DOE adds five program areas to ARPA-E funding opportunities
- PDF / 373,435 Bytes
- 2 Pages / 585 x 783 pts Page_size
- 106 Downloads / 216 Views
http://arpa-e.energy.gov/
T
he U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced in April that up to $130 million from the Advanced Research Projects AgencyEnergy (ARPA-E) will be made available to develop five new program areas that could spark critical breakthrough technologies. The announcement is ARPA-E’s fourth round of funding opportunities, focusing on rare earth alternatives and breakthroughs in biofuels, thermal storage, grid controls, and solar power electronics. The new program area of plants engineered to replace oil (PETRO), aims to create plants that capture more energy from sunlight and convert that energy directly into fuels. Technologies for low-cost production of advanced biofuels are limited by the small amount of available energy captured by photosynthesis and the inefficient processes used to convert plant matter to fuel. ARPA-E seeks to fund technologies that optimize the biochemical processes of energy capture and conversion to develop robust, farmready crops that deliver more energy per acre with less processing prior to the pump. If successful, PETRO will create biofuels for half their current cost, rendering them cost-competitive with fuels from oil. Up to $30 million will be made available for this program area. More than 90% of energy technologies involve the transport and conversion of thermal energy. Therefore, advancements in thermal energy storage—both hot and cold—would dramatically improve performance for a variety of critical energy applications. In its new program on high energy advanced thermal storage (HEAT), ARPA-E seeks to develop revolutionary cost-effective thermal energy stor-
412
MRS BULLETIN
•
VOLUME 36 • JUNE 2011
•
age technologies in three focus areas: (1) high-temperature storage systems to deliver solar electricity more efficiently around the clock and allow nuclear and fossil base-load resources the flexibility to meet peak demand, (2) fuel produced from the sun’s heat, and (3) HVAC systems that use thermal storage to improve the driving range of electric vehicles by up to 40%. Up to $30 million will be made available for this program area. Rare earths are naturally occurring minerals with unique magnetic properties that are used in many emerging energy technologies. As demand for these technologies continues to increase, rare earths are rapidly becoming more Steven Chu, U.S. Secretary of Energy. expensive due to limited global supply— prices of many have increased 300–700% The fifth new technology area is on in the past year. Rising rare earth prices solar agile delivery of electrical power have already escalated costs for some technology (Solar ADEPT). The DOE energy technologies and may jeopardize SunShot Initiative leverages the unique the widespread adoption of many critistrengths across DOE to reduce the tocal energy solutions by U.S. manufactal cost of utility-scale solar systems by turers. In its new technology area rare 75% by the end of the decade. If sucearth alternatives in critical technolocessful, this collaboration would deliver gies (
Data Loading...
