Category Archives: Energy Storage

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Oct. 4, 2004 – Companies developing micro and nanotechnology-related products will receive more than $20 million from the federally funded Advanced Technology Program, beginning this month. Another $5 million may lead to tools used in the small tech industry.

The funding, which was again contested in Congress this year, makes it easier for companies to take on otherwise fiscally risky projects ranging from portable fuel cells to pollution controls to cancer therapies, according to the recipients.

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“Fuel cells are an intriguing, high-value opportunity, but it is not today’s business,” said Ray McLaughlin, chief financial officer of Carbon Nanotechnologies Inc. in Houston.

CNI is one of six micro and nanotech companies to receive awards, which totaled 32 this year. CNI, which specializes in single-wall carbon nanotubes, has identified the energy industry as a key market through applications such as nanotube electrodes in fuel cells. But successful integration of nanoscale components into next-generation power sources would take time, labor and money that wouldn’t be available until the 4-year-old company had built up income from other business strategies.

“There is a lot of expensive work that would have to be done,” McLaughlin said. The $3.6 million that ATP allocated to the fuel cell initiative offsets some costs. “Without this, we wouldn’t be able to dedicate our resources to it.”

The program allows small companies such as CNI or Glennan Microsystems Inc. in Cleveland to partner with other small companies and corporations to design, test and ultimately commercialize new technologies. Managed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the program targets technologies that could give the nation a competitive edge.

CNI, for instance, will work with Motorola Inc. to develop micro fuel cells for portable devices. NEC, Hitachi and several other Japanese companies also are attempting to get a foothold in that market.

The project, which includes Johnson Matthey Fuel Cells Inc., combines CNI’s expertise in nanotubes with Motorola’s work in small proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells. Motorola wants to sell micro fuel cells as a compact, lightweight power source for its mobile phones and other consumer electronics.

ATP also reduces barriers that prevent a consortium of companies from working together on complex projects, said Rick Earles, deputy director of Glennan Microsystems. Glennan Microsystems won a $3.1-million award to develop combustion control systems to reduce nitrogen oxides in gas turbine engines. The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to begin enforcing tougher standards for the pollutant in 2010.

“We can either collaborate and pull together disparate technologies to provide the single solution, or a single company has to do it,” Earles said. But few if any solo businesses could justify the cost of orchestrating a multi-tiered process that would require sensors, electronics, packaging, software and integration into numerous types of engines.

 “None of us could have done it ourselves,” Earles said. “Now we’ve got the essence of a supply chain.”

Glennan Microsystems, founded in 1998 as public-private partnership to commercialize microsystems that work in harsh environments, will coordinate efforts from groups as varied as Case Western Reserve University to Goodrich Corp. They propose developing and demonstrating a system that combines MEMS sensors, software, electronics and packaging that can be used in engines to control combustion.

The sensor system will reduce byproducts that cause pollution by maximizing the combustion process. They expect to integrate the system into water- and aircraft engines and electric power generators. The technology then may be adapted for cars, trucks and other vehicles, they said. ATP has weathered a series of political challenges.

For years, the Bush administration and some Republicans have opposed the program, calling it corporate welfare. This year, the administration and the U.S. House of Representatives recommended that the program be terminated in fiscal year 2005.

The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee reinstated the funding and added another $24 million in mid-September, for a total of $203 million for 2005. NIST announced its latest round of ATP awards at the end of September, saying it would provide $80.1 million in awards with industry matches equaling $56.9 million.

Other small tech companies receiving awards include: 

  • Cree Inc. of Durham, N.C. About $3.4 million to demonstrate light-emitting diode lamp packages. Nanocrystal Lighting Corp. of Briarcliff Manor, N.Y., will participate in the project.

  • Dow Chemical Co. of Midland, Mich. $6.5 million to develop an atomic force microscope platform for nanomechanical measurements. Veeco Instruments Inc. of Woodbury, N.Y., is a partner.

  • Nanospectra Biosciences of Houston. $2 million to develop an integrated approach for detecting and destroying cancer cells using gold nanoshells. Several Texas universities will assist in the project.

  • Quantum Dot Corp. of Hayward, Calif. $2 million to develop quantum dots without the use of the heavy metal cadmium for imaging in medical diagnostics and treatment.

In addition, three other award winners plan to devise fabrication techniques, instruments and software for the semiconductor industry that could benefit small tech manufacturers.

Sept. 24, 2004 – Rice University researchers have found a way to lower the toxicity levels of fullerenes, a technique that could reduce health or environmental risks that nanomaterials might cause in consumer products and industrial processes.

The team from Rice’s Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology performed what they called the first study of toxic effects on individual human cells exposed to buckyballs, soccer ball-shaped molecules containing 60 carbon atoms eyed for use in fuel cells, coatings and drugs. By attaching other molecules to the surface of buckyballs, they able to significantly lower the toxicity level when exposed to liver and skin cells in a Petri dish.

Kevin Ausman, the center’s executive director, said the simple chemical modification could lower potential exposure risks during disposal of a product like a fuel cell or within a manufacturing plant. Removing attached molecules and enhancing toxicity could also be useful in chemotherapy treatments, for instance.

“We’re already talking to companies that are looking at fullerenes for bulk manufacturing and making sure they’re aware of these things,” he said. “It’s the kind of thing that industry, because basically they want to reduce their own risk, is very interested in adopting in their own practices.”

The research will appear in an upcoming issue of the journal Nano Letters, published by the American Chemical Society. It also was published online by the journal Sept. 11.

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Aug. 18, 2004 – It may sound like weird science, but small tech power is being pursued in some unusual places, including your liquor cabinet and toilet. What’s more, if you thought cold fusion was so 80s, it — and a new variant called sonofusion — has bubbled back into the news.

A shot of Stoli for my cell phone

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A small St. Louis startup, Akermin Inc., is developing a micro fuel cell that could run on vodka or any other ethanol-based fluid. The alcohol fuel reacts with enzymes rather than catalytic metals to produce electrons.

Such biofuel cells have been investigated for decades, but the problem has been in creating a stable environment for enzymes that are extremely sensitive to temperature and pH conditions.

Researchers at St. Louis University coated the fuel cell’s electrodes with a polymer that forms tiny micelles, or pores within which the enzymes can live for weeks, rather than days. The enzymes turn anything alcoholic (beer works, though not as well as the harder stuff) into useful juice.

The developers are focusing on working on prototypes that are about the size of a postage stamp. Chemistry professor and company co-founder Shelley Minteer reported that the fuel cells have successfully run on vodka, gin, white wine and flat beer.

“The fuel cell didn’t like the carbonation,” Minteer said.

In April, BioGenerator, a new seed-capital company, invested $400,000 in the project. In addition, St. Louis University has given Akermin founders Minteer and grad student Nick Akers $250,000 in grants and licensing waivers.

Love that dirty water

One day, simply flushing the toilet could run the lights in your vanity mirror. Penn State  scientists are using bacteria to turn sewage into electricity. A soda can-size device called a microbial fuel cell harvests electrons that bacteria produce while digesting waste.

At first, the prototype in environmental engineer Bruce Logan’s laboratory barely produced enough juice to light a single bulb, but in June his team announced they had made the device cheaper and efficient enough to power a fan.

The bacteria attach themselves to the fuel cell’s positively charged electrode, or anode, made of carbon paper. As the bacteria metabolize the organic material in wastewater, they release positively charged hydrogen ions into the water and negatively charged electrons to the anode.

Bubbling back again

After decades of derision, the concept of cold fusion is getting a, well, lukewarm reception in some circles. The Department of Energy agreed to review some work suggesting that there may be something actually going on in the process first described by scientists at University of Utah in 1989, but discredited when results couldn’t be reliably reproduced.

Under the right conditions, further experiments have produced more heat than standard theory predicts.

On a related front, Impulse Devices of Grass Valley, Calif., is working on a technology called sonofusion that gives tantalizing hints that fusion power might be possible without extremely high temperatures and magnetic fields.

The company is making reactors that allow scientists to create a burst of ultrasound that causes bubbles in hydrogen-rich liquid to expand and then collapse into a bright flash of light, a phenomenon known as sonoluminescence.

Some scientists theorize that the gases in the collapsing bubbles are compressing enough to trigger nuclear fusion. Fusion, the process at work within stars, creates energy when hydrogen atoms slam together and fuse into helium atoms, releasing heat and light.

In 2002, scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee first reported that they could make hydrogen nuclei fuse by forcing tiny bubbles in acetone to implode when bombarded with sound waves. Impulse Devices believes it can build a commercial fusion generator in about 10 years.

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Aug. 17, 2004 – Ten wireless sensors stand watch over the Ben Franklin Bridge linking Philadelphia and New Jersey. Developed by MicroStrain Inc. of Williston, Vt., the pager-size devices measure stresses on the bridge whenever commuter trains cross it.

To extend the life of the devices’ batteries, they remain in “sleep” mode until an approaching train rouses them to sentience.

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MicroStrain’s bridge-monitoring project illustrates the promise and problem wireless sensors and other devices face: Such self-powered systems have had to contend with the limitations of current battery technologies.

MicroStrain is not alone. Millennial Net Inc., Dust Networks Inc.and other wireless sensor network developers have had to refine hardware and software so that sensing modules will get three, five or 10 years of working life from the coin cell batteries, like those in hearing aids and watches, that power them.

For industrial tasks such as monitoring temperature, humidity and vibrations throughout a semiconductor fab or power plant, wireless sensor nets are designed to improve productivity.

But as Charlie Chi, an analyst with ON World Inc. concluded in a recent market report, a sensor node that has to communicate continuously lasts a few days at best on an AA battery. He noted that frequent replacements add labor and costs, and are impractical for networks in remote or hazardous environments.

Some sensor companies are turning to devices that “harvest” ambient energy such as vibrations for remote or long-term sensing networks. Meanwhile, the makers of medical implants that deliver drugs or stimulate nerves face similar challenges powering micromachines that need to run for years, not days.

Kris Pister, chief technology officer of Dust Networks, said that for most early commercial applications such as building monitoring “sensors won’t need to send or receive data more than once a minute, in some cases once an hour or day.”

Cost and performance outweigh device size, he said, so that coin-cell batteries are an adequate power solution for the near term.

The solution may actually be further miniaturization, according to Clark Nguyen, the program manager at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) microsystems office.

“Shrinking sensor elements and other components with MEMS technology reduces power requirements dramatically,” he said.

Pister said he expects devices to shrink from the size of a pager to a bottle cap to an aspirin over the next five years. As they do, and other microdevices such as advanced radio frequency ID (RFID) tags emerge, market demand will drive the need for equally compact and cheap power packs.

On the RFID front, for example, Power Paper Ltd., based in Israel, has developed a flexible battery material that can be printed on a variety of surfaces.

Lucent Technologies and mPhase Technologies Inc. of Norwalk, Conn., announced a prototype of a nanotech-enabled reserve battery that could be a solution for wireless sensors, RFID tags and other self-powered small devices. Using a layer of “nanograss” embedded with nanoscale pillars, researchers developed an approach to microfluidically control how a battery’s electrode performs.

The nanograss surface is normally hydrophobic, a property that can be exploited to keep the electrolyte separated from the battery’s electrode by liquid. When power is needed, a small voltage pulls the liquid down into the nanograss, so it no longer impedes the discharge.

The power is turned off by removing the voltage. Researchers say the method prevents batteries from slowly discharging, giving them nearly unlimited shelf life. They say the process could scale down to work in an area of as little as a dozen square microns.

High-performance microbatteries exist, but are typically expensive, customized products. Quallion Inc. of Sylmar, Calif, for example, has developed a $400, rechargeable lithium ion model that is slightly larger than a grain of rice.

The company says it should last 10 years or more and can be recharged thousands of times wirelessly via an electrical field. The microbattery has been integrated in a nerve stimulator implant developed by Advanced Bionics Corp.that can treat a variety of neural disorders.

Today, tailoring the architecture of wireless sensor nets to a specific application may offer the most immediate fix. Peter Stein, vice president of business development at Massachusetts-based Sensicast Inc. said its sensor networks for museums feature routers and gateways that plug into existing power lines.

That hybrid approach reduces the power drain on battery-powered wireless sensors. Ardesta LLC, Small Times’ parent company, is an investor in Sensicast.

MicroStrain developed wireless MEMS sensors for monitoring strain and force that “harvest” energy by converting vibrations into current through piezoelectric fibers. Such vibration-powered nodes embedded in the composite skin of a combat helicopter can track structural fatigue, for instance.

Chief Executive Officer Steve Arms said the company is working with a variety of partners on embedded sensor systems, including Caterpillar Inc. and Lockheed Martin Corp.

Millennial Net of Cambridge, Mass. partnered on similar energy harvesting schemes with Ferro Solutions Inc. and Continuum Control Corp., whose devices also turn vibrations from heating ducts or the motion of a vehicle into power to run Millennial’s i-Bean sensor nodes.

At TPL, Inc. in Albuquerque, N.M., senior scientist Charles Lakeman has been working on a micro electrochemical power supply system that integrates a microbattery with a microsupercapacitor.

Applications for such ultra-small power sources, Lakeman said, include covert intelligence systems, where a small and relatively low-cost device would be necessary.

Indeed, Dust’s Pister said the company’s sensor systems are efficient enough to run off photovoltaic cells, even inside buildings.

Konarka Technologies in Lowell, Mass. is looking to do just that, at least initially for the military. DARPA awarded Konarka, several universities and the Army’s Soldier Systems Center in Natick, Mass. a $6-million contract to develop new materials for hybrid photovoltaic cells.

Potential applications include battery charging on the battlefield and solar-powered sensor networks. Daniel McGahn, Konarka’s chief marketing officer, said the company’s polymer material could be applied to a credit-card-sized device that would work in conjunction with a small battery. Small Times’ parent company, Ardesta, is an investor in Konarka.

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Aug. 13, 2004 – Since humans started to use fossil fuel, we’ve treated it the way hunter-gatherers treated wild game: Hunt it down and consume it as you find it. When you run out of game here, move on to a new area.

Human history began when people settled down to farm, and invented writing, money, and civilization. Let’s create our future by learning from those early farmers and seeding our own energy supply where we need it.

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We have an energy problem. We’re using it faster than we’re finding it, and a lot of the oil we buy comes from unfriendly regimes.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) members Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Venezuela, Kuwait, Qatar, Libya, Indonesia, United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Nigeria, and associate Gabon are no friends of liberal democracy.

Cartel pricing strategy is to maximize long-term profits, but control prices as necessary to eliminate threatening competitors.

Now think about China’s 1.3 billion people getting an urge to drive, or even to plug in a refrigerator. Where’s their energy going to come from? If there is more demand than supply, prices will rise. It could get ugly if rising prices don’t spark more supply. We have not found a major new oil field in decades.

Some people look to government to solve this developing crisis, but the politics of energy seem to be “do more of what we did before, only get a better result this time.”

I took an interest in energy policy after reading that estimated in the late ’90s we were spending $30 billion to $60 billion per year defending Mideast oil fields, but only importing $10 billion of oil a year from them. We’re spending a lot more these days, but still don’t have a sustainable energy policy.

Energy is really an economic problem, not a political problem. Government’s role should be to fund some of the basic research, get the market incentives right, unleash competition, and stay the course against OPEC’s reaction.

Government can seed the market by buying new energy-efficient products that have long-term paybacks.

Many of us see nanotechnology helping to solve our global energy problem. Energy efficiency, solar-to-electric conversion, designed catalysts for oil refining, and storage devices such as fuel cells or batteries are all improved by nanotech.

How can we structure an R&D program to quickly deliver good, affordable solutions? Rick Smalley says we should invest in science education and research, and the breakthroughs will come.

I’m an entrepreneur who studies economics, and think we’ve also got to come up with a market-based business approach to assure any such research is applied and commercialized.

How can we do this without creating a university welfare system, a corporate welfare system, a government bureaucracy, or all three?

Private sector funding is more efficient than government funding, but the private sector won’t fund this alone. Our private sector has a short payback horizon across the spectrum, from angels to venture capitalists to corporate R&D to public stock markets.

The high cost of infrastructure investments, long time to payback, and heavy geopolitics make energy an unattractive area for serious investors. We’re seeing a few investments into energy, but the problem is massive, and current funding tiny.

Would you invest your personal money into a risky long-term science project of which someone else is likely to capture the benefits? I wouldn’t.

The keys to an effective energy program are competition, measurement, and determination. Cooperation has a role, too; it takes visionary leadership to break out of today’s academic, government, and industry silos and work together to solve this problem. We should demand such vision and teamwork from those who want to lead this effort.

Market competition solves problems better, faster, and cheaper than regulation or big government programs.

Ingenuity is limitless, and the chance to get rich or famous is a powerful motivator. Let’s unleash our entrepreneurial spirit on this problem. We can seed hundreds of new businesses that will pay taxes and create high-value jobs. Competitive government funding for tech transfer, from research to production, is one way to launch this program.

Measurement is vital when allocating funding. Markets measure against expectations constantly, and are quick and often brutal in their assessments. Companies measure themselves against their own benchmarks and their competitors.

Well-run companies invest more in their winners, and cut off their losers as quickly as they can identify them. Universities and government agencies measure their inputs (staff, budgets), but lack market feedback to measure outputs. Good investors evaluate the effectiveness of their money by measuring outputs.

Determination is the final piece. If we change direction with the political winds, or cave in to a predatory oil price drop and give up this program, our economic competitors are likely to come sweep up the pieces, finish the job we started, and sell us our own technology.

Why don’t we stop tweaking old approaches, and define a bold new clean and green energy program, based on science and economics? Tell your elected officials you’re looking for a real energy policy. Let’s focus our nanotech R&D on creating new energy prosperity.

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Aug. 12, 2004 – Amory Lovins has been described as iconoclastic, idealistic and influential. But not ignored.

The author, consultant, physicist and chief executive of the Rocky Mountain Institute, a Colorado-based nonprofit research center, has advised numerous business, government and academic leaders over three decades on energy and other issues.

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Small Times’ Jeff Karoub spoke by phone with Lovins about developing hydrogen and other alternatives to oil, the role of nanotechnology in those efforts, and the emerging field’s risks and rewards. Lovins also reveals the missing link between carbon nanotubes and hummingbird spit.

Q: Tell me about your report, “Winning the Oil Endgame.” What is the main message to your audience?

“Winning the Oil Endgame” will describe how to get the United States off oil completely and profitably — even for oil companies. It suggests doing this (through) very efficient use of oil; substituting safe natural gas in applications where they’re changeable, like furnaces and boilers, biofuels and waste-derived fuels and optionally hydrogen.

Together these seem to be enough to provide all the services officially projected to be derived from oil in 2025, cheaper than buying the oil and without counting any avoided external costs of buying and using the oil.

Q: Will the report talk about a movement like this serving as a stabilizing geopolitical force?

Yes, or at least removing some of the major sources of instability and conflict in the world. Although we do argue that while oil is cheap, dependence on it is not, and especially if you count hidden costs it’s not at all cheap.

The basic case is a business more than a policy case. That is, we’re suggesting that the substitutes for oil are cheaper than the oil in private internal costs. Therefore, they’re profitable to adopt; therefore, the transition will be led by business.

Although we’ll suggest some innovative policy approaches to help that happen, it is primarily a business case. Certainly the daily headlines give us reason to think this is a very timely reminder that the oil problem is one we don’t need to have and it’s cheaper not to.

Q: A former ChevronTexaco executive told Small Times two years ago that the company is going to be a hydrogen energy company, whether pumping hydrogen into a car or selling the hydrogen fuel cell or batteries. Other hydrogen advocates believe it should create a new, decentralized form of energy generation and use. Do you recommend such a “top-down flow of energy” in a hydrogen-based economy?

We work with a lot of the oil majors — I have for 30-odd years. And I think they will be very important players in the hydrogen economy. But that doesn’t mean they or anyone else will make hydrogen in central plants and pipeline it all over.

The logical way to deliver hydrogen to vehicles is to make it from natural gas, typically, at the filling station. That appears to use less capital and probably less natural gas than business as usual would use.

That said, there are some central production opportunities that probably do make sense in particular situations.

The most obvious is that refineries, which now make about 7 megatons a year of hydrogen in the U.S., may turn into merchant hydrogen plants as they find there’s less need for that hydrogen to make high-octane gasoline and desulfurized diesel fuel because those have been displaced by efficient use and indeed by biofuels and hydrogen.

Q: Nanotechnology, specifically nanoscale materials and structures, is seen as playing a central role in storing hydrogen as well as catalysts to convert hydrogen to electricity. The oil industry already uses nanoscale technologies to refine petrochemicals. What role, if any, do you see this emerging field playing in a hydrogen economy?

Well, first I think I need to clarify what you mean by nano-based approaches. As far as I know all of the examples you gave are of materials crafted at molecular scale or in nanosize particles.

I prefer to use the term nanotechnology in Eric Drexler’s original sense of molecular assemblers, rather than applying it as a blanket term to everything of nanoscale, whether it’s anything to do with assemblers or not. Which sense do you mean it in?

Q: Hewlett-Packard nano researcher Stan Williams has separated the field’s applications into two categories: passive — nanocomposites and structures — and active — the so-called nanobots and their self-replicating kin.

It’s a useful distinction. I think it’s probably clearer between nanotechnology in the Drexlerian sense, and if you’re just talking about nanoscale materials, then just use that term.

Q: Would you then separate your concerns or issues related to nanotechnology versus nanoscale materials?

They both have important issues that need to be examined much more carefully than they have. But they’re different issues. The assembler-related, or as you would say, active technology issues have to do with malicious use.

I’m not quite so concerned about the gray-goo problem, but there is certainly a shadow side to the assembler technology and Eric, of course, has been concerned about that from the beginning.

In that sense, Drexlerian nanotechnology is yet another of several technologies we have, like nuclear fission and transgenics that someone said are suited for “wise, far-seeing and incorruptible people.”

The nanoscale materials, what you’re calling the passive uses, have a different set of issues, namely where do they go and what are their health and environmental effects? Because they can be absorbed or metabolized in very different ways than the materials of which we have evolutionary experience.

I have an unpleasant feeling that although these materials have some wonderful applications, they may also turn out to have medical or ecological side effects, which we never heard of.

So we really need to temper our technical enthusiasm, which I share with a lot of precaution in figuring out the biological implications before we use these materials widely.

Q: Understanding the distinction as you see it, what about the nanomaterials and structures playing a role in refining petrochemicals and in catalysts to convert hydrogen to electricity?

Subject to the caution I just gave, I think there are some technically very important applications in the areas you’ve mentioned and in others, including structural materials. Nanoscale materials have many and generally favorable implications for cost and efficiency throughout the hydrogen value chain.

But I have not assumed any of them in analyzing hydrogen systems. To the extent that these nanoscale materials innovations succeed technically and turn out to be safe to use, they will simply make hydrogen economics and practicality greater than my analysis suggests.

Q: You’ve talked before about approaches you prefer that don’t have the environmental risks often associated with nano-based approaches. I assume you put biomimicry in that category.

It’s not free of those issues of its own, but I think they’re a lot less scary, because by definition they use techniques that life has evolved and become comfortable with, rather than things of which we have no evolutionary experience.

Q: You’ve included examples in your “Twenty Hydrogen Myths” paper where the U.S. government seems to be moving forward with hydrogen initiatives, but some critics don’t believe it’s a genuine effort to move beyond oil.

Hydrogen seems closer or further away, depending on current fashion. At the moment, a number of, I think, rather poor reports are being published saying it’s very far away.

They reached that conclusion by assuming inefficient cars and disintegrated implementation. The market is not constrained by that perception, fortunately. The people who are developing the technologies are continuing to do so with very good results.

I think the current crop of pessimists will be surprised. On the other hand, if you go back a few years, there were a bunch of folks ready to charge into the market with technologies that weren’t ready yet.

Putting out unreliable fuel cells would have been a disaster, so I’m glad we didn’t do that.

By David Forman

Aug. 10, 2004 — A classic rule of design — be it automotive, industrial or interior — states that the fewer the components in a system, the more elegant it is. The basic sticks and connectors of Tinkertoys? Pretty elegant. But the all-purpose Lego brick — that’s the epitome.

Judging by that standard, hybrid gasoline-electric vehicles, the new generation of vehicles with two motors instead of just one, look like a clumsy, clunky compromise.

Except for another classic design rule: When things aren’t working, break the rules. And with a fleet of gas guzzling SUVs on the road, high gas prices and unpredictable geopolitics weighing heavily on future supplies, it’s fair to say plenty of things aren’t working.

The result is a rapidly growing market for hybrids that combine gasoline and electric motors. Honda Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Corp. already have hybrids on the road, and Ford Motor Co. and other brands will soon follow.

Meanwhile, research in the areas of automotive fuel cells and other alternative fuels is increasing.

Experts say nanotechnology research and development will be key in helping these alternative power technologies overcome the market hurdles ahead.

A few cases in point: Last year, a major Japanese auto manufacturer partnered with materials developer Ener1 Inc. to use its nanoscale electrodes in the batteries of hybrid gasoline-electric cars.

Honda has leased its FCX fuel cell vehicle, powered by fuel cells that use nano-perforated membranes, to the city of San Francisco, among other customers, and has put more than a dozen of the cars on the road.

And one of the biggest nano-related financing rounds of last year was the $32 million funding of Catalytic Solutions Inc., a company using nanostructures to make catalytic coatings.

But such nanoscale developments come with correspondingly macroscale technical challenges, says battery and energy cell specialist Subhash Narang. He is director of product development at SRI International, a Menlo Park, Calif.-nonprofit technology research institute.

For example, he says, long life and high power are difficult to combine in a single battery. What’s more, as batteries become more powerful, they are often less safe. And despite the benefits of hydrogen-powered PEM fuel cells, Narang and other experts say building a hydrogen distribution infrastructure may be prohibitively expensive.

To understand the longevity-power conundrum, consider runners. Marathoners aren’t usually very good at the 100-meter dash. And good sprinters don’t win marathons.

In the case of batteries, says Narang, the kind that store lots of energy aren’t usually good at supplying it in the powerful bursts required to accelerate a car. And the high power batteries don’t store energy for very long.

By definition, says Narang, the smaller electrolyte particles that allow energy to move faster do not store as much energy as larger particles.

But Narang and other researchers have found ways to combine high energy density with high power using nanotechnology.

In SRI’s case, the approach involves using high aspect ratio nanomaterials, or nanofibers. The nanofibers are minutely small in one dimension (about 20 nanometers) so energy flows rapidly across them. But because they are, relatively speaking, long in the other dimension (50 to 200 nanometers) they can store much more energy than nanoparticles with small dimensions all around.

The result, Narang maintains, is a battery that can deliver about eight times the power of a traditional battery while providing comparable energy. Plus, there’s a bonus: The nanoscale dimensions that let energy move rapidly also allow the battery to recharge faster when the energy flow is reversed, a feature that’s important for hybrid cars designed to harvest energy from braking and use it to recharge the batteries.

Other organizations are working on the same problem. Ener1, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., is researching enhancements for electrolytes and cathodes, using nano-structured powders for electrolytes and nano-structured, iron-disulfide for cathodes.

The company says that by combining its nano-structured, iron-disulfide cathode with its polymer electrolyte it can provide high energy and a long cycle life.

The ordinarily inverse relationship between energy and longevity is hardly the only problem plaguing the development of hybrid car batteries. According to Narang, there is a similarly inverse relationship between how much energy a battery can store and its inherent safety.

“The trend in the industry is to pack more and more energy into a smaller volume,” he said. As a result, today “we’re making batteries that have more energy than TNT.”

Safety concerns have compelled automakers to rely on less volatile but poorer performing materials for their hybrids. Honda and Toyota currently use nickel metal hydride (NiMH) batteries in hybrids, despite the fact that lithium-ion (Li-ion) is generally regarded as a better technology.

“Lithium-ion is dangerous in big form factors,” said Alexei Andreev, a solid-state physicist at Draper Fisher Jurvetson. He negotiated the company’s investment in Solicore Inc., a Florida startup that makes a solid-state electrolyte for batteries.

Lithium-ion is fine in cell phones and laptops, he says, but in the size required for a car, the electrolyte becomes flammable. Automotive use makes it doubly dangerous because a battery crushed in an accident can short circuit.

SRI researchers have been working on a solution using fire retardant materials to overcome the technology’s shortcomings. “When the battery starts heating up,” Narang said, “components become fire extinguishers.”

As of yet, however, neither the high-power/long-life solutions nor the safety technology has made it into a production car.

SRI’s nanofiber electrolyte first will be targeted toward other markets with similar demands, such as contractor-grade cordless power tools. And the fire-retardant materials face an uphill public relations battle: If manufacturers adopt the technology, they’ll have to acknowledge Li-ion’s inherent flammability problems, something Narang says they may not want to do.

Batteries, however, are not the only nano-enhanced technology poised to augment alternative energy efforts. Academic and corporate researchers also are inventing ways to complement diesel engines and build new types of fuel cells.

California-based Proton Power proposes using solid acid fuel cells to supplement diesel engines inside long-haul trucks. Currently, truckers idle their engines when resting to power heating, air conditioning and other amenities.

Proton Power would provide a supplemental fuel cell that truckers could use when not driving.

Calum Chisolm, Proton Power’s president and co-founder, says his company’s technology could offer a safer, more efficient alternative.

“The thinner the electrolyte layer,” Chisolm said, “the more power.” Currently funded by friends and family, the California Institute of Technology spinout is looking at longer-term financing opportunities and broad markets.

SRI is working on a form of solid oxide fuel cell that would use military-grade diesel fuel. The design takes advantage of nanostructures for catalysts and uses 200-nanometer powders for a thin electrolyte, upping the power in the same manner as Chisolm’s solid acid cell.

That suggests that one day the roads may hold not only hybrid gasoline-electric cars, but also of hybrid diesels, and, over the long term, a variety of automotive fuel cell technologies. Talk about breaking the rules.

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Aug. 9, 2004 – Chances are, the electric grid of the future will look a lot like the grid of today. But certainly it won’t behave the same as today’s grid, whether it undergoes a massive overhaul, incremental upgrades or is left unchanged.

Like the industries that comprise it, the grid is a dynamic and complex construct linking power generators, substations and transmission lines across continents.

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It’s antiquated, inefficient and dumb, hampered by half-century-old technologies that can’t communicate and a quagmire of regulatory and free enterprise pressures. It’s too valuable to ignore, and too expensive to replace.

“Electricity is the key fabric of the economy,” said Dan Rastler, a technical leader with the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), a nonprofit energy research consortium that promotes science and technology. “There’s a real need to get the industry as well as stakeholders on track.”

Deliberate attacks on grid infrastructure can cripple nations’ economies and undermine their stability. The grid became a frequent victim of war in Chechnya, where Chechen rebels and Russian troops have fought off and on since the mid-1990s.

In Iraq, guerrillas continue to attack power lines and towers in an effort to impede recovery and foster unrest. The grid is often cited as a vulnerable target for terrorism in the United States and in other developed nations, particularly after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania.

Garden-variety outages from storms and other causes sap $119 billion from the U.S. economy every year, according to an analysis by the EPRI. The nation lost between $4 billion and $10 billion when a blackout shut down parts of the East and Midwest last August.

Canada, which also went dark in the cascading outage, estimated that its gross domestic product declined 0.7 percent that month.

Most energy experts agree that making the grid less vulnerable to intentional and natural assaults, and more resilient when such assaults do occur, is critical. They see wholesale change as prohibitively expensive, risky and impractical.

Instead, they advocate improving the grid internally with technologies such as sensors linked to networks. They advocate reducing its burden externally through smart appliances and back-up energy sources.

“We’re not going to rip out the entire infrastructure,” said John Del Monaco, manager of emerging technologies and transfer at Public Service Electric & Gas (PSE&G) in New Jersey.

PSE&G initiated a program to use MEMS-based acoustic sensors to monitor transformers, and is developing similar technologies for cables and power lines. “You overlay on top of what you already have,” said Del Monaco.

New technologies aren’t enough on their own; they need to complement and be compatible with both the existing grid and the grid of the future, said T.J. Glauthier, president and chief executive of the Electricity Innovation Institute (E2I).

An affiliate of EPRI, E2I is charged with orchestrating the coordinated integration of next generation technologies. This year it offered $500,000 in grants to researchers developing nanotechnologies for electric power systems.

“What we need to really have is functionality, but we need to apply it in an evolutionary way,” Glauthier said. “We need to find companies that will be able to replace and upgrade where there is the most congestion and demand. We’re looking for ways to help ease that burden.”

Fixing the grid from within would likely require giving it nerves in the form of remote sensors that track its health, a network for collecting and distributing the data and a brain for interpreting and perhaps even acting on the information. But making such a “smart grid” would require engineers to design around high temperatures, strong electromagnetic forces and other difficult conditions.

About four years ago, PSE&G technology consultant Harry Roman and colleagues at the New Jersey Institute of Technology decided to tackle the first challenge: the nerves. They proposed developing a MEMS acoustic sensor to monitor transformers, using sound rather than electrical signals to inspect the innards of the transformer.

In theory, sensors would track the telltale sounds of sparks that are emitted when the insulating oil within the transformer wears down or becomes contaminated. Early detection could allow utilities to avoid power failures or costly fires.

Developing the sensor hardware proved to be the easier part of the equation, Roman said. Once the project was underway, he discovered that the oil’s temperature affected the sound of arcing. The team had to develop software that accounted for that relationship before it could get an accurate read on the transformer’s inner workings.

The sensors have progressed from lab-based tests to a mockup placed on a pole-mounted transformer, to this year’s challenge: several months of trials in a small oil tank.

Roman said “realistic implementation” is about two to four years away. In the meantime, he is developing similar sensors for gauging the motion of underground cables to detect mechanical stresses, and temperature sensors to monitor transmission lines.

Roman and Del Monaco emphasized that gathering data from sensors alone won’t make the grid more robust. Knowing how to analyze information to detect and then deflect problems would lead to improved reliability, they said.

“This is outage management,” Roman said. “Our whole philosophy has been to be more proactive. (Sept. 11) also prompted us to think about security. How do we use these microsensors for security?”

PSE&G may be ahead of the curve. Roger Anderson, an advocate of a Web-enabled smart grid, said the energy industry as a whole shies away from new technologies until it has little choice but to adapt. The 2001 terrorist attacks and last year’s massive outage jolted the industry, but didn’t prompt any revolutionary change.

“Late adaptive industries require crises,” said Anderson, a senior scholar who specializes in energy issues at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University. “The later the adapter, the greater the crisis has to be.”

Stabilizing the grid as it slips toward a blackout — whether it was set off by a deliberate attack or by its own inner foibles — requires real-time analysis and instant response by a grid that is not only smart, but also conversant, with its many other parts.

Anderson sees the Internet, specialized software and improved hardware helping to build this genius grid in the next decade.

He also envisions a role, albeit a distant one, for nanotechnologies such as quantum wires. Quantum wires, or carbon nanotubes stacked into a long, cylindrical pattern, theoretically will carry electricity far more efficiently than today’s transmission wires. But not at today’s high costs, or with today’s limited supplies and capabilities.

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in Washington state attack the problem from another angle. They created what they call GridWise, chips that can be installed into household appliances to monitor and assist the grid.

The chips combine PNNL’s expertise in microsystems with its mission to provide clean and energy-efficient technologies to the nation. The chips detect when the grid is becoming overloaded, for instance, when it is being taxed by air-conditioning demands on a hot and humid day.

The chips temporarily shut down air conditioners or other appliances until the grid has recovered. At most, temporary brownouts inconvenience homeowners. But similar outages at energy-reliant high-tech facilities such as computer chip-making plants can prove ruinous.

“The bottom line is, we can’t protect it (the grid) because it is so diverse,” said Robert Pratt, a staff scientist at PNNL and program manager for GridWise. “We need resiliency. We need the flexibility to make sure it doesn’t turn into a blackout.”

Pratt said the incentive for consumers would be in cost savings more than concerns about grid reliability. He envisions consumers installing GridWise into appliances, or buying appliances already wired with GridWise, and enrolling in utility programs that then give them cheaper rates.

Their individual energy conservation would be small, but “it’s the aggregate that makes it great,” Pratt said.

EPRI’s Rastler takes working outside the grid even further. The technical leader for its distributed energy resources program, he is looking at technologies such as stationary fuel cells that can provide alternative energy to consumers and thus ease the burden placed on the grid.

