News - ZaikoEnergy

CES 2012 Innovations in Fuel Cells

Jan 13, 2012. It's SIGNa Chemistry's Hydrogen Fuel Cell. “We have a power called sodium silicide and you basically add any water to that system: Salt water, river, lake, potable, non-potable, doesn't really matter. Read more here:

Fuel-Cell Startup ClearEdge Inks $500 million Deal

Jan. 10, 2012 On Tuesday, The New York Times blog is reporting that ClearEdge Power announced a deal with an Austrian company, Güssing Renewable Energy, to supply 8.5 megawatts of fuel cells that would run on methane made from renewable sources. The companies said the 8.5 megawatts would be in place within three years, and the longer-term goal is 50 megawatts by 2020. Read more here:

Fuel Cell Chargers for your IPhone

Jan 4, 2012 By: Naeem Shaikh The wait is finally over! Fuel cells for consumer electronics are now a reality. A Swedish fuel cell company is launching a portable fuel cell charger that can power up cell phones and other mobile devices by converting hydrogen into electricity. myFC has created what is said to be world’s first portable fuel cell charger called PowerTrekk. The fuel cell also doubles up as a portable battery pack which can be operated on its own as a ready source of power or storage buffer for the fuel cell. The fuel cell enables instant charging from a depleted battery state without ever needing a wall charge. Users simply insert a fuel pack and add water. To charge portable devices – for example mobile phones, cameras and GPS devices – users connect a device to Power Trekk via a USB port. Read on…

Forbes is reporting that the Fuel Cell Industry is expecting growth

Dec 30, 2011 Beginning in April 2009, the Department of Energy invested $41.6 million in ARRA funding for fuel cell technology including: backup power, combined heat and power and portable power applications to name a few. By the end of fiscal year 2011, ARRA funding had helped to install 830 fuel cells. Forbes thinks that this investment has helped the market. Read here:

Heard on the Street: Apple may be Looking to Fuel Cells to Power Future Notebooks

Dec 29, 2011 According to a story published by the Apple Insider blog, Apple is investigating whether to use fuel cells to power their devices rather than batteries. The prospect of fuel-cell-powered Macbooks and other devices was raised in a patent application early this week. Read the full story here:

Researchers discover a way to significantly reduce the production costs of fuel cells

Dec 20, 2011 Researchers at Aalto University in Finland have developed a new and significantly cheaper method of manufacturing fuel cells. A noble metal nanoparticle catalyst for fuel cells is prepared using atomic layer deposition (ALD). This ALD method for manufacturing fuel cells requires 60 per cent less of the costly catalyst than current methods.

Google makes a new $94M investment in US solar energy projects

Shane McGlaun, Dec 20th 2011 Google has announced that it has made a new $94 million investment in clean solar energy. The investment will go into four different solar projects that Google is having built by Recurrent Energy near Sacramento, California. With the new investment, the total that Google has spent on clean energy so far is $915 million. Read more here:

Buffett's MidAmerican Energy Expands Stake In Solar Power

Dec 16, 2011 By Cassandra Sweet Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

Warren Buffett's energy company, Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s (BRKA, BRKB) MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co., said Friday it will expand its still-new position in solar power by purchasing a stake in a second solar farm.
MidAmerican will buy a 49% share of a $1.8 billion solar-power plant owned by NRG Energy Inc. (NRG) that U.S. solar-panel maker First Solar Inc. (FSLR) is building in the Arizona desert.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
First Solar and NRG obtained a $967 million government loan guarantee for the 290-megawatt project, called Agua Caliente, which the companies have said could generate enough electricity to serve about 56,000 homes.

Facebook and Greenpeace to Collaborate on Green Energy

Dec 16, 2011Written by John Platt, MNN

Facebook and Greenpeace have decided to bury the hatchet and become friends. It’s the end of a two-year feud that led Greenpeace to openly and frequently criticize the social networking giant for using “dirty” energy to power its data centers. The two organizations today announced an agreement to collaborate on future efforts to power data centers with clean and renewable energy.

It all started in January 2010, when Facebook announced it was breaking ground on a new data center in Prineville, Ore. The area’s cool climate and inexpensive energy would lower Facebook’s electricity costs. But there was a hitch: the energy for that data center, delivered by PacifiCorp, would come mostly from coal. Read full story here:

Space Solar Power

A limitless power source for the indefinite future November 11, 2011 by Amara D. Angelica
The National Space Society (NSS) will present findings from an eye-opening new report by the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA). You’re hearing about this here first. (Full disclosure: I’m a member of the NSS board of directors.)

Some background: By 2030–40, the projected annual electrical energy consumption will be a staggering 220 trillion kiloWatt hours, double the consumption in 2010 — and four times more by 2090–2100, according to the International Energy Agency and U.S. Department of Energy.

“Economic concerns have diverted attention from energy policy and limited the means of intervention,” the International Energy Agency reports in its 2011 World Energy Outlook. “Post-Fukushima, nuclear is facing uncertainty. MENA [Middle East and North Africa] turmoil raised questions about the region’s investment plans. Some key trends are pointing in worrying directions: CO2 emissions rebounded to a record high, energy efficiency of the global economy worsened for the 2nd straight year, and spending on oil imports is near record highs.” Read more here:

Tiny Solar Cell could make a Big Difference

Dec 14, 2011 The U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory recently validated greater than 41 percent efficiency at a concentration of 1,000 suns for tiny cells made by Semprius — one of the highest efficiencies recorded at this concentration. The energy conversion efficiency of a solar cell is the percentage of sunlight converted by the cell into electricity. Read the whole story here:

Solar Power is Cheaper than First Realized

Dec 14, 2011 The public is being kept in the dark about the viability of solar photovoltaic energy, according to a study conducted at Queen’s University. The real cost in 2011 is under $1 per watt for solar panels purchased in bulk on the global market, he says.
“Many analysts project a higher cost for solar photovoltaic energy because they don’t consider recent technological advancements and price reductions,” says Joshua Pearce, Adjunct Professor, Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering. “Older models for determining solar photovoltaic energy costs are too conservative.”
Pearce believes solar photovoltaic systems are near the “tipping point” where they can produce energy for about the same price other traditional sources of energy.
Analysts look at many variables to determine the cost of solar photovoltaic systems for consumers, including installation and maintenance costs, finance charges, the system’s life expectancy, and the amount of electricity it generates.
Dr. Pearce says some studies don’t consider the 70 per cent reduction in the cost of solar panels since 2009 . Furthermore, he says research now shows the productivity of top-of-the-line solar panels only drops between 0.1 and 0.2 percent annually, which is much less than the one per cent used in many cost analyses.
Equipment costs are determined based on dollars per watt of electricity produced. One 2010 study estimated the this cost at $7.61, while a 2003 study set the amount at $4.16. According to Pearce, the real cost in 2011 is under $1 per watt for solar panels purchased in bulk on the global market, though he says system and installation costs vary widely.
Pearce has created a calculator program available for download that can be used to determine the true costs of solar energy.

Ref.: K. Branker, M.J.M. Pathak, J.M. Pearce, A review of solar photovoltaic levelized cost of electricity, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2011 [doi: 10.1016/j.rser.2011.07.104]

Retail Electricity Prices on the Rise

Dec 14, 2011: Check out this latest government report on electricity and generation. The cost of electricity from the grid is only increasing to the detriment of the environment and household budgets. There are a number of technologies (and how they are deployed) that can reverse this trend. In the coming months and weeks, ZaikoEnergy will be going into great detail as to why certain technologies are better suited to reducing the cost of energy; why distributed generation matters; how energy efficiency relates to cost savings. Read more here:

Cap and Trade Gives Massachusetts Economy Critical Boost.

Dec 14, 2011 By Maria Gallucci, InsideClimate News
The state of Massachusetts is quietly reaping the benefits of cap and trade, the much-maligned process for curbing greenhouse gas emissions that federal lawmakers and many state governments resoundingly rejected in recent years. According to a recent study, cap and trade has created 3,800 jobs and nearly $500 million in economic activity for Massachusetts since 2008. Read full story here: