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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

Production of copper wirerod at Kyshtym Copper Plant (JSC 'KMEZ'), Chelyabinsk region, Russia, increased by 57% y-o-y to reach 99,000t in 2011. The plant is majority owned by Russkaya Mednaya Kompaniya (RMK). Output of copper cathode at the facility also rose by 2% y-o-y to reach 115,600t. The plant is undergoing development and modernisation work, which involved an investment of 144M roubles (US$4.8M) in 2011 and is expected to require at least a further 170M roubles (US$5.6M) in 2012. RMK stated that it will invest 19.0B roubles (US$627M) in the Chelyabinsk region in 2012.

A new era for commodities Cheap resources underpinned economic growth for much of the 20th century. The 21st will be different. NOVEMBER 2011 * Richard Dobbs, Jeremy Oppenheim, and Fraser Thompson Source: McKinsey Global Institute, Sustainability & Resource Productivity Practice In This Article Exhibit: In little more than a decade, soaring commodity prices have erased a century of steady declines. About the authors Comments (2) Has the global economy entered an era of persistently high, volatile commodity prices? Our research shows that during the past eight years alone, they have undone the decline of the previous century, rising to levels not seen since the early 1900s (exhibit). In addition, volatility is now greater than at any time since the oil-shocked 1970s because commodity prices increasingly move in lockstep. Our analysis suggests that they will remain high and volatile for at least the next 20 years if current trends hold-barring a major macroeconomic shock-as global resource markets oscillate in response to surging global demand and inelastic supplies. Back to top Demand for energy, food, metals, and water should rise inexorably as three billion new middle-class consumers emerge in the next two decades.1 The global car fleet, for example, is expected almost to double, to 1.7 billion, by 2030. In India, we expect calorie intake per person to rise by 20 percent during that period, while per capita meat consumption in China could increase by 60 percent, to 80 kilograms (176 pounds) a year. Demand for urban infrastructure also will soar. China, for example, could annually add floor space totaling 2.5 times the entire residential and commercial square footage of the city of Chicago, while India could add floor space equal to another Chicago every year. Such dramatic growth in demand for commodities actually isn't unusual. Similar factors were at play throughout the 20th century as the planet's population tripled and demand for various resource

The Chinese government announcement that it may double railway investment in H2 2012. Of the RMB448B (US$70B) railway budget, approximately RMB300B (US$47B) has yet to be spent this year.

Investment into railway capital construction plummeted 76% y-o-y in January 2012 according to the Ministry of Railways. This drop is largely unexpected an may have serious repercussions on copper consumption in transport if it remains at this low level.

Li Yihuang, the chairman of Jiangxi copper, China's largest copper producer, predicts that Chinese copper demand will reach 7% in 2012. In comparison, the chairman of China's second largest copper producer, Wei Jianghong of Tongling Nonferrous Metals Group, anticipates a similar growth rate of 6% in the same period. Both executives looked towards China's power infrastructure investments as the main source of investment, however, they view the cut back in China's GDP growth target to 7.5%, as well as the stagnant construction sector and slowing automotive and home appliances sectors as deterrents to stronger growth.

A spokesperson for Xstrata expressed the company's expectation of improved copper demand from China in the imminent future at a Latin American investment conference in Sydney on 22nd May. The company expects to see a seasonal uptick in H2 2012 and said that the poor demand in Q1 was in line with its prior expectations. Xstrata intends to invest US$7B in the development of copper deposits over the next three years, increasing its copper output by approximately 60%. This bold move comes at a time when some of the company's rivals, including BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto, are reconsidering their expansion plans over fears of unstable copper demand in the current economic climate.

Hengyuan Copper Co. Ltd., based in Shandong province, has started up commercial production of a newly installed 20,000t copper tube line. The company invested RMB380M in the line and expects to invest a further RMB581M to initially add a 10,000t/y copper wire line and then follow this with 170,000t/y of new copper products capacity for low oxygen copper wirerod and bar lines. The project is expected to reach completion by the end of 2014.