His program also explores the feasibility of renewables such as solar cells. Both will likely benefit from nanotechnologies being honed in companies and research labs.

“Several of the electric companies are interested in seeing whether these technologies can be part of the toolbox,” Rastler said. “There’s been a lot of hope, and a lot of over promise.”

Change is coming to the grid, even if its engineering remains unchanged, according to Anderson. An oceanographer for 20 years, he recognizes in the grid the same kind of dynamic interplay of forces that make complex systems like the climate so difficult to predict.

His tracking of blackouts in the U.S. over several decades shows a recent shift toward instability, with the frequency and magnitude of blackouts on the rise. The five-year trend serves as a warning that another multi-state meltdown like last August’s could occur unless the grid is healed.

“It scares us,” he said, “like the way the global warming people are scared.”

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July 23, 2004 – Our energy needs often conflict with our environment and health. The production, use and distribution of energy sources such as fossil fuels have been linked to an array of problems, from global warming and greenhouse gases, to damaging oil spills and debilitating pollutants.

Coal mining and oil drilling carry their own baggage, from ecological destruction to erosion to leaching.

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Nanotechnology offers an opportunity to get the desirable benefits of energy — reliable and affordable power — with less or none of the drawbacks.

The elementary steps of energy conversion occur on the nanoscale in processes such as charge transfer. Working at that scale allows us to develop innovative approaches for energy devices, storage and generation.

Opportunities include:

•novel, lightweight materials to improve vehicle efficiency;

•selective catalysts for clean and energy-efficient processes;

•increased efficiency and reduced cost of solar energy;

•methodologies enabling water to be split via sunlight to generate hydrogen; and

•efficient and low-cost fuel cells, batteries, etc.

Nanotechnology-enabled products have the potential not only to greatly reduce existing environmental harm associated with fossil fuels, but also to prevent future environmental degradation with affordable, efficient and effective clean-energy alternatives.

Examples of such nanotechnology-enabled products include environmental monitoring devices that allow for quick and accurate detection of compounds at extremely low concentrations in both accessible and hostile environments. The availability of real-time data can help expedite cleanup efforts, minimizing damage when an accident occurs.

Nanotechnology is also a driving force in the development of novel filter materials that remove contaminants from air and water. These approaches promise to achieve safety levels far better than current standards require. Due to size and cost reductions, these technologies can be ubiquitously placed in environmental settings.

Additional technologies are being refined that use nanoparticles to treat contaminated groundwater and subsurface areas, resulting in minimal or no environmental damage.

But the true excitement and promise of nanotechnology lies in the development of cost-effective and efficient “green” or environmentally benign energy sources. The use of solar and wind power as viable and sustainable energy sources may be achieved more rapidly and effectively using nanotechnology.

At present, solar energy devices have low-energy efficiencies and often exist as large, unwieldy attachments to structures. Nanotechnology researchers are advancing the state of photovoltaics to enable increased energy production, while achieving reductions in component size and cost.

In addition, the development of novel solar energy storage units will enable continuous operation of electrical, heating/cooling equipment using the sun’s power. Further successes will propel solar energy forward as a more desirable option among the various energy sources available.

The effect of nanotechnology on the evolution of wind as an energy source could lead to improved designs incorporating novel energy-storage capabilities, improved energy-transmission devices and more compact structures. Using nanotechnology, it may be possible to make wind turbines that are smaller with higher energy yields and to use this harnessed energy to generate electricity and heat with minimal energy losses.

Such advances would result in more aesthetically attractive, affordable, and energy-efficient structures that could be used as alternative power sources for society.

Current research into fuel cell technology is another area where nanotechnology use and development is making progress. Advances include increases in miniaturization and energy efficiency, reductions in cost, increased flexibility in fuel type used, improved integration with other systems and improvements in reliability and durability.

Such advances will result from the use of alternative nanomaterials and innovative nanotechnology-derived devices.

The merging or fusion of these alternative energy sources could also occur as a result of nanotechnology. Incorporation of solar, wind and fuel cell components into power-generating equipment could provide substantial savings in space, cost and time.

Such devices would provide environmentally clean alternative energy sources that are smaller, more powerful and more economically feasible.

The technological advances that nanotechnology offers through environmentally benign energy sources could help achieve the goals of a sustainable planet and a healthy environment for all.

These goals will be realized through elimination of waste generated from burning fossil fuels, through decreased reliance on non-renewable energy resources that mar the environment upon removal, and through attendant reductions in environmental damage from fossil fuel accidents such as spills and leaks.

Clean, affordable energy sources will enable the Environmental Protection Agency to continue to protect human health and safeguard the natural environment.

July 14, 2004 — NanoGram Corp., a San Jose, Calif.-developer of nanostructure processing technology, announced it closed a $7 million secondary round of financing.

ATA Ventures led the round. Nth Power Technologies, Bay Partners, Harris & Harris Group, Rockport Capital Partners and SBV Venture Partners also participated.

The company also announced a new licensing program, AccessNano, to facilitate licensing to industrial partners. Nanogram’s technology is currently used by three different firms for use in making optical devices, solid oxide fuel cells and batteries for medical devices. In March, one of the licensees, spinout NanoGram Devices Corp., was bought by Wilson Greatbatch Technologies Inc.

Bryant Tong of Nth Power Technologies and Bob Williams of Bay Partners have joined the NanoGram board.