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Colin Bennett

Technology to help substitution challenges - 1 views

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    "The copper industry is already facing substitution challenges from materials like aluminium and needs to use technology to help ensure larger-scale, more permanent switches are not made, industry participants said. A group of panelists at the Metal Bulletin and American Metal Market Copper Seminar in New York on Wednesday June 6 said that while technology is clearly an opportunity for the industry, there are still some risks. According to Freeport McMoRan vp sales and marketing Steve Higgins, much of the "easy substitution" - such as plumbing tube or transformer lines - has already happened. "Substitution is less than 2% of refined demand today… It's a bit troubling, but it happens," he said. "The bigger worry is that aluminium is going to make inroads into products that have high switching costs - ACR tubing, motors, or into some medium to high voltage power cables and the like that the manufacturers have to go in and put in a lot of capital costs to convert. Once converted, switching back becomes "extraordinarily difficult," he said. "That's the biggest risk to our market as I..."
Colin Bennett

Switches for household and similar fixed-electrical installations - 1 views

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    "Switches for household and similar fixed-electrical installations"
Glycon Garcia

Donald Sadoway: The missing link to renewable energy | Video on TED.com - 0 views

  • Donald Sadoway: The missing link to renewable energy
  • What's the key to using alternative energy, like solar and wind? Storage -- so we can have power on tap even when the sun's not out and the wind's not blowing. In this accessible, inspiring talk, Donald Sadoway takes to the blackboard to show us the future of large-scale batteries that store renewable energy. As he says: "We need to think about the problem differently. We need to think big. We need to think cheap." Donald S
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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
Colin Bennett

The Switch introduces new game-changing drive train technology to the shipbuilding sector - 0 views

  • The Switch, a Finnish manufacturer of permanent magnet motors, generators and converters, announced today the launch of its next-generation drive trains for energy efficient power generation and propulsion of merchant vessels. Combining The Switch’s permanent magnet and frequency converter technology, this opens up all-new opportunities for hybrid propulsion systems in the shipping sector.
Colin Bennett

SureWest switches to Mediaroom for IPTV over copper - 0 views

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    SureWest had said it was contemplating such services when the company began offering broadband via bonded ADSL2+ in its incumbent territory last fall, including 10-megabit-per-second services. The company already offers IPTV through its fiber-to-the-premises network, but its bonded ADSL2+ customers have so far only had access to SureWest's voice and data services. (The company has offered IPTV over copper on a very limited basis even before it began line bonding. It offers IPTV over copper to about 2500 customers today, mostly to those with short loops and modest standard-definition video needs.) The new copper-based IPTV services, which will be available to 15,000 homes in December and another 10,000 by next June, are enabled in part by the company's recent switch from Minerva middleware to Microsoft's Mediaroom and by its use of MPEG-4 encoding for video compression.
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UK Behind Marine Renewables' Rising Tide - 0 views

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    It's been a long, challenging endeavor, but there are signs that the economic ecosystem built up around wave and tidal power generation is at long last gathering enough momentum to make the jump from R&D-driven to full-fledged commercial industry. Scotland, with its long stretches of west-facing coastlines, North Atlantic latitude and longstanding tradition of maritime engineering and commerce, is now at the leading edge of change when it comes to fostering development of marine renewables. Wavegen's Limpet 500 system has been pumping electricity from the western Scottish Isle of Islay shoreline since 2000 while the company and project developer npower renewables have continued to move forward with plans to develop the Siadar Wave Energy Project, potentially the first under the Scottish government's Marine Supply Obligation program. Marine Current Turbines is getting ready to flip the switch and fully commission a grid-connected 1.2-megawatt (MW) Seagen tidal turbine-based system in Northern Ireland's Strangford Narrow, while elsewhere in the EU, project developers and the marine renewables community await the much-anticipated commissioning of Pelamis's novel, serpent-like wave power system off the northern Portuguese coast.
Colin Bennett

Zambian copper mines' power rationed - 0 views

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    An energy ministry official said that the mines have been forced to scale down operations and to switch off non-essential equipment to ease power shortages. "This will surely have a negative effect on copper production this year," he said on condition of anonymity.
Colin Bennett

Switchgear Market Worth $136.71 Billion by 2019 - Largest markets Asia Pacific and util... - 0 views

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    "Asia Pacific: The Largest Market for Switchgear The Asia-Pacific region holds the largest market for switchgear, driven largely by the number of transmission and distribution line up gradations and developments in the South East Asia. These developments are due to its growing energy needs is the major growth engine for this market. Utilities: Biggest Market by Application Switchgear is mostly used in Transmission & Distribution by power utility companies. They are used for switching the equipment or the circuit during the event of fault. With the growing transmission and distribution network across globe, the number of substations will keep on increasing. This increasing number of substations is expected to increase the use and demand for switchgears. Maximum T&D expansion projects are ongoing in Asia-Pacific and the market is expected to be the biggest and the fastest growing market for switchgear. The Switchgear industry is fragmented and offers several opportunities for consolidation and growth in efficiency through an increase in economies of scale. The industry has low entry and exit barriers. This is a major driver of the Switchgear Market. Top players of the PR market are ABB (Switzerland), Eaton Corporation (Ireland), GE (U.S.), and Siemens AG (Germany)."
Colin Bennett

Aluminum Could Be New King of Industrial Metals - 0 views

  • Nexans (NEX.PA), a French company that makes electrical wiring and cables, says that the switch from copper to aluminum is inevitable. Its corporate purchasing director, Christophe Allain, told the CRU Group’s World Copper Conference in April that “the switch will come; the big question is when and what size it will be.” As Nexans told the Financial Times, one reason is that aluminum cables currently cost about 40% less than copper ones – even though more insulation is required for aluminum cabling. For countries in the developing world that are still building out a power grid, that price difference is a huge deal.
Colin Bennett

Aluminum gains industrial lustre - 0 views

  • It says that demand for aluminium cable, especially in the power industry, is already rising and “certain to increase in the coming years” – at the expense of copper. “There will be substitution, and it will have an impact on the market,” said Christophe Allain, the company’s corporate purchasing director for non ferrous metals, addressing the Cesco copper conference in Chile earlier this year. “We have customers who in the past thought the cost differential between the two metals would not be sustainable [and so stuck with copper]. But now they ask directly for an aluminium cable design.” This is not Nexans necessarily talking its book – the company manufactures both copper and aluminium cable. One area where substitution is likely to increasingly occur is in car wiring. Industrial copper cabling could be switched to aluminium in the railway, aeronautics and wind farm sectors. But the biggest threat to copper is in the power sector.
Colin Bennett

Electric bus induction charging trial - 1 views

  • Each vehicle will be equipped with enormous 130kw/h batteries – giving them a 100-mile range and a capacity equivalent to around six Nissan Leafs. The buses will receive regular top-up charges throughout the day from the three wireless charging points installed along the routes. Charge pads on the underside of each bus will sync wirelessly with pads installed under the road, in a process known as induction charging. Drivers will park over the pads for their 10-minute break, replenishing two thirds of the electricity used to cover the 12.5-mile route without interrupting the timetable. The consortium of companies behind the scheme – which include bus manufacturer Wrightbus, wireless charging firm Arup, bus operator Arriva and Milton Keynes Council – believe that the switch from diesel to electric will cut tailpipe emissions by around 500 tonnes every year. Running costs will also be slashed, as annual fuel costs for a diesel bus are around £23,000 per year compared to an estimated £10,000 for an electric one. And maintenance costs will be lower, too.
Colin Bennett

10 Tesla superconductors could enable Tokamak fusion to be affordable - 0 views

  • A new generation of 10 tesla uperconductors could make Tokamak style nuclear fusion reactors work. It could make them affordable, smaller, maintainable and remove the plasma problems. The development time could be greatly reduced from 50 years to 10 to 20 years. A new design would also switch to FLIBE molten salt for lower costs.
Colin Bennett

Automotive - Is a move to a 48 Volt power supply feasible? - 0 views

  • “The problem is really that about 15 years ago we already had  that discussion and we invested a lot of money in that topic and it never came and I'm not sure whether now it will be successful because it will be a huge step  to switch from 12 volt to 48 volt.”
Colin Bennett

Breