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"Donald Sadoway: The missing link to renewable energy Tweet this talk! (we'll add the headline and the URL) Post to: Share on Twitter Email This Favorite Download inShare Share on StumbleUpon Share on Reddit Share on Facebook TED Conversations Got an idea, question, or debate inspired by this talk? Start a TED Conversation, or join one of these: Green Home Energy=Hydrogen Generators-alternative sources Started by Kathleen Gilligan-Smith 1 Comment What is the real missing link in renewable energy? Started by Enrico Petrucco 8 Comments Comment on this Talk 60 total comments Sign in to add comments or Join (It's free and fast!) Sort By: smily raichel 0 Reply Less than 5 minutes ago: Nice smily raichel 0 Reply Less than 5 minutes ago: Good David Mackey 0 Reply 3 hours ago: Superb invention, but I would suggest one more standard mantra that they should move on from and that is the idea of power being supplied by a centralised grid. This technology seems to me to be much more beneficial on a local scale, what if every home had its own battery, then home power generation becomes economically more viable for everyone. If you could show that a system like this could pay for itself in say 5 years then every home would want one. Plus for this to be implemented on a large scale requires massive investment that could be decades away. Share the technology and lets get it in homes by next year. Great ted talk. Jon Senior 0 Reply 1 hour ago: I agree 100%. Localised energy production would also make energy consumers more conscious of their consumption and encourage efforts to reduce it. We can invent and invent all we want, but the fast solution to allowing renewable energies to take centre stage is to reduce the base energy draw. With lower baseline consumption, smaller "always on" generators are required to keep the grid operational. Town and house-l

The electric membership corporations (EMCs) in Georgia observed the first anniversary of legislation to bring harsher penalties to those charged with metals theft. "Metals theft is not a victimless crime," says Bill Verner, vice president, government relations, communications and member services with Georgia EMC. "Consumers foot the bill for replacing and repairing the damage left by a wire thief." In 2007, the EMCs and Georgia EMC led an industry effort to craft legislation aimed at toughening the existing law. The new law, which took effect July 1, 2007, forces the defendant to make full restitution to the lawful owner of the stolen metal and allows the prosecutor to prosecute based on how much it will cost to return the affected property to its original condition and not just the salvage value of the stolen metal. According to Verner

Companies would spend more than $6-billion on submarine and terrestrial fibre optic cable infrastructure projects in Africa over the next two years, as countries scramble to boost international connectivity, market analysis firm BMI-TechKnowledge (BMI-T) said on Wednesday. In its latest research report, entitled 'Outlook for submarine and terrestrial fibre-optic cable developments in Africa', BMI-T said that the effective high-speed internet services required for critical business, government and consumer applications have remained either unavailable or very expensive in Africa. Governments' awareness of this situation, and the perceived commercial attractiveness of the opportunity to close this gap, has given rise to the current frenetic activity for construction of submarine fibre cables on the continent. Investment in Africa's ICT infrastructure has improved significantly over the past decade. However, marked deficiencies persist in the backbone networks across the continent. "Although countries on the African west and southern coasts have access to fibre connectivity through the SAT-3 undersea cable, an estimated 80% of Africa's international voice and data traffic is carried via satellite," said Chanakira.

Venture capital is one of the pulses of the industry, and so a headline that VC investments are dropping by double digits is enough to catch the eye of anyone involved in the high tech ecosphere. But when you look at more data, things don't look bleak. On one hand, according to Dow Jones VentureSource, investment is down:\n\nIn the second quarter of 2008, quarterly venture capital investment in U.S. companies slipped below the $7 billion mark for the first time in 18 months. According to the Quarterly U.S. Venture Capital Report released today by Dow Jones VentureSource (http://www.venturecapital.dowjones.com), investment fell 12% in the second quarter compared to the same period last year with $6.64 billion put into 602 deals, the lowest quarterly deal count since 2005. The $7.58 billion invested in second quarter of 2007 was the second-highest quarterly totals recorded since the end of the dot-com boom in 2001.\n\nYet it's not all bad news because there was " steady deal activity and investment in the first half of the year," according to Dow Jones VentureSource director of global research Jessica Canning.\n\n"The movement of venture dollars from the traditional areas of information technology and health care toward burgeoning sectors like renewable energy, power management, and agriculture - or 'clean technology' areas - proves that venture capitalists are making good on their promise to tap opportunities in the massive energy market," said Ms. Canning.

African Eagle Resources (AIM: AFE; AltX: AEA) today announced a 20% resource increase at its first copper project, Mkushi in Zambia, that will extend the life of the mine by two years. The project is the company's most advanced project and will generate first revenue for African Eagle over the next three to five years. Mark Parker, managing director of African Eagle, told Mineweb today the Mkushi project's feasibility study was scheduled to be completed by the fourth quarter of this year and the company plans to be in open pit production here by 2010. A full mining licence for the project has also been approved. The project's larger resource of 18.5mt at a grade of 0.83% copper has been upgraded to the indicated category which gives the company and investors greater confidence in it. The bigger resource has extended the life of the mine from six to about eight years, while its profitability level will still be further refined. Parker said the feasibility study has not produced any unwanted surprises at this stage and the company has covered any "unknown unknowns" around the project. Mkushi will produce about 30,000t of contained copper annually once the project is up and running.

Mainstream Renewable Power, a renewable energy company led by Airtricity founder Eddie O'Connor, has announced the successful closing of a €40 million [US $59.6 million] equity fundraising in which Barclays Capital have invested €20 million [US $29.8 million] for a 14.6% stake in the company. The board, management and staff of Mainstream, as well as close associates of the company, have invested an additional €20 million [US $29.8 million]. Together with the initial seed capital of €32 million [US $47.75 million], this brings the total equity raised to date to €72 million [US $107.43 million]. The company is also planning a major fundraiser later this year, with Barclays Capital committing to invest a further substantial amount at that stage. As part of the deal, Mark Brown, head of Barclays Capital Commodities Principal Investment team has been appointed to the board of Mainstream. The money will be used to fund the company's international expansion plans across Europe, North and South America and Australia and will be used to secure the supply of turbines to be delivered in 2009, 2010 and 2011. In June, Mainstream announced its plans to build an initial pipeline of 240 megawatts of projects in Chile with its partner Andes Energy.

U.S. wind industry has raced past the 20,000-megawatt (MW) installed capacity milestone, achieving in two years what had previously taken more than two decades, according to new figures. The 10,000-MW mark was reached in 2006. Wind now provides 20,152 MW of electricity generating capacity in the U.S., producing enough electricity to serve 5.3 million American homes or power a fleet of more than 1 million plug-in hybrid vehicle, according to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA). "Wind energy installations are well ahead of the curve for contributing 20% of the U.S. electric power supply by 2030 as envisioned by the U.S. Department of Energy," said AWEA Executive Director Randall Swisher. "However, the looming expiration of the federal renewable energy production tax credit (PTC) less than four months from now threatens this spectacular progress. The PTC has been a critical factor in wind's very rapid growth as a part of the nation's power portfolio." The PTC is currently set to expire at the end of 2008.

Global copper demand probably won't see much of a recovery until 2011 because of lower global GDP forecasts, a marked slowdown in China's consumption growth and modest supply in the near term, Credit Suisse said in a note Thursday.

Ouglich, November 20, 2008 - Nexans, the worldwide leader in the cable industry, held a grand opening ceremony on November 20 to mark the official launch of production at its Ouglich plant in Yaroslavl Oblast, Russian Federation.

Commodity stocks slumped to fresh lows last night after recessionary fears took root across the London market, sending the FTSE 100 down towards the 4,000-point mark.

Mr Albanese said there had been a marked reduction in Chinese commodity demand from the overheated levels of 2007 and added that the "vast majority of Chinese aluminium producers are now making operating losses."

The road to grid parity for PV power generation will be difficult, needing five or more years to compete with utility power, unsubsidized, on a large scale, noted Mark Thirsk, managing partner at Linx Consulting, at a recent SEMI PV forecast luncheon (Sept. 18) in Santa Clara, CA Most input materials for PV production are in relative oversupply and will not constrain production, Thirsk pointed out - and for this reason manufacturers are conservative about capacity investment. In particular, his PV module production forecast (see Fig. 1, above) shows an overstep in demand in 2008. One reason for suppliers' reluctance to build capacity for entering the silicon supply chain is that it is an inefficient process. "Only about 15% of all the silicon going into the supply chain goes into the wafers, so it's a pretty wasteful and capital intensive process, so there is a lot of reluctance to build capacity," said Thirsk. Despite the efficiency challenges, Thirsk's forecast indicates that an oversupply may occur in 2009 Because >40% of PV grade silicon is lost at the wafering step, Thirsk believes this represents a significant opportunity for the right technology. Additionally, diamond wire is a potential replacement for slurry technology, but this technology is still immature. In the crystalline silicon (c-Si) value chain, Thirsk sees opportunities for optimizing mono-crystalline wafers with metal wrap technology and backside contacts; process optimization and material improvements would improve cell efficiency, and glass, wafer, backsheet, and grid improvements can enable more efficient light capture. Looking ahead, Thirsk told the audience that while thin-film technologies will enjoy strong growth "and may be more attractive to value-add materials and equipment suppliers, thin-film cell production will remain a minority share for the medium term." (see Fig. 3, below) He closed his presentation encouraging the creation of a Moore's Law type of roadmap for the PV

Led by China, the developing nations of the world now consume more energy than the industrialized countries, according to the 2009 BP Statistical Review of World Energy. BP released its annual review of world energy use on June 10, noting that industrialized countries reduced their energy consumption by 1.3% in 2008, led by a 2.8% drop in the United States, marking the country's steepest single-year decline since 1982. That decrease was counterbalanced by increasing energy use in developing countries, which caused global energy consumption to increase by 1.4%.

"With over 325,000 PV modules, the Jasper Project will deliver 180,000 megawatt-hours of renewable electricity annually for South Africa residents - enough to power up to 80,000 households through a 20-year power purchase agreement with Eskom, the South African power utility company. Selected by the South Africa Department of Energy (DOE) in the second round of bids under the REIPPPP, the project also marked Google's first renewable energy investment in Africa."

"2014 was marked by strong volatility in both economic and political terms: South America and Australia saw worsening conditions in the cable market. In Europe, the market for commodity products contracted whereas the industrial applications market improved. North America began to pick up. Markets in the Middle East and Russia were weighed down by political tensions."