lab
"Manganese-Based Permanent Magnet" - Richland, Washington ($2.3
million). PNNL's team will reduce the cost of wind turbines and electric
vehicles by developing a replacement for rare earth magnets based on an
innovative composite using manganese material. Manganese composites
could potentially achieve twice the strength of the magnets used today,
while using inexpensive and abundant raw materials. The team will
develop stronger magnets by leveraging high-performance supercomputer
modeling and high-speed experiments of various metal composite
formulations that do not contain rare earths. If developed successfully,
these composite magnets will reduce the U.S. dependence on expensive
rare-earth material imports, and reduce the cost and improve efficiency
of green technologies.

HEATS: High Energy Advanced Thermal Storage ($37.3 million)

More than 90% of energy technologies involve the transport and
conversion of thermal energy. Therefore, advancements in thermal energy
storage - both hot and cold - would dramatically improve performance for
a variety of critical energy applications. ARPA-E will develop
revolutionary cost-effective thermal energy storage technologies.

*         Example HEATS Project: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
"HybriSol" - Cambridge, Massachusetts ($2.9 million). Using innovative
nanomaterials, MIT will develop a thermal energy storage device, or a
heat battery, that captures and stores energy from the sun to be
released onto the grid at a later time. This energy storage device
called 'HybriSol' is transportable like fuels, 100% renewable,
rechargeable like a battery and emissions-free. In addition, 'Hybrisol'
can be used without a grid infrastructure for applications such as
heating and water purification. If successful, this heat battery could
have an unprecedented impact on efforts to decrease fossil fuel
consumption and emissions, enabling clean solar energy to be accessible
24 hours a day. 

GENI: Green Electricity Network Integration ($36.4 million) 

ARPA-E funds innovative control software and high-voltage hardware to
reliably control the grid network, specifically: 1) cost-optimizing
controls able to manage sporadically available sources, such as wind and
solar, alongside coal and nuclear, and 2) resilient power flow control
hardware - or the energy equivalent of an internet router - to enable
automated, real-time control of grid components. If successful, these
technologies will enable utilities and operators to optimally control
the flow of power; making the grid more secure, resilient, reliable, and
could potentially save billions of dollars every year.

*         Example GENI Project: Texas Engineering Experiment Station -
College Station, Texas ($4.9 million). Historically the electric grid
was designed to be passive causing electric power to flow along the path
of least resistance. The Texas Engineering Experiment Station team will
develop a new system that allows real-time, automated control over the
transmission lines that make up the electric power grid. This new system
would create a more robust, reliable electric grid, and reduce the risk
of future blackouts, potentially saving billions of dollars a year. 

Solar ADEPT: Solar Agile Delivery of Electrical Power Technology ($14.7
million) 

The SunShot Initiative leverages the unique strengths across DOE to
reduce the total cost of utility-scale solar systems by 75 percent by
the end of the decade. If successful, this would enable solar
electricity to scale without subsidies and make the U.S. globally
competitive in solar technology. ARPA-E's portion of the collaboration
is the Solar ADEPT program, which focuses on integrating advanced power
electronics into solar panels and solar farms to extract and deliver
energy more efficiently. This program could reduce power conversion
costs by up to 50 percent for utilities and 80 percent for homeowners. 

*         Example Solar ADEPT Project: Ideal Power Converters - Austin,
Texas ($2.5 million). Ideal Power Converters is developing light-weight
electronics to connect photovoltaic solar panels to the grid. Their
technology explores innovative circuits using revolutionary transistor
designs to develop solar panel electronics for commercial-scale
buildings that are compact enough to be installed on walls or roof-tops.
The project goal is to reduce the weight of these electronics by 98%,
reducing the cost of materials, manufacturing, shipping and
installation, supporting the aggressive cost-reduction goals of the
Department of Energy's SunShot Initiative.

To learn more about ARPA-E and previous awards, visit arpa-e.energy.gov
<http://arpa-e.energy.gov/> . 

###

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