core sector communique

U.S. Agency Works to Transform the Global Energy Landscape

A post from the America.gov Adaptation! ( http://blogs.america.gov/climate/ ) Blog

 

By Cheryl Pellerin

Science Writer

 

Washington - The U.S. Department of Energy is using the research and development model that led directly to the Internet ( http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml ) to transform the landscape of clean energy.

 

ARPA-E ( http://arpa-e.energy.gov/ ) - for Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy - was established in 2007 with $400 million in funding. It's a bold concept: focus on high-risk, high-payoff concepts developed by small businesses, academic institutions and large corporations and turn them into technologies that promise true transformations in areas like large-scale use of energy-efficiency technology, alternative and advanced energy sources, smart-grid ( http://www.america.gov/st/energy-english/2009/April/20090409161825lcnirellep0.2290308.html ) power management and energy-storage technology.

 

ARPA-E was modeled after DARPA ( http://www.darpa.mil/ ) - the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency - created in 1958 to serve as the frontier-expanding research and development arm of the Defense Department. DARPA's involvement in creating the Internet began with an idea to link time-sharing computers into a national system, and DARPA-funded scientists have contributed to artificial intelligence, space-launch platforms, stealth technology and smart materials.

 

ARPA-E's new director, Arun Majumdar, was associate laboratory director for energy and environment at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory ( http://www.lbl.gov/ ) and a professor of mechanical engineering and materials science and engineering at the University of California-Berkeley ( http://berkeley.edu/ ). Majumdar has been an entrepreneur and has served as an adviser to startup companies and venture capital firms in the Silicon Valley ( http://www.siliconvalley-usa.com/ ).

 

ARPA-E funded projects ( http://arpa-e.energy.gov/public/PR-102609.pdf ) (PDF, 100KB) cover a wide range of activities, including the following:

 

.. Liquid metal grid-scale batteries: Created by professor Don Sadoway ( http://dmse.mit.edu/faculty/faculty/dsadoway/ ), a leading Massachusetts Institute of Technology battery scientist, the all-liquid metal battery ( http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/liquid-battery.html ) is based on low-cost liquid metals with potential to break through the cost barrier required for mass adoption of large-scale energy storage as part of the nation's energy grid. This technology could revolutionize the way electricity is used and produced on the grid, enabling round-the-clock power from wind and solar power resources, increasing the grid's stability and making blackouts a thing of the past.

 

.. Bacteria for producing direct solar hydrocarbon biofuels: Researchers at the University of Minnesota ( http://www1.umn.edu/twincities/index.php ) developed a bioreactor that potentially can produce a flow of gasoline directly from sunlight and carbon dioxide using a symbiotic system of two organisms. First, a photosynthetic organism directly captures solar radiation and uses it to convert carbon dioxide to sugars. In the same area, another organism converts the sugars to gasoline and diesel transportation fuels.

 

.. CO2 capture using artificial enzymes: United Technologies Research Center ( http://www.utrc.utc.com/pages/our_company.html ) is developing synthetic enzymes that could make it easier and cheaper to capture CO2 emissions from power plants and factories. The effort would mean a lower energy requirement for industrial carbon dioxide capture and much lower capital costs to get carbon-capture systems up and running. The project could make it affordable to capture carbon dioxide from coal and natural gas power plants around the world.

 

.. Low-cost crystals for LED (light-emitting diode ( http://www.ecse.rpi.edu/~schubert/Light-Emitting-Diodes-dot-org/ )) lighting: Developed by Momentive Performance Materials ( http://www.momentive.com/portal/site/Internet ), this proposal for novel crystal-growth technology could dramatically lower the cost of developing LEDs, which are 30 times more efficient than incandescent bulbs and four times more efficient than compact fluorescents. This higher-quality, low-cost material would lower costs of finished LED lighting, accelerate mass-market use and dramatically decrease lighting energy use, which accounts for 14 percent of U.S. electricity use.

 

.. Water: Carbon nanotubes ( http://www.pa.msu.edu/cmp/csc/nanotube.html ) for reverse-osmosis membranes that require less energy and have many times higher processing speed. This could dramatically reduce the cost and energy required for desalination (turning saltwater to freshwater) to supply water for crops and communities.

 

What do you think about ARPA-E and what are your ideas for amazing new clean-energy technologies?