Thursday, February 28, 2013
GE Lighting Illuminates Malaysia’s MASkargo Advance Cargo Centre with its Energy-Efficient Solution
GE News Release:
GE Lighting Illuminates Malaysia’s MASkargo Advance Cargo Centre with its Energy-Efficient Solution
February 28, 2013
MALAYSIA — February 28, 2013 — (NYSE:GE) — GE Lighting has implemented its technologically advanced T5 High Bay system at MASkargo Advance Cargo Centre, a 108-acre cargo handling complex located in Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Malaysia. The system, which is ideal for the warehouse industrial vertical, replaced 1,470 sets of halide lamps with Hi-Beam Lighting T5H0 high bay coupled with GE ELBS and GE T5HO 47W Watt-Miser lamps. In addition to improving the illumination within the complex to 200 lux, the reduction of maintenance and energy use will result in annual savings of $300,000.
Mr. Ong Pang Wai, GE Project and Lighting Specialist, says, “As a leading air freight company like MASkargo, operating 24 hours daily, it is vital that the lighting solution provides adequate illumination while being efficient in its energy usage. After discussions with our clients and a thorough study of the work area, the team specified their Hi-Beam T5 High Bay system for this key cargo complex, which has proven over time to be working well for a multitude of warehouse facility areas. The new lights present a well-illuminated environment across the facility while halving the energy used. GE Lighting’s Hi-Beam high bay solutions are a more environmentally-sensitive alternative for businesses today than older fluorescent technologies.”
The greater visibility and uniform illumination will contribute to MASkargo’s overall working environment.
Mr. Mohd Zulkefly Ujang, Senior Manager MHCS, MASkargo, adds, “Highly energy-efficient products from Hi-Beam and GE Lighting met our expectations for energy savings and brighten up our work areas.”
About GE LightingGE Lighting invents with the vigor of its founder Thomas Edison to develop energy-efficient solutions that change the way people light their world in commercial, industrial, municipal and residential settings. The business employs about 15,000 people in more than 100 countries, and sells products under the Reveal and Energy Smart consumer brands, and Evolve, GTx, Immersion, Infusion, Lumination and Tetra commercial brands, all trademarks of GE. General Electric (NYSE: GE) works on things that matter to build a world that works better. For more information, visit www.gelighting.com.
Engineering Bacterial Live Wires
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory News Release:
Previous studies performed by scientists and collaborators at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s (Berkeley Lab) Molecular Foundry have made enormous headway toward cellular-electrode communication by using E. coli as a testbed for expressing an electron transfer pathway naturally occurring in a bacterial species called Shewanella oneidensis MR-1. The engineered E. coli was able to use the protein complex to reduce nanocrystalline iron oxide (Jensen, et al. (2010) PNAS.). Building off of this research, a group led by Caroline Ajo-Franklin, a staff scientist in the Biological Nanostructures Facility at Berkeley Lab’s Molecular Foundry studying synthetic biology, has now demonstrated that these engineered E. coli strains can generate measurable current at an anode.
In S. oneidensis MR-1, the MtrCAB pathway is a protein complex that transports metabolic electrons across the cell membranes to metal oxides and minerals at the extracellular surface. S. oneidensis uses this electron conduit to essentially breathe solid metals in environmental conditions where oxygen is not available. When the genes encoding these complexes are expressed in E. coli, the cells can use them and reduce external metal sources. While the electron transport pathway was functional in E. coli in the previous study, the engineered strain showed reduced growth and markedly slower electron transfer rates than Shewanella. Closer investigation of the original engineered strain indicated that expressing large quantities of the MtrCAB proteins negatively impacted cell health and morphology. Armed with this data, Ajo-Franklin’s team set out to explore optimization of the system by fine-tuning the synthesis of the proteins and the growth of the cells.
Biological systems are a delicate balance between interconnected regulatory and metabolic pathways, and the activity of protein systems can change dramatically depending on the health of the cellular system as a whole. The team therefore expanded the study to optimize the number of electron conduits synthesized per cell and to measure how this impacted electron transfer to an electrode.
“This synthetic biology approach of swapping in parts [promoters] combined with our high-throughput plate screening of hundreds of cell variants has allowed us to quickly zero in and focus on a few constructs for in-depth evaluation,” said Cheryl Goldbeck, a senior scientific engineering associate at the Molecular Foundry and first author of the publication.
Interestingly, the strain that produced the greatest current at the anode was not the strain designed to maximize the number of electron conduits expressed in the membrane. Instead, the strains with optimized cellular health produced the maximum observed current, despite having only a moderate level of the electron transport proteins.
“When engineering a living system, you cannot simply just improve one aspect and expect better results. This would be like training for a marathon just by lifting weights to strengthen your legs. Instead, you have to look at how all the pieces work together,” said Caroline Ajo-Franklin. “In our case, we found that building more of the protein complexes compromised the cell’s health and caused it not to work well.”
The results of this new study, “Tuning promoter strengths for improved synthesis and function of electron conduits in Escherichia coli,” have recently been published in ACS Synthetic Biology, the American Chemical Society’s new flagship journal for synthetic biology.
The researchers found that optimization of electron transfer to an electrode was far more complex than simply increasing the number of electron conduits available in the cell membrane. Instead, maximum current was correlated with the healthiest cultures, which expressed a moderate level of MtrCAB pathway. Utilization of this natural electron transport system creates an electrical interface out of the cell itself rather than requiring the incorporation of external conductor materials. The ability to transform any cell into a biological “wire,” which can then interact directly with electronics, offers enormous potential for the development of groundbreaking cell to electronic communication systems.
“By engineering cells to build electrical contacts with electrodes, we can capture the natural transfer of electrons during cellular metabolism and harness electrical energy,” said Heather Jensen, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. “This approach also takes advantage of the cell’s ability to repair the electron conduits and self-replicate.”
Co-authoring the paper with Goldbeck, Jensen, and Ajo-Franklin are Michaela TerAvest, Nicole Beedle, Yancey Appling, Matt Hepler, Guillaume Cambray, Vivek Mutalik, and Largus Angenent.
Work performed at the Molecular Foundry was supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy, and from the National Science Foundation through a career grant.
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Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) addresses the world’s most urgent scientific challenges by advancing sustainable energy, protecting human health, creating new materials, and revealing the origin and fate of the universe. Founded in 1931, Berkeley Lab’s scientific expertise has been recognized with 13 Nobel prizes. The University of California manages Berkeley Lab for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. For more, visit www.lbl.gov.
The Molecular Foundry is one of five DOE Nanoscale Science Research Centers (NSRCs), national user facilities for interdisciplinary research at the nanoscale, supported by the DOE Office of Science. Together the NSRCs comprise a suite of complementary facilities that provide researchers with state-of-the-art capabilities to fabricate, process, characterize and model nanoscale materials, and constitute the largest infrastructure investment of the National Nanotechnology Initiative. The NSRCs are located at DOE’s Argonne, Brookhaven, Lawrence Berkeley, Oak Ridge and Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories. For more information about the DOE NSRCs, please visit http://science.energy.gov.
- See more at: http://newscenter.lbl.gov/feature-stories/2013/02/28/engineering-bacterial-live-wires/#sthash.7dfXqr1Z.dpuf
Berkeley Lab scientists discover the balance that allows electricity to flow between cells and electronics
FEBRUARY 28, 2013
(510) 486-4861 edstephenson@lbl.gov
0
Feature
Just like electronics, living cells use electrons for energy and information transfer. Despite electrons being a common “language” of the living and electronic worlds, living cells cannot speak to our largely technological realm. Cell membranes are largely to blame for this inability to plug cells into our computers: they form a greasy barrier that tightly controls charge balance in a cell. Thus, giving a cell the ability to communicate directly with an electrode would lead to enormous opportunities in the development of new energy conversion techniques, fuel production, biological reporters, or new forms of bioelectronic systems.Previous studies performed by scientists and collaborators at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s (Berkeley Lab) Molecular Foundry have made enormous headway toward cellular-electrode communication by using E. coli as a testbed for expressing an electron transfer pathway naturally occurring in a bacterial species called Shewanella oneidensis MR-1. The engineered E. coli was able to use the protein complex to reduce nanocrystalline iron oxide (Jensen, et al. (2010) PNAS.). Building off of this research, a group led by Caroline Ajo-Franklin, a staff scientist in the Biological Nanostructures Facility at Berkeley Lab’s Molecular Foundry studying synthetic biology, has now demonstrated that these engineered E. coli strains can generate measurable current at an anode.
Authors of the recent publication in the Biological Nanostructures Laboratory. From left to right: Caroline Ajo-Franklin, Heather Jensen, Matt Hepler, Cheryl Goldbeck
Biological systems are a delicate balance between interconnected regulatory and metabolic pathways, and the activity of protein systems can change dramatically depending on the health of the cellular system as a whole. The team therefore expanded the study to optimize the number of electron conduits synthesized per cell and to measure how this impacted electron transfer to an electrode.
“This synthetic biology approach of swapping in parts [promoters] combined with our high-throughput plate screening of hundreds of cell variants has allowed us to quickly zero in and focus on a few constructs for in-depth evaluation,” said Cheryl Goldbeck, a senior scientific engineering associate at the Molecular Foundry and first author of the publication.
Interestingly, the strain that produced the greatest current at the anode was not the strain designed to maximize the number of electron conduits expressed in the membrane. Instead, the strains with optimized cellular health produced the maximum observed current, despite having only a moderate level of the electron transport proteins.
The Foundry team discovered that there is a delicate balance between the number of MtrCAB electron conduits (green-to-red contour) and cell health (blue contour) in their engineered E. coli strains. The right combination allows E. coli to be ‘wired up’ to an electrode.
The results of this new study, “Tuning promoter strengths for improved synthesis and function of electron conduits in Escherichia coli,” have recently been published in ACS Synthetic Biology, the American Chemical Society’s new flagship journal for synthetic biology.
The researchers found that optimization of electron transfer to an electrode was far more complex than simply increasing the number of electron conduits available in the cell membrane. Instead, maximum current was correlated with the healthiest cultures, which expressed a moderate level of MtrCAB pathway. Utilization of this natural electron transport system creates an electrical interface out of the cell itself rather than requiring the incorporation of external conductor materials. The ability to transform any cell into a biological “wire,” which can then interact directly with electronics, offers enormous potential for the development of groundbreaking cell to electronic communication systems.
“By engineering cells to build electrical contacts with electrodes, we can capture the natural transfer of electrons during cellular metabolism and harness electrical energy,” said Heather Jensen, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. “This approach also takes advantage of the cell’s ability to repair the electron conduits and self-replicate.”
Co-authoring the paper with Goldbeck, Jensen, and Ajo-Franklin are Michaela TerAvest, Nicole Beedle, Yancey Appling, Matt Hepler, Guillaume Cambray, Vivek Mutalik, and Largus Angenent.
Work performed at the Molecular Foundry was supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy, and from the National Science Foundation through a career grant.
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Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) addresses the world’s most urgent scientific challenges by advancing sustainable energy, protecting human health, creating new materials, and revealing the origin and fate of the universe. Founded in 1931, Berkeley Lab’s scientific expertise has been recognized with 13 Nobel prizes. The University of California manages Berkeley Lab for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. For more, visit www.lbl.gov.
The Molecular Foundry is one of five DOE Nanoscale Science Research Centers (NSRCs), national user facilities for interdisciplinary research at the nanoscale, supported by the DOE Office of Science. Together the NSRCs comprise a suite of complementary facilities that provide researchers with state-of-the-art capabilities to fabricate, process, characterize and model nanoscale materials, and constitute the largest infrastructure investment of the National Nanotechnology Initiative. The NSRCs are located at DOE’s Argonne, Brookhaven, Lawrence Berkeley, Oak Ridge and Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories. For more information about the DOE NSRCs, please visit http://science.energy.gov.
Sandia’s new fiber optic network is world’s largest
Sandia Labs News Releases
February 28, 2013
Sandia’s new fiber optic network is world’s largest
Fiber optic network saves energy, money
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sandia National Laboratories has become a pioneer in large-scale passive optical networks, building the largest fiber optical local area network in the world.
Steve Gossage, a senior engineer at Sandia National Laboratories, looks at fiber optics in a cable box that replaced heavier and bulkier copper cable for high-speed communications throughout much of the labs. Fiber offers more capacity and is more reliable than copper. (Photo by Randy Montoya) Click on the thumbnail for a high-resolution image.
The network pulls together 265 buildings and 13,000 computer network ports and brings high-speed communication to some of the labs’ most remote technical areas for the first time. And it will save an estimated $20 million over five years through energy and other savings and not having to buy replacement equipment. Sandia expects to reduce energy costs by 65 percent once the network is fully operational.
Fiber offers far more capacity, is more secure and reliable and is less expensive to maintain and operate than the traditional network using copper cables.
An optical local area network (LAN) gives people phone, data and video services using half-inch fiber optic cables made of 288 individual fibers, instead of the conventional 4-inch copper cables. Copper cables used to fill up underground conduits and required steel overhead racks of connecting cable, along with distribution rooms filled with separate frames for copper voice and data cables. The fiber distribution system uses only part of the conduit and needs only a 2- by 3-foot cable box.
“The frames go away, and the walls are bare and the tray empties,” said senior engineer Steve Gossage, who has spent his 36-year career at Sandia in advanced information and network systems engineering.
The national laboratory has always pushed for speed beyond the fastest transmission rate available, Gossage said. “When people were working in much slower data rates, kilobit-type rates at short distances, we were trying to get 10 times the distance and 10 times the speed,” he said.
Adopting fiber optics
Sandia began looking at fiber optics early in the technology’s development because of its promise of higher bandwidth — greater communication speed — at longer distances. The labs started converting from copper in the 1980s, first installing then-emerging fiber optics in a single building and bumping that facility to megabit speeds. “Today we’re way past that. We’re at 10 gigabit-type rates and looking hard at 100,” Gossage said.
After years of planning, Sandia completed a formal network plan in late 2008 and sought competitive bids the following year. Sandia selected Tellabs of Naperville, Ill., as the equipment vendor for the network, and Gossage and his colleagues simultaneously began to jumpstart the deployment of the fiber infrastructure and set up a test lab to validate the performance of configurations for the equipment and various network functions. The technology began moving to desktops in 2011, and by the end of 2012, Sandia had converted more than 90 percent of bulky copper cable to a fiber optics LAN.
Sandia, which will spend about $15 million on the project, needs superb computing capability for the problems it tackles as part of its support for the mission for the National Nuclear Security Administration.
“Whether it’s a materials science problem or modeling an event, we need a lot of data and a lot of processing capability,” Gossage said. “We need to be able to see it, we need to be able to view it, we need to be able to put teams together. This is a large laboratory, deeply stocked with scientists and engineers and test labs. For the analyses we get, the problems are not small and they’re not easy.”
Since its first experience with fiber optics, Sandia envisioned being able to use multiple wavelengths in a very high bandwidth single strand reaching the farthest tech areas. But decades ago, when Sandia began putting in single-mode fiber to desks and adding underground fiber capabilities, the technology wasn’t quite mature enough to take advantage of fiber optics’ inherent multiple wavelengths and speeds.
So Sandia continued to install the fiber optics cable foundation and waited as the technology developed, and moved quickly when commercial optical networks began deploying voice, data and video to large collections of homes and offices.
“There weren’t that many unknowns for us because we had been thinking about ways to do this on a large scale for quite a while,” Gossage said. “We had already thought through what this might mean to us, what it might mean to our lifecycle costs and where the investments would be, and we were already pretty comfortable with fiber and the technologies that go with it.”
Copper versus fiber optics
Buildings with conventional copper LANs have separate networks for phones, computers, wireless, security and so on. Fiber optics puts everything in a single network cable. That eliminates a large number of power-consuming switches and routers and makes the network simpler to operate and cheaper to install. Since it requires less space, energy and maintenance costs go down.
“As we research and deploy new technologies, our main objectives are to enable the labs’ mission, decrease life-cycle costs and if possible reduce our footprint on the environment. With the deployment of passive optical networks we have been able to meet and exceed all of these objectives,” said Sandia manager Jeremy Banks.
Where a conventional LAN serving 900 customers requires a space the size of three double ovens, an optical network serving 8,000 requires a microwave oven-sized space. Where copper cable required Sandia to maintain and manage 600 separate switches in the field, optical LAN allows it to operate a data center in one building and simple, standard ports to offices. Because fiber optics reaches beyond the 100-meter radius that once was the standard from a wiring closet to a desktop, remote areas such as the National Solar Thermal Test Facility have high-speed communications for the first time.
The only copper wire for most of Sandia today is a short connection from the wall to the desktop. Everything behind the wall is fiber.
Moving away from copper wasn’t easy. It required new technology for the core communication system and made Sandia its own network provider, Gossage said. He credited a central team of about 10 people across Sandia who worked together every day throughout 2011, plus sub-teams totaling about 40 people. The effort included engineering design, information technology, network systems, computing, facilities, security and people in the field pulling cable and connecting ports.
Still to come
Sandia is recycling copper as it’s replaced, which keeps tons of valuable material out of a landfill. The estimated $80,000 for the copper will offset some of the fiber optics cost.
The labs also must turn off hundreds of switches before it can fully realize the energy savings. That will take longer because it depends on such things as staffing, Gossage said.
More change could be coming. A small trial is under way for voice-over-fiber — putting data and voice in one system rather than the two Sandia uses today. Testing shows Sandia can protect voice running through a congested circuit — what Gossage calls “a Mother’s Day test,” when everyone calls at the same time. The Gigabit Passive Optical Network standard Sandia works with can dedicate part of the bandwidth and give priority to selected traffic such as voice. So calls would go through even with heavy competition from data.
Sandia also is working with a small number of researchers who need more bandwidth than they’re getting. The labs’ needs are ahead of the market but it’s pushing for next-generation increases in speed, Gossage said.
Communication speed improves every five to eight years. With copper, each improvement required replacing large, heavy bundles of jacketed cable to re-engineer them to perform at the new speed, he said. Fiber optical cable offers a bandwidth good for 25 years or more.
“We change the wavelength, we change the modulation rate, we don’t get back in the ceiling, we don’t get back in the customer’s office,” Gossage said. “So our return on investment, our capital investment, our operational investment, the impact on our customers — everything gets better.”
Sandia National Laboratories is a multiprogram laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corporation, for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration. With main facilities in Albuquerque, N.M., and Livermore, Calif., Sandia has major R&D responsibilities in national security, energy and environmental technologies, and economic competitiveness.
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
2013 Ford Fusion Hybrid - YouTube
Ford ups the ante in the affordable hybrid sedan market with the 2013 Ford Fusion.
Video (7:27).
2013 Ford Fusion Hybrid - YouTube
Video (7:27).
2013 Ford Fusion Hybrid - YouTube
Savings to Chew On: Wrigley Expands Commitment to Sustainability
This is an excerpt from EERE Network News, a weekly electronic newsletter.
February 27, 2013
Savings to Chew On: Wrigley Expands Commitment to Sustainability
Known for chewing gum and candy products, Wrigley Manufacturing Company recently expanded its commitment to sustainability and is collecting solar power to help run its Altoids manufacturing plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Using funds from the Energy Department's State Energy Program, the company installed 240 rooftop solar panels (a 50.4-kilowatt array) on its Chattanooga facility in December 2010. The solar panels cover about one-seventh of the plant's roof, leaving plenty of room for expansion. The array generates more than 170,000 kilowatts of clean energy per year—about 3% of the plant's energy use—and eliminates 117 tons of greenhouse gas emissions. During the first year of operation alone, the solar installation saved Wrigley more than $16,000 in electricity costs.
The solar installation is a part of Wrigley’s "Sustainable in a Generation" effort to eliminate fossil fuel energy use and greenhouse gas emissions by 2040. Wrigley is developing a strategy to minimize its impact on the environment, focusing on reducing fossil fuel energy use, greenhouse gas emissions, and waste. From 2007 to 2011, Wrigley's landfill waste decreased by 71.62%, greenhouse gas emissions by 2.37%, and energy use by 7.75%. See the Energy Blog.
Survey Finds U.S. Rivers Could Provide 3% of Nation's Electricity
This is an excerpt from EERE Network News, a weekly electronic newsletter.
February 27, 2013
Survey Finds U.S. Rivers Could Provide 3% of Nation's Electricity
The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) recently completed a mapping and assessment of hydrokinetic resources in continental U.S. rivers and found that these undeveloped resources could provide 3% of the nation's annual use of electricity. The assessment is part of an Energy Department effort to assess U.S. hydrokinetic waterpower resources, including river, wave, tidal, ocean thermal, and ocean current.
The assessment analyzed 71,398 river segments across the 48 contiguous states and additional river segments in Alaska. It yielded a total theoretical resource estimate of 1,381 terawatt-hours per year (TWh/yr) for the continental United States, which is equivalent to approximately 25% of annual U.S. electricity consumption. Because there are constraints on developing many sites, the study found that the technically recoverable resource estimate for the continental United States is 120 TWh/yr, or approximately 3% of annual U.S. electricity consumption.
The results show that the Lower Mississippi region constitutes almost half (47.9%) of the technically recoverable resource estimate; Alaska, 17.1%; the Pacific Northwest region, 9.2%; and the Ohio region, 5.7%. See the EPRI press release.
Energy Department Names Two 2012 Wind Cooperatives of the Year
This is an excerpt from EERE Network News, a weekly electronic newsletter.
February 27, 2013
Energy Department Names Two 2012 Wind Cooperatives of the Year
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The Golden Valley Electric Association developed the 25-megawatt Eva Creek Wind Farm in Ferry, Alaska in 2012.
Credit: Golden Valley Electric Association |
The Energy Department on February 21 recognized the East River Electric Power Cooperative of South Dakota and the Golden Valley Electric Association of Alaska as the 2012 Wind Cooperatives of the Year. East River and Golden Valley were selected by a panel of experts from the wind industry, utilities, government, national laboratories, and cooperatives.
East River Electric Power Cooperative of Madison, South Dakota, is a wholesale electric power supply cooperative serving eastern South Dakota and western Minnesota. The cooperative is regarded as one of the earliest champions in installing the first utility-scale wind turbines in the Dakotas. In 2009, the co-op created South Dakota Wind Partners LLC (SDWP), which is a model for community-based, locally-owned wind development that is fully financed by South Dakota residents. In 2010, SDWP proposed a 10.5 megawatt (MW) addition to the 151 MW Prairie Winds SD1 project and worked with East River to convene investor meetings across the state. This approach helped raise $16 million in just 60 days with investments from more than 600 South Dakotans. The 10.5 MW project has been in operation since 2011, and is a community-financing model for clean, domestic wind power that other providers can emulate
The Golden Valley Electric Association is focused on generating 20% of its peak load electricity—the power supplied when customer demand is highest—from renewable energy by 2014. As part of this commitment, Golden Valley developed the 25-megawatt Eva Creek Wind Farm in Ferry, Alaska, in 2012. The remote site is located at the end of a 10-mile dirt road, contributing to unique construction challenges. The Eva Creek Wind Farm project is expected to help the cooperative meet its renewable goals ahead of schedule, reduce dependence on oil, and save Golden Valley members as much as $4 million in annual electricity costs by the end of 2013. See the Energy Department Progress Alert and the Wind Powering America website.
DOE's SunShot Announces $17 Million for Solar Reliability, Grid Integration
This is an excerpt from EERE Network News, a weekly electronic newsletter.
February 27, 2013
DOE's SunShot Announces $17 Million for Solar Reliability, Grid Integration
The Energy Department's SunShot Initiative recently announced up to $17 million to support the development of innovative, cost-effective solutions to boost the amount of solar energy that utilities can integrate seamlessly with the national power grid. This funding will help utilities develop adaptable and replicable practices, long-term strategic plans, and technical solutions to sustain reliable operations with large proportions of solar power on the grid. It will also support projects aimed at improving the lifetime and reliability of solar modules and electronics.
The funding is being offered through two opportunities. The Solar Utility Networks: Replicable Innovation in Solar Energy (SUNRISE) funding opportunity is making up to $12 million available for projects to enable utilities to develop long-term strategic plans that integrate high levels of renewable energy generation, while ensuring reliable real-time power system operations. Funding is also available for projects to provide technical assistance and build capacity for the planning and installation of utility-scale photovoltaic (PV) systems. The application deadline for the funding opportunity is April 24, 2013. See the SUNRISE solicitation.
Also, the Physics of Reliability: Evaluating Design Insights for Component Technologies in Solar (PREDICTS) funding opportunity is making up to $5 million available for projects aimed at improving the lifetime and reliability of PV modules, concentrating solar power (CSP) components, and the electronic hardware used to operate and connect to the grid. The funding covers two topic areas: identification, evaluation, and modeling of intrinsic failure mechanisms in PV and CSP subsystems and system components; and development of standard testing procedures for the lifetime of microinverters and microconverters. The application deadline is April 29, 2013. See the PREDICTS solicitation and the SunShot newsletter for more information.
ARPA-E Announces Projects Have Attracted over $450 Million in Private Sector Funding
This is an excerpt from EERE Network News, a weekly electronic newsletter.
February 27, 2013
ARPA-E Announces Projects Have Attracted over $450 Million in Private Sector Funding
The Energy Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) on February 26 announced that ARPA-E projects have demonstrated major technical successes and shown significant market engagement in the four years since the agency began catalyzing energy breakthrough technologies. Overall, 17 projects have attracted over $450 million in private sector follow-on funding after ARPA-E's initial investment of approximately $70 million, 12 have leveraged their technologies to form new companies, and more than ten have partnered with other government agencies for later stage investment. The innovations include improved batteries, electric vehicle motors, solar thermochemical fuel production, and wind turbines among a range of technologies.
Building on President Obama's call in his 2013 State of the Union address to further American energy independence through innovation, key thought leaders from academia, business, and government came together recently to discuss cutting-edge energy issues at ARPA-E's fourth annual Energy Innovation Summit in National Harbor, Maryland. See the Energy Department press release.
Three New Partners Join the Better Buildings Challenge
This is an excerpt from EERE Network News, a weekly electronic newsletter.
February 27, 2013
Three New Partners Join the Better Buildings Challenge
The Energy Department on February 21 announced that Johnson Controls, Macy's, and Sprint are joining the Better Buildings Challenge. Launched by President Obama in 2011, the Better Buildings Challenge brings together corporations, universities, municipalities, and other national leaders to make significant commitments to energy efficiency that reduce waste and cut energy costs. Johnson Controls, Macy's, and Sprint will collectively upgrade more than 200 million square feet of building space to cut energy use by at least 20% by 2020. These steps support the President's goal of cutting energy waste from homes and businesses in half over the next two decades, which was articulated in the 2013 State of the Union address.
The United States spends about $200 billion annually to power commercial buildings and another $200 billion to power industrial facilities. Better Buildings Challenge partners work with the Energy Department to implement energy-savings practices that reduce energy waste and save money. These new partners will also share facility-level energy use data and successful strategies with Better Buildings Challenge partners as well as other U.S. businesses and organizations helping to lead a clean, sustainable energy economy. The Better Buildings Challenge now has more than 110 partners, representing two billion square feet of building space and more than 300 manufacturing facilities. See the Energy Department Progress Alert and the Better Buildings Challenge website.
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Biomass Analysis Tool Is Faster, More Precise
NREL News Release:
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Biomass Analysis Tool Is Faster, More Precise
February 26, 2013
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This tray of 80-milliliter samples was taken from a standard poplar tree, such as the one pictured here. It is ready to be loaded into NREL's molecular beam mass spectrometer for rapid analysis of the cell wall chemistry of each sample.
Credit: Dennis Schroeder
Credit: Dennis Schroeder
A screening tool from the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) eases and greatly quickens one of the thorniest tasks in the biofuels industry: determining cell wall chemistry to find plants with ideal genes.
NREL's new High-Throughput Analytical Pyrolysis tool (HTAP) can thoroughly analyze hundreds of biomass samples a day and give an early look at the genotypes that are most worth pursuing. Analysis of a sample that previously took two weeks can now be done in two minutes. That is potentially game changing for tree nurseries and the biomass industry.
When it comes to making fuels out of trees, crops, grasses, or algae, it's all about the cell walls of the plants. Will they make it hard or easy for enzymes to turn the biomass into sugars? Differences in cell walls are enormous, and choosing the right ones can make the difference between a profit and a loss for tree growers, or between a fruitful or fruitless feedstock line for biomass companies.
Finding that particular species, or that individual tree, that has the genetic markers for the optimal biofuel candidate has heretofore been laborious and painstaking.
The Energy Independence and Security Act requires that the United States produce 21 billion gallons of non-corn-based biofuel by 2022. The market for biofuels is expected to grow steadily between now and then. Market analysts say the successful companies will be those that can steer their enzymes through the cell-wall structures in the easiest and most cost-effective ways, including by making changes in the structures themselves.
Tool Can Pinpoint Phenotypes
To find out the chemical composition of the cell walls, companies have to sample large quantities of biomass, whether it's switchgrass, remnants of corn stalks, fast-growing trees, or algae.
The traditional strategy had been a multistep approach involving sample dissolution and chromatographic analysis, which can determine what the tree is composed of — but at the cost of disintegrating the sample.
NREL developed an approach using pyrolysis, analyzing the vapor from the samples produced by heat in the absence of oxygen, which is called high-throughput analysis pyrolysis, or HTAP. Pyrolysis destroys the sample, but the sample is tiny — four milligrams for the pyrolysis approach versus 10 grams for the traditional approach.
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NREL researcher Robert Sykes loads a sample tray onto the auto-sampler of the molecular beam mass spectrometer, a key piece of NREL's High Throughput Analytical Process tool.
Credit: Dennis Schroeder
Credit: Dennis Schroeder
Difference in Signal Intensity Identifies Gene Manipulations
The lignin in a plant is crucial for its development and insect resistance, but it can stand in the way of enzymes that want to get at the sugars locked up in the carbohydrates. It's the deconstruction of the raw sugars that produces the sugars the biofuels industry finds valuable.
Lignin is a big molecule. Heating it up in the absence of oxygen — pyrolysis — breaks it down into smaller fragments that can be read by a molecular beam mass spectrometer.
The ratios of lignin to carbohydrate components, together with the intensity of the lignin peaks, can tell a scientist how easily a plant will give up its sugars.
HTAP integrates a molecular beam mass spectrometer with the pyrolysis unit to quickly determine chemical signatures (phenotypes) on small amounts of biomass samples that can be used for, among other things, identifying the genes controlling the chemical makeup.
Samples drop into the oven, where the pyrolysis creates a vapor that is read by the mass spectrometer — a chemical fingerprint. The auto-sampler quickly moves the samples into place and back out again, so the measurements can be taken every couple of minutes or so. Combining the HTAP chemical phenotypes with information such as genetic markers can signal there is a gene nearby that controls those chemical phenotypes — for better or worse.
HTAP can potentially reduce the amount of energy needed for ethanol production, said NREL's Mark Davis, principal investigator on the HTAP project. And that would make a huge difference in the marketplace.
NREL's Tool Combines Precision and Speed
The path toward an ultra-fast, ultra-sophisticated screening tool went through ArborGen, one of the nation's largest tree seedling suppliers. "They sent us some samples and asked, 'What can you tell us about them?'" Davis said.
Turns out, it was a lot more than ArborGen expected.
"We put the samples in our mass spectrometer, which looked at their genetic transformations and the associated cell-wall chemistry changes," Davis said. They discerned dozens of changes in transgenic biomass samples, each slight genetic tweak corresponding with a slight difference in the amount of lignin in the sample.
NREL was able to tell ArborGen that one sample had, say, half the lignin of another sample. "We were giving them information in a week that it took a month or two for them to get somewhere else," Davis said. "Not only that, but we were getting better information and greater chemical specificity and resolution than they had seen before."
Enlarge image
The auto-sampler provides the speed for NREL's High-Throughput Analytical Pyrolysis tool. Each minute or so, a new sample slides in place to be analyzed via the pyrolysis unit that heats the molecules to produce a vapor, and the mass spectrometer, which reads the chemical fingerprints contained in the vapor.
Credit: Dennis Schroeder
Credit: Dennis Schroeder
An Explosion in Demand for Quick Sampling
NREL had previously partnered with scientists from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the University of Florida, and the University of California, Davis, to demonstrate that the HTAP method could combine with genetic information to identify genetic markers associated with cell wall chemistry traits. NREL's pyrolysis combined with a mass spectrometer was a big improvement over the old method of using wet chemistry to analyze, but the approach wasn't nearly fast enough to meet demand.
It still took a week to analyze samples from just 250 trees. "We were doing everything manually in a heated furnace," Davis said. "A single person would stand there all day feeding in samples." Even with this approach, the method that would soon evolve into HTAP identified numerous genetic markers associated with cell wall chemistry and provided greater chemical specificity and resolution than had been available before.
So, NREL used money from its internal general purpose equipment account to buy an auto-sampler, the final piece in the goal of combining automation, pyrolysis, spectrometry, and speed. NREL's partners in the project include Extrel CMS which worked with NREL to design and fabricate the molecular beam mass spectrometer, and Frontier Laboratories, which provided the pyrolysis instrument.
NREL scientists integrated the autosampler, pyrolyzer, and molecular beam mass spectrometer to make HTAP. Other partners using NREL's rapid analytical tool for fuel research, besides ArborGen, are the University of Florida, the University of Georgia, Greenwood Resources, the BioEnergy Science Center, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Spectrometer Reads the Chemical Fingerprints of the Samples
The spectrometer's readings are translated into graphs that show single peaks that are easily identifiable phenotypes from which the scientists can infer information about the cell walls. Know the genes associated with the traits, and you gain the ability to manipulate the cell wall to your advantage.
"HTAP provides the information that, combined with other genetic information, tells us there's a gene controlling the plant's cell wall chemistry located somewhere on this chromosome — at the same location every time," Davis said. "Our partners have genetic markers for 1,000 trees and can pinpoint the gene that has an effect on lignin content, cellulose content, or some other factor affecting recalcitrance (the plant's resistance to give up its structural sugars). With that information, the partners can go back and find a tree in the natural population with similar genetic traits or use genetic transformation to introduce the desirable traits."
The data from the chemical makeup is averaged and generated in real time. "If we know what each of these peaks are related to, we can tell what has changed with each sample," Davis said. For example, the ratio of two types of lignin — guaiacol and syringol, or G and S — speaks volumes about how much trouble enzymes will have getting to the cellulose in a particular plant.
"In four minutes, you can look at the spectrum and see that this sample reduces lignin by half — because the S to G ratio has changed by a factor of two," Davis said. Meanwhile, the auto-sampler has already put another sample in place and is ready for a third. "That's information that prior to this would take two people two weeks to acquire."
The speed at which HTAP can analyze samples has launched a new niche market for the tiny cups arrayed on trays that accept the samples. "People send us thousands of samples at a time," Davis said. Now, NREL simply sends universities and companies the large trays of cups. The cups are filled with the samples. Glass fiber disks are used to hold the biomass samples in the cups, which are then sent back to NREL. Quickly sending cups and samples back and forth has slashed the cost of one of the most expensive steps in the process: sample preparation.
Tool Can Detect Minute Differences
HTAP has demonstrated extreme powers of discernment. Growers can determine that some of those identical-looking trees are actually a bit different. Using the information that is provided by HTAP, researchers and breeders can determine what genes in the cloned trees are responsible for the advantageous biofuel potential. And biologists then can graft a desirable cell-wall trait onto a new line of trees.
"We've phenotyped tens of thousands of samples so far," Davis said. "The tool provides a detailed comparison of hundreds of samples a day. Any biomass feedstock type being used for serious biofuels production — chances are, we've tested it."
Learn more about NREL's biomass research.
— Bill Scanlon
Friday, February 22, 2013
GE’s LED Hotel Lighting Sets-Off Stunning Swarovski Crystal and Saves $138,000 a Year at Sparkling Hill Resort
GE Press Release:
GE’s LED Hotel Lighting Sets-Off Stunning Swarovski Crystal and Saves $138,000 a Year at Sparkling Hill Resort
February 21, 2013
EAST CLEVELAND, Ohio — February 21, 2013 — (NYSE:GE) — Carved into a granite cliff in the North Okanagan in close proximity to Vernon, British Columbia, Sparkling Hill Resort is celebrated for its organic and modern flair—notably its creative use of $10 million in Swarovski Crystal elements that provide an atmosphere of calm and serenity. Setting its sights on newly engaging, more energy-efficient LED hotel lighting, the European-influenced resort and wellness center recently specified 2,500 GE LED replacement lamps for its award-winning facility. The switch means an annual 828,000 kilowatt hours (kWhs) energy reduction at Sparkling Hill and will equate to $1.3 million in total lighting cost savings over 10 years.
A crystal clear choice
Incorporated throughout Sparkling Hill, Swarovski Crystal creations—designed exclusively for Sparkling Hill by the famous Austrian crystal company—emulate the coolness of waterfalls and warmth of fireplaces, emanating light and vibrancy to spaces with their extraordinary brilliance, purity, and absolute precise cut. Optimizing this synergy of light, water and other decorative elements with the effects of new illumination was, according to chief engineer Wolfgang Hoppichler, the foremost concern of Swarovski Crystal.
“Sparkling Hill is the only place in the world outside of the Swarovski museum in Wattens, Austria, where one can truly experience the remarkable ingenuity, creativity and technical ability of these magnificent crystals,” he said. “To make such a significant change to the lighting design, it has to be the absolute right thing for a resort as unique as ours.”
Sparkling Hill engaged GE and Brite-Lite, a British Columbia-based lighting and electrical wholesaler, to better understand the best way to showcase the crystals. It was recommended that 50-watt halogen bulbs be changed to 7-watt PAR20 LED and 12-watt PAR30 LED replacement lamps—products of GE ecomagination℠—in guest suites, penthouses and dining venues as well as meeting and activity rooms, among other areas, throughout the resort.
“We never had a concern about the quality of the lighting because we knew who was behind the product,” added Hoppichler. “Having seen both, I can now say I prefer the whiter light of the LED lamps that better accentuate our three million adorning Swarovski crystals.”
Sparkling savings
Following the installation of 2,200 PAR20 LED and 300 PAR30 LED replacement lamps, Sparkling Hill reduced its annual electricity use by 828,000 kWhs—a nearly $66,300 hotel lighting cost savings based on an $0.08 kWh rate and 24 hours of operation a day. Maintenance expense, meantime, has sharply fallen at the resort where staff had replaced 2,500 halogen bulbs a year on average.
“We were changing 10 to 20 bulbs every day just to keep up,” Hoppichler said. “Since the swap we’ve replaced only five LED lamps in less than two years.”
Including purchase, labor and disposal costs, Sparkling Hill is now spending $68,000 less in annual upkeep thanks to longer-lived lighting technology. Totaling electricity, maintenance and related lighting expenses combined, operating costs have fallen by $138,000 a year at the resort, or a projected $1.3 million over 10 years.
Rebates accelerate returns
GE and Brite-Lite also helped Sparkling Hill fund its LED hotel lighting upgrade—guiding the resort to qualify for rebates from the local utility company for each LED lamp installed. Factoring for the purchase price of the new LED replacement lamps, project payback was achieved after only three months.
“Everything at Sparkling Hill has been designed to fit perfectly into the landscape, just as GE’s proposed lighting solution perfectly fit our one-of-a-kind luxury environment,” Hoppichler added.
Since opening in the spring of 2010, Sparkling Hill has been recognized internationally for its location, design and unique offerings. It has earned the prestigious Senses Wellness Award for “Best Mountain Spa Resort” in 2011 as well as the Elite Traveler Award for “Top 101 Hotel Suites in the World” in 2012.
Most recently, Sparkling Hill was named one of 11 “Trendsetting” hotels by Fodor’s Travel in its 2012 “Top 100 Hotels in the World” rankings.
A professional lighting audit can determine your potential to save like Sparkling Hill. Visitwww.gelighting.com/SparklingSavings to learn more and schedule your free analysis.
To learn more about GE’s commitment to innovative solutions to today’s environmental challenges while driving economic growth, visit www.ecomagination.com.
About Sparkling Hill ResortSparkling Hill Resort is a luxurious 149-room European inspired hotel specializing in whole body wellness. The resort opened in May 2010 and is located just outside of Vernon, a city of approximately 35,000 residents in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia, a scenic 25-minute drive north of the Kelowna International Airport .The valley is recognized for its majestic mountains, refreshing waters, lush vineyards, world-class golf and skiing and one of the warmest climates in Canada.
Visit www.sparklinghill.com to learn more.
About GE LightingGE Lighting invents with the vigor of its founder Thomas Edison to develop energy-efficient solutions that change the way people light their world in commercial, industrial, municipal and residential settings. The business employs about 15,000 people in more than 100 countries, and sells products under the Reveal® and Energy Smart® consumer brands, and Evolve™, GTx™, Immersion™, Infusion™, Lumination™ and Tetra® commercial brands, all trademarks of GE. General Electric (NYSE: GE) works on things that matter to build a world that works better. For more information, visit www.gelighting.com.
50 Years of LED Innovation
Oct. 9, 1962, GE scientist Dr. Nick Holonyak, Jr., invented the first practical visible-spectrum light-emitting diode (LED). In the 50 years since, GE has been on the forefront of LED innovation. The company has released inspired LED products for both residential and commercial settings, from the first ENERGY STAR®-qualified A19-shaped LED bulb to LED street lighting that illuminates cityscapes the world over.
Oct. 9, 1962, GE scientist Dr. Nick Holonyak, Jr., invented the first practical visible-spectrum light-emitting diode (LED). In the 50 years since, GE has been on the forefront of LED innovation. The company has released inspired LED products for both residential and commercial settings, from the first ENERGY STAR®-qualified A19-shaped LED bulb to LED street lighting that illuminates cityscapes the world over.
PNNL rolls out its clean energy tech at ARPA-E
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory News Release:
PNNL rolls out its clean energy tech at ARPA-E
February 22, 2013 
- Frances White, PNNL, (509) 375-6904
Solar energy, electric and natural gas cars, magnets for motors, efficient heating on tap
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PNNL is developing a metal hydride powder that can store up to 10 times more heat per mass than the molten salts typically used in thermal energy storage systems, such as this one in Spain.
Photo courtesy of Alejandro Flores.
NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. – Researchers from the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory will exhibit their work at the 2013 Energy Innovation Summit of high-impact energy research funded by DOE's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, or ARPA-E. The summit runs Feb. 25-27 at the Gaylord Convention Center in National Harbor, Md. Below is an overview of PNNL research that will be highlighted there.
Nighttime solar power with cheaper thermal energy storage
Booth 1211
Solar power is a clean source of energy, but its use is limited to when the sun shines. One option that extends solar energy into the night involves capturing the sun's heat during the day and releasing it when it's dark. Called thermal energy storage, the practice has been limited because the molten salts typically used to store solar heat for power production require large, expensive equipment. PNNL materials scientist Ewa Rönnebro and her team have shown that a powder made of a proprietary metal hydride can store up to 10 times more heat per mass than molten salts and operate at higher temperatures. PNNL and project partners University of Utah and Heavystone Lab are developing a 3 kilowatt-hour thermal demonstration system that will collect heat for six hours and discharge it over another six hours. If successful, the project could make thermal energy storage systems smaller and more cost-competitive.
New fuel storage tanks lighten the load for compressed natural gas vehicles
Booth 1237
With the nation's supply of natural gas increasingly abundant and inexpensive, the fuel is being considered as a cleaner way to power light-duty cars and trucks. But while more than 15 million natural gas vehicles operate throughout the world, only about 150,000 are running on America's roads. One challenge is that natural gas exists as a vapor, meaning it contains less energy per volume than the denser, liquid gasoline most of us pump into our cars. Natural gas must be compressed into a pressurized fuel tank to increase its energy density. PNNL engineer Kevin Simmons and his team are developing special, lightweight fuel tanks that make better use of the limited space available in vehicles. PNNL's fuel tank design uses a unique manufacturing method called superplastic forming. The method involves welding together metal sheets at specific points and blowing air in between the sheets to expand them, forming internal chambers like an air mattress. The expanded metal tank will conform to more of a vehicle's space than traditional cylinder tanks. It also helps the cars weigh less, which makes them more fuel-efficient. The PNNL tank is expected to cost $1,500 to make and pack 12 megajoules of energy per kilogram, about twice the energy density of today's metal compressed natural gas tanks. Lincoln Composites is a partner in the project.
Rare earth-free magnet makes electric motors cheaper with more abundant materials
Booth 1114
From wind turbines to electric vehicle motors, magnets play an essential role in a variety of today's electronic devices. But there's a limited supply of the rare earth minerals that are traditionally used in these magnets. In particular, dysprosium is added to increase a magnet's operating temperature, which is high in motors. But dysprosium has been named a critical material with unstable availability. PNNL materials scientist Jun Cui and his team are developing a manganese-based nano-composite magnet that doesn't contain dysprosium or any other rare earth mineral. The new magnet can operate at 200 degrees Celsius. The team's immediate goal is to make a permanent magnet with 10 MGOe, or megagauss-oersteds, a measurement of magnetic energy. With additional funding, the team will work to develop a 20-MGOe magnet, which would be more useful for a broader set of commercial applications. Project partners include PNNL, the universities of Maryland and Texas at Arlington, Ames Laboratory, Electron Energy Corp. and United Technologies.
Membrane dehumidifier makes air conditioners up to 50 percent more efficient
Booth 635
Americans unnecessarily spend billions of dollars on power bills when humid air causes their air-conditioning systems to be inefficient. To cut electricity use for cooling in hot, humid climates by 50 percent, a team led by ADMA Products and including PNNL and Texas A&M University is developing a novel dehumidifier. The system uses a thin membrane developed by PNNL chemical engineer Wei Liu and his PNNL colleagues that acts as a molecular sieve and soaks up water from the air. The membrane consists of a thin, foil-like metal sheet that's coated with a layer of a water-attracting material called zeolite. Just one-fifth the width of human hair and made from common, inexpensive materials, the membrane removes moisture from air many times faster than dehydration membrane products currently on the market. PNNL is developing a small, lab-scale prototype of its system, and the project team has created a manufacturing method that can be used at larger scales. Visit Liu at the ADMA Products booth, or hear him pitch the technology to a panel of investors at ARPA-E's Future Energy Pitching Session, which runs 6:30-8:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 25. Click here for more info on the pitching session.
New way to heat, cool electric vehicles reduces drain on driving range
Booth 1112
The combustion engines in gasoline-powered cars generate a lot of heat, which is great for heating the passenger cabin in winter. But energy-efficient electric vehicles produce very little waste heat. Providing electricity for the same amount of heat used in gasoline cars would reduce electric vehicles' driving range by up to 40 percent. PNNL engineer Pete McGrail is leading a team that includes the University of South Florida to develop a material called an electrical metal organic framework, also called an EMOF, for electric vehicle heating and cooling systems. The material would work as a molecular heat pump that efficiently circulates heat or cold. By directly controlling the material's properties with electricity, their design is expected to use much less energy than traditional heat and cooling systems. A 5-pound, EMOF-based heat pump that is the size of a 2-liter bottle could theoretically handle the heating and cooling needs of an electric vehicle with far less impact on driving distance. While using a unique testing system that applies voltage to the material, the team observed for the first time an EMOF transitioning from an off, or insulating, state to an on, or semiconducting, state. The transition demonstrated the project's premise, coincided with a change in the material's crystal structure and was completely reversible. The team is now making other EMOFs with similar switching abilities and higher adsorption capacities that improve performance in an electric heat pump.
Reporters interested in scheduling interviews with the PNNL scientists about the above projects should contact Franny White at (509) 375-6904 (office) or (360) 333-4793 (cell). More information about these projects and other PNNL research, including transactive control of a smart power grid, is also available at the PNNL display, located at booth 1108.
The summit's Technology Showcase, where PNNL's project booths are located, is open 11 a.m.-1:30 p.m. and 4:45-8 p.m. on Feb. 26, as well as 7:30-8:45 a.m. and 11:30 a.m.-1:45 p.m. on Feb. 27. Click here for a map of the Technology Showcase layout, including PNNL booth locations.
Press passes for the 2013 Energy Innovation Summit can be obtained by visiting the summit's press website here.
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