Recently in Meetings & Conferences Category

The UN Climate Change conference in Durban, South Africa, may have ended with an agreement for major polluting countries to work at lowering their greenhouse gas output, but a less glamorous debate at the conference may hinder that goal in the long term. The delegates failed to resolve the issue of technology transfer, without which, advanced energy sources cannot reach the nations that need them most.

The conference, which concluded on December 11th, deadlocked as countries fought over legally binding limits to carbon emissions. In the scuffle, an urgently needed debate about how to preserve intellectual property while still disseminating climate-friendly technology got kicked down the road. According to Nature, the unresolved conflict pits developed nations, who generate energy innovations and want to see their patents respected by the international market, against developing nations, who claim that strict patent rules keep those innovations too expensive and difficult to come by.

As countries like India, Brazil, Turkey, Peru and Mexico continue to grow their economies at rapid paces, this kind of technology transfer becomes more critical. Without affordable options, these nations will almost definitely meet their growing energy demands with carbon-emitting technologies.

On positive side, the conference delegates did succeed in negotiating a beginning to the process of finding a location to base the "Climate Technology Center" intended to coordinate said technology transfers. So, you know, that's a start.

The AIP Industrial Physics Forum (IPF) and the APS Forum on Industrial and Applied Physics (FIAP) are presenting joint sessions this year at the 2011 APS March Meeting in Dallas, TX. The four sessions are collectively entitled "Industrial Application of Superconductivity: Current Status, Future Prospects" and are spread across two days.

Today, Sunday March 20, Argonne's George Crabtree started off the late Sunday afternoon part of the session with a talk that started off pure superconducting, but headed quickly to applications territory. The most ambitious idea of what to do with high-temperature superconductors (HTS's) is to spread them out across the country to more easily transport energy.

Dr. Crabtree even presented a DC grid design, with AC power stations. The ambitious design reflected the odd nature of the United States distribution problem. There is one of renewable energy resources: the wind blows hardest and is most easily captures in the great plains states and available solar energy is concentrated in the southwestern US. The majority of the population, however, is concentrated east of the Mississippi River as well as the west coast. This HTS super-grid would potentially save massive amounts of energy that would otherwise be lost in transmission and materials.

Next was Alex Malozemoff from American Superconductor, who presented their latest research and production of HTS wires. Malozemoff presented an optimistic view of the superconducting wire industry, demonstrating that their company is in the midst of filling an order for an extraordinary amount of 4 million meters of HTS wire. The efficiency and load handling of these wires far exceed their traditional copper counterparts.

Finally was GE's Kathleen Amm who spoke about the current and future applications for superconductivity. This included a pretty neat overview of new MRI technology.

A new voice calling for investment in alternative energy has joined the usual chorus of environmentalists, academic researchers and venture capitalists: the military. The trend has simmered for some time now, but during a June 22 panel on climate change and security at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, top brass from both the American and British navies signaled that finding alternative energy sources has jumped to the top of the Pentagon's to-do list.

During the panel discussion, both Rear Admiral Neil Morisetti of the Royal Navy, and Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn of the US Navy (ret.) discussed at length how the military needs to reduce its "carbon bootprint." In their minds, this is a matter of life and death. For civilians, a Prius means less pain at the pump, but for Marines, alternative fuel means more tanks or better-trained helicopter pilots responding to a firefight.

They both anticipate a future where rising gas prices either limit training capabilities, or absorb funding that might otherwise pay for the bullets, armor and batteries needed for survival on the modern battlefield. That's a future Morisetti and McGinn hope to avoid, and they have been pressuring their respective services to invest in green technology to do so.

This pressure may transform the military into a leader in alternative fuels, since, as Morisetti said, the armed forces can bear a higher price for technology than the private sector. Whether or not the armed services can respond in time to avoid facing fossil fuel-related problems is another matter. Morisetti and McGinn both fell back on a naval metaphor when discussing that point, comparing gasoline dependence to a large ship: hard to turn around, even with advanced warning.

Alternative energy technologies you've never heard of.

Jun 1, 2010

By Phil Schewe and Devin Powell
Inside Science News Service

This story is taken from AIP's Inside Science News Service (ISNS), and the original story can be found here. According to the estimates from one company, four dairy cows could produce enough energy to power a small apartment. WASHINGTON (ISNS) — Legislators attending this year's Congressional Energy and Energy Efficiency Expo and Forum in Washington, DC, last week were quick to point out the problems with fossil fuel — from cave-ins at coal mines to the oil spill in the Gulf.

View full-size image (image from insidescience.org)

"We've never been injured by a photon spill," said Rep. Jay Inslee of Washington State, referring to the virtues of solar energy.

The expo featured a roomful of vendors selling technologies based on renewable sources and energy efficiency, as well as a dozen or so members of Congress from both parties and representatives of the executive branch who support these types of alternative energy ventures.

"The road to energy independence begins in South Carolina,” said South Carolina Rep. Bob Inglis, who proudly recited a list of the energy companies in his state. He argued that the “externalities,” the sometimes-overlooked hidden and indirect costs of various energy-production methods, had to be considered in order to let the marketplace operate efficiently and “to deliver us from the bondage of oil.”

Maryland Chris Van Hollen underscored the principal aims of energy-climate legislation: enhancing national security by reducing dependence on oil imports, protecting the environment, and helping to create new jobs and rebuild the economy by encouraging innovative, green companies.

Van Hollen is a co-chair of the House Renewable and Energy Efficiency Caucus, a group in the House of Representatives interested in renewable energy. The complexity of the green energy enterprise can be seen in the roster of other mostly bipartisan caucuses represented at the expo, which included those devoted to sustainable energy and environment, high performance buildings, energy from algae, hydropower, green jobs, hydrogen and fuel cells, and even green schools.

Solar and wind energy companies displayed their latest designs — from roof shingles with built-in photovoltaic cells to new wind turbines that look like giant flywheels. Manufacturers of light-emitting diodes, or LEDs — which light the office of Maryland Rep. Roscoe Barlett — hawked bulbs that use 60 percent less energy than fluorescent bulbs, which are in turn much more efficient than traditional incandescent bulbs.

Sprinkled in among the headlining technologies represented at the expo were small companies with ideas you may never have heard of, technologies that have found their way into niche markets and that are described below. As congressional staffers questioned the representatives from these companies, cost was one of the primary concerns. Again and again, the salespeople made the same pitch: their technologies, which tend to be more expensive up front, would pay for themselves in the long run.

Cow-o-Watts On The Farm
How many dairy cows does it take to make a kilowatt of electricity, enough to power a small apartment? Four, according to GHD, Inc. The company, based in Chilton, Wis., makes methane from cow poop using a technique called anaerobic digestion. Four cows make about 64 gallons of manure a day. This manure can be fed to bacteria that once lived in a cow's gut. These microorganisms break down undigested fatty acids in the manure over weeks to make methane gas. Methane is then burned onsite at the farm to make electricity that can be sold to utility companies. To be economical the operation needs about 600 cows, and the largest operations include more than 10,000 cows.

Tiny Hydropower In Irrigation Canals
In the 1930s, engineers tapped the mighty flow of the Colorado River with the Hoover Dam, which sends water over a 500 foot drop to provide power for 1.3 million people. A new hydropower device on display was inspired by such dams but works on a much smaller scale. It is designed to tap the irrigation canals that carry water from the Colorado River hundreds of miles to keep the lawns in places like Phoenix, Ariz. green year-round.

How does it work? Natel Energy, Inc. of Alameda, Calif. has designed a way to harvest the energy from the fall of water in short (10-20 foot) drops along the canals as the water flows. This process, borrowing from the design of airplane wings, has been installed in Buckeye, Ariz., where it captures 87 percent of the water's energy and produces enough energy to power five homes.

Viewing The World Through Tinted Glass
At Century College in St. Paul, Minnesota, the windows of the university's library can change from transparent to tinted with the push of a button. The glass, manufactured by SageGlass in Faribault, is meant to improve energy efficiency. When tinted, the glass reflects sunlight away to keep the interior cool. When transparent, it allows heat in on cool days.

The windows, which cost 2-5 times more than a standard window, are made of ordinary glass coated with very thin ceramic materials that darken when exposed to an electrical current.

Forklifts That Run On Hydrogen
When you think of forklifts, you probably don't think high tech. But forklifts have become one of the first emerging markets for hydrogen fuel in the United States, according to Geoffrey Bromaghim of the National Hydrogen Association. Forklifts, which require significant energy to lift heavy boxes, often run on large lead-acid batteries that take time to recharge and can produce toxic fumes.

Hydrogen fuel cells, which produce electricity from hydrogen, are more expensive but recharge faster and reduce the labor costs of changing batteries, said Bromaghim. The market is still small, though — out of the 28,000 forklifts operating the U.S., only 200 run on hydrogen fuel cells.

Back To Basics
Rep. Vern Ehlers of Missori, a former nuclear physicist and the son of a preacher, celebrated the technologies on display. But he also delivered what he described as a sermon, asking those in attendance to start with even simpler money-saving ways to improve energy efficiency. Living in a cold place, he said, made him appreciate insulation. He invested in halting the heat leaks in his own home and was rewarded immediately when his next energy bill dropped by 30 percent.

A group of ladies and gentlemen gathered around Steve Israel as he arrived at Farmingdale State University on Tuesday, May 11th. Mr. Israel was the center of attention for more than just being the 2nd District of New York's congressional representative—he is also a member of the House of Representative's Office on Science and Technology... more to the point, he was there looking for people who were looking for money. He came to the right place (and at the right time, too).

Dr. Mujamdar looks on as Representative Israel talk about our country's "Sputnik moment"

Israel began the proceedings with a bit of a history lesson: on October 4, 1957, the Russians launched Sputnik into space and Americans are left feeling that they somehow had became technologically behind. Now, Israel contends, we are facing a similar predicament. A "Sputnik moment" as he calls it. Only this time, the threat comes not from Russia, but from China. China is realizing that to be able to fuel their massive economy, they will need to rely on using clean and sustainable energy technologies. Israel then invoked the voice of John F. Kennedy by saying that we need to develop a new energy model, not because it is easy, but because it is hard. From here, it became an introduction of the ARPA-E program.

Despite his motivational speech, the entirety of the day did not actually belong to Israel. The head of ARPA-E, Dr. Arun Majumdar, was on hand to talk about funding new energy start-ups and development of "risky" energy technologies. Dr. Majumdar gave a brief overview of the successes the program has had in the past year, of the companies that have been funded on Long Island, and finally, the plans to increase funding for 2011.

And with that, the panel discussion was on. The panel was comprised of:

• Leo Guthart, who is manages Long Island's Topspin Partners and is currently a Trustee of the Stony Brook Foundation and of Cold Spring Harbor Labs.
• Micah Kotch, who heads up New York City Accelerator for a Clean and Renewable Economy (NYC ACRE), an initiative started by the Polytechnic Institute of NYU. The initiative is designed to help create and foster NYC's clean businesses and start-ups.
• David Norman, the co-owner of Kitchen Public Relations, spoke about the importance of PR and using the internet and social media to raise brand awareness and business results.

There were some very specific questions about garnering funding, securing intellectual property rights, and other technical details. And then, the meeting was over. Poof... it was so quick.

In the meantime, around Roosevelt Hall, exhibits were set up to display some of Long Island's interesting new tech start-ups, which also happened to include LI favorite Brookhaven National Labs.

Here are a few pictures:

Some of the interesting new technology exhibited at FSU on Tuesday afternoon—this wind turbine is more compact and less intrusive than traditional models.

Some of the interesting new technology exhibited at FSU on Tuesday afternoon—these solar panels are available for small homes and have become quite affordable in the past year or so.

Sunday night at last week's APS March Meeting, which was held in Portland, Oregon on March 14-19, several notable renewable energy scientists gathered for the APS Energy Workshop.

The day-long event was sponsored by the Department of Energy and was organized by the recently formed APS Topical Group on Energy Research. Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy sponsored the reception, where participants got a chance to chat with all of the session presenters over a few drinks.

The day started off with Argonne's George Crabtree discussing the essential ideas behind transitioning from using fossil-fuels to more sustainable and secure energies. He also mentioned that his recent Physics World article (co-published with John Sarrao from Los Alamos) explores "The Road to Sustainability."

Other speakers of the day included:

• Dave Carlson, from BP-Solar, discussed the overall status and predictions for the photovoltaics (PV) industry. Carlson predicted that with the rapid drop in the price of solar cells and PV systems, rapid growth in the industry is imminent.
• Dave Ginley, from NREL further discussed PV technology, but his focus was on the challenges and understanding behind one specific technology: thin-film PV.
• MIT's Yet-Ming Chiang discussed the emergence of energy storage as a useful technology for improving the electric grid.
• Karen Swider-Lyons, of the Naval Research Laboratory, discussed the NRL's "Ion Tiger" unmanned air vehicle, which runs on proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs).
• Stanford University's Sally Benson tackled the challenge of covering the benefits and problems of CO₂ capture and sequestration in deep geological formations. Benson covered topics like performance and efficiency of proposed systems, the general scale of the problem, and what is practical in terms of technology for sequestration.
• Ernie Moniz from MIT gave an overview of how policy is shaping energy technology research and development.

Lunch gave the crowd a chance to sit down with individual speakers to discuss some ideas in detail. The same opportunity was given at the reception, where all of the speakers networked and conversed heartily with the student attendees.

All in all, the day was vibrant and successful; filled with lots of amazing information from some of the world's best and brightest energy researchers.

AIP Journals were well represented at the 2009 AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco—displaying info on journals (Chaos, Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy, Physics of Fluids, and Physics of Plasmas) as well as promoting new products—AIP UniPHY and the Gallery of Fluid Motion.

From December 14-18, San Francisco's Moscone Center was filled to capacity with students, researchers, industry reps, salesmen, and other geophysical fanatics. The poster sessions, which were in the gigantic exhibit hall, were a huge draw—namely because new posters were put up twice a day for 4 days... it was sometimes hard to move, but it was worth the effort.

A record breaking 16,000+ attended this year's meeting. Considering that AGU is one of the world's biggest scientific organizations--with over 50,000 members from over 135 countries--it wasn't surprising to see so such a broad range of attendees and coverage. Topics ranging from astronomy to volcanoes were covered in detail by more than 1000 posters and several hundred lectures presented throughout the week.

The Christmas tree in Union Square, San Francisco:

Einstein on the Golden Gate Bridge:

Sifting through the vast library here at the American Institute of Physics Publishing Center, I often come across pristine copies of amazing little books that nobody, it seems, has read. My favorite example, is "Time Machines: Time Travel in Physics, Metaphysics, and Science Fiction," by Paul J. Nahin. Nahin comes across with a kid-in-a-candy store enthusiasm that reminds me (in an endearing way) of Doc Brown, the genius yet obviously insane time travel inventor in Robert Zemeckis's Back to the Future films.

So, there are some little treasures to be dug up in the libraries around the office. Another more relevant find is "Climate Change & Energy Policy," by Louis Rosen and Robert Glasser. The most intriguing part about reading this book—which is a collection of presentations from the International Conference on Global Climate Change held at Los Alamos in October 1991—is the kind of time travel effect (and you thought that intro was all fluff... I was setting you up the whole time!) you experience by reading the views the world's leading climate scientists had 18 years ago.

Here are a few quotes I think are especially notable:

From "Assessing Global Climate Change: When Will We Have Better Evidence?" by J.D. Mahlman, Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, NOAA:

...scientifically, much was known about this problem 15 years ago, while much will remain uncertain 15 years from now.

I find this especially poignant since we're basically 15 years in the future and here we are... indeed there are still uncertainties.

"When Will We Have Better Evidence for Climate Change Due to Anthropogenic Emissions?" by G.S. Golitsyn, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, USSR Academy of Sciences, concludes with:

So if you are in government, business, or education, do not ask, when will we have better evidence? The evidence is enough to start moving in the right direction of conserving natural resources and using them in a more efficient way.

From "National Energy Strategies and the Greenhouse Problem" by Irving M. Mintzer, Stockholm Environment Institute:

If current policies and strategies continue unchanged, and if the resulting trends in the emissions of these gases continues, there is a significant risk of rapid and disruptive climate change in the decades ahead. To reduce the risks of rapid climate change while preserving the prospects for economic development, national energy strategies must be modified to increase the efficiency of energy use and to develop cleaner, safer, and less carbon-intensive supplies of energy.

From "Global Trends in Energy Use: Indications for Research" by Robert N. Schock, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory:

Even conservative world-energy scenarios show the need for more energy from clean sources beyond what coal and nuclear are likely to provide. We must invest financial resources now in a broad range of technologies to ensure that these sources are available.

From "The Greenhouse Effect: Political Decision Making and the Application of Upwelling/Diffusion Models" by Peter Laut, Engineering Academy of Denmark:

...grave difficulties are likely to arise for the political decision maker, especially because of the long time delay between the investment now of national resources in order to counter climatic change, and the resulting benefits, which may first materialize in the distant future in the form of a somewhat more moderate rise of global temperatures.

From "Energy Policy in the Light of Global Climate-Change Uncertainty" by Alan T. Crane, Office of Technology Assessment, U.S. Congress:

Some want to increase energy supply, in particular by allowing drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge or by expediting nuclear reactor licensing... Most consider it a low-priority issue as long as energy supplies are adequate and prices low.

From "Session Two of the Panel Discussions and Conclusions on Integrating Climate-Change and Energy Policy" by Virginia Oversby, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory:

I get a feeling that we're putting emphasis on changing from coal to renewable energy technologies or non-carbon energy production technologies and using global warming as an excuse for doing this... This should be a first-principles argument. We should separate the climatic effects, which are important to discuss, from this more fundamental issue.

From the "Concluding Observations: Integrating Climate-Change and Energy Policy from Charles Keller and Robert Glasser"

The task before us is to determine how we can improve the dialogue between the climate scientists and the people responsible for contributing to the science of energy production and transportation and the energy-policy makers.

And finally, from Louis Rosen's (Los Alamos National Laboratory) "Summary Talk and Concluding Remarks:

Serguei Kapitsa coauthored, some years ago, an innovative book that dealt with the insanity and futility and danger of the arms race. In it was argued the thesis that we must learn to think differently and behave differently. This, I gather from our conference, must now be done with respect to environment and energy. Old habits, old assumptions, and old value systems must be reexamined. Some must be abandoned, others altered. This is terribly difficult. But the peoples of the USSR and Eastern Europe are showing us that it is not impossible to recast one's vision of the world, and in a relatively short time.

There are a couple of striking things about this quote. The first: Rosen's speech was given on October 24, 1991. On December 8, 1991, the Belavezha Accords were signed, declaring the Soviet Union dissolved and replacing it with the Commonwealth of Independent States. Of course, Rosen and the rest of the world had already seen independent states form within the Soviet Union, so the signs were already there, but I think that the bigger point is clear: there are more important things than power struggles between nations—the world will need to work together to solve our real problems.

And finally, it's notable that Louis Rosen passed away on August 15 of this year. There's not much I can say about Rosen that the New York Times hasn't already said, so I'll leave it at that.

The Road to Sustainability (Physics World)

George Crabtree from Argonne and John Sarrao from Los Alamos give a us a view of what technology looks like when it's sustainable; they proceed to lay out an outline of what hurdles researchers need to overcome to achieve a truly sustainable energy economy.

Democrats Unveil Ambitious Draft Climate Change Bill To The US Senate (WorldChanging.com)

Led by Senators Barbara Boxer (CA, D) and John Kerry (MA, D), the Democratic congress has set before the Senate a bill that pushes for a 20% reduction of CO2 from 2005 levels by 2020 and an 83% reduction by 2050. Kerry and Boxer are stressing that the bill could create 1.9 million new jobs by 2020 and that decreasing the reliance on foreign oil will increase the security of the United States.

Energy Awareness Month 2009 (DOE)

October is Energy Awareness Month, a national effort to empower citizens to reshape the energy economy and be part of the solution to climate change. This year, the theme is "A Sustainable Energy Future: Putting All the Pieces Together."

1st International Conference on Materials for Energy (Dechema.de)

The program of this conference will cover current topics and recent progress in the science and technology of energy and new materials, including the nanoscale origin of macroscopic properties. All aspects of materials for energy production and conversion, energy storage, energy transport, and energy saving will be addressed.

Texas Completes $1 Billion Wind Energy Complex (CNET.com)

A couple hundred miles west of Dallas, 100,000 acres of land are covered with wind turbines. One of the world's biggest wind farms was completed and is now operational near Roscoe, Texas. The 627 wind turbines will provide 781.5 Megawatts to 230,000 Texans.