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The U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and A123Systems have teamed up to support the battery-maker's effort to develop safe, less expensive, more powerful, and longer lasting batteries for hybrid-electric vehicles. The Laboratory and the battery-maker have signed a three-year, Cooperative Research and Development Agreement to examine and develop new techniques to improve thermal management in advanced transportation batteries. "We're pleased to be working with A123Systems on thermal management of their advanced nanophosphate-based lithium ion batteries," NREL Principal Engineer Ahmad Pesaran said. "Batteries with improved thermal behavior are critical for widespread acceptance of affordable hybrid-electric vehicles that consume less fuel and reduced harmful emissions." Hybrid electric vehicles get as much as double the fuel economy of comparable cars. Plug-in hybrids will be even more gasoline-stingy with potential of displacing significant amount of gasoline with electricity for road transportation. To achieve these goals, affordable, high-performance, safe, and long-lasting batteries need to be produced in large quantities. Propulsion batteries - batteries that power an electric motor to assist moving a car - are key components of hybrid-electric vehicles, and will be more important in the plug-in hybrid and extended range electric cars of the future. By better understanding the thermal behavior of advanced batteries, NREL researchers will help A123Systems engineers design improved thermal management systems and to optimize the design of the battery cell and develop a battery pack that's lighter, cheaper and more durable.

DOE Offers $2.4 Billion to Support Next-Generation Electric Vehicles President Barack Obama announced on March 19 that DOE is offering up to $2.4 billion in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds to support next-generation plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and their advanced battery components. Of the $2.4 billion, $1.5 billion in grants will go to U.S. manufacturers to produce high-efficiency batteries and their components; $500 million in grants will go to U.S. manufacturers to produce other components needed for electric vehicles, such as electric motors; and $400 million will go towards projects that demonstrate and evaluate plug-in hybrids and other electric infrastructure concepts. When these plug-in hybrid vehicles are offered for sale, U.S. residents who purchase them will be able to claim a tax credit of up to $7,500. Building a plug-in hybrid vehicle industry in the United States will create tens of thousands of jobs and will reduce our nation's dependence on foreign oil.

It looks like Volkswagen is having quite a month, first entering into a plug-in hybrid partnership with the German government and now announcing plans to produce a diesel hybrid concept good for 235 MPG!

But the new technologies-which could help consumers cope with these prices-are unlikely to arrive in large numbers in time for the next oil spike. According to the authors of "The Impact of Plug-in Hybrids on U.S. Oil Use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions," a chapter in the new book Plug-in Electric Vehicles: What Role for Washington, published by the Brookings Institution, cars are durable goods that last well over a decade. "The transformation of the light-vehicle fleet to new internal combustion technologies or to hybrid and plug-in hybrid technologies will take decades from the time such vehicles are widely available at competitive prices," according to the authors, Alan Madian, Lisa Walsh and Kim Simpkins, researchers at consulting firm LECG. They believe it could take another decade from now until the new technologies compete on a price basis, and begin the process of replacing current fleets.

"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

General Motors Corp., along with a consortium of more than 30 utilities and a non-profit electric industry research group, has struck a deal to forestall potential problems when the company introduces its new electric vehicle to the nation's showrooms. An EPRI official also emphasized the grid aspects of the collaboration. Said Arshad Mansoor, the organization's vice president of power delivery: "Seemless integration of [plug-in hybrid electric vehicles] into the electric grid will require close collaboration between the automobile and electric sectors." The statements from EPRI and the car company also address safe and convenient vehicle charging, public education and other public policies, including codes and standards. Among the utility participants in the collaboration are Consolidated Edison of New York, Duke Energy, First Energy Corp., Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and Southern California Edison Co. Others are listed as part of the EPRI statement. The research organization last year released a report along with the Natural Resources Defense Council that concluded plug-in hybrids had the potential to lower greenhouse gas emissions. GM, meanwhile, emphasized the cost benefit of the new vehicles, saying consumers could find that the per-mile expense of an electric vehicle would be about one-fifth that of a gas-powered car.

August 12, 2008 What will the electric carInnovation-At-Big-Companies Dec-07 ownership experience be like? NissanNissan Motors has given us a glimpse of what early adopters are letting themselves in for - rather than bundling expensive, consumable battery packs into the price of the car, Nissan plans to sell its 2010 mass-market battery-electric car for around the same price as a standard petrol car, and lease the battery pack to the buyer on a monthly fee. And the battery lease plus electricity charges should still end up cheaper than a petrol bill. Don't worry, it won't look anything like the test vehicle pictured! In an encouraging auto industry trend, more and more major players are committing to launching hybrid, hydrogenhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen and battery-electric carsElectric car in the next few years. Nissan is the latest to outline its plans, which will include a production-model lithium-ion plug-in electric car by 2010. There's also a clever high-tech hybrid on the way, and Nissan has also announced a cheaper way of building a high-power density hydrogen fuelGM-Coskata-Alternative-Fuels cell stack. But it's the imminent battery-electric vehicle (BEV) that offers the most immediate chance for car buyers to get away from gas stationshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filling_station and look into green motoring. And while no details have yet been officially released about range, charging time, body shape or power, Nissan has clarified that its first mass-market BEV will use a lithium-ion battery pack from partner AESC - an expensive option, but the cost (and eventual replacement cost) will be spread out over a lease plan.

A U.S. government official said dramatic improvements to lithium batteries are needed before they can efficiently power vehicles. Experts believe lithium-ion batteries are widely predicted to replace nickel metal-hydride batteries currently used in most hybrid vehicles like Toyota Co's popular Prius. The biggest challenges are extending the life of high-power lithium batteries and bringing down their relatively high cost, Tien Duong of the U.S. Department of Energy said on the sidelines of a lithium battery conference held at this government laboratory. "Life means 10 years, plus. For hybrids we know (their batteries) last 10 years plus. For the PHEV (plug-in electric vehicle), we don't know," Duong said. He did not specify what the costs should be. "One of the phenomenons that cuts short the life of the battery is power. You may have a lot of energy, but if you run out of power, that's no good," he said.

Batteries are becoming increasingly important to our lives. Not only to sustain our rapidly expanding wireless technology requirements, but also to support our need to travel about. With hybrids, plug in hybrids and fully electric vehicles beginning to provide us with more cost effective transport, we're bound to depend more and more on batteries. And at a larger scale, as we integrate more renewable sources of energy into our electricity grid, we'll need to manage supplies with more uncertainty. So, there is likely to be an increased need for energy storage solutions to help temper the ups and downs of power supply irregularity.

Still, the top 10, which is ranked according to Google's search volume index, offers a glimpse of relative interest in the technology. The numbers represent the likelihood of users in each country searching for "hybrid car," on a scale of 0-100. Google divides the total number of searches for each country by the number of searches for this particular term, and then normalizes the data based on the country's traffic volume. 1. United States: 100 2. Malaysia: 66 3. Canada: 60 4. Singapore: 56 5. Australia: 45 6. New Zealand: 42 7. South Korea: 35 8. India: 30 9. Hong Kong: 23 10. United Kingdom: 22

Toyota has just announced that as from 2009 shall make available to the public two new hybrid models, in addition to the new version of the Prius.

LEDs may be snagging the majority of light bulb headlines these days, but Panasonic's apparently found some room for improvement with compact fluorescents, with it now proclaiming that its new Pa-Look Ball Premium Q bulbs boast the world first "hybrid lighting method.

HYBRID-electric vehicles (HEVs) could become cheaper thanks to a breakthrough that would allow inexpensive lead-acid batteries to replace the nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) batteries they now use. Similar battery systems could also be used to smooth out fluctuations in the power output of wind turbines.

These are heady times for the thin-film solar industry. The sector's dominant player, First Solar, has been on a tear of late, recently announcing it would build a second 10 megawatt power plant in Nevada, while Miasole, once thought to be ailing, has staged an impressive comeback, raking in an eye-popping $220 million. Nanosolar has developed a new ultra-fast solar cell printer, and even giants like IBM and Applied Materials have gotten in on the game. In the face of such intense competition, how will HelioVolt, a well-funded outpost of CIGS manufacturing in Texas, fare? The company hopes a new hybrid, super fast CIGS process it has developed in collaboration with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), which combines its patented FASST process and NREL's non-vacuum deposition technique, will help even the odds. The Austin, Texas-based company licensed NREL's non-vacuum deposition process, which allows for the quick application of liquid precursors onto a printing plate and substrate, to manufacture its solar cells with a 12.2 percent conversion efficiency at a fraction of the regular cost and in record time - under 6 minutes. Another advantage is that the substrate can be made from a variety of building materials, including glass, metals, plastics and roofing materials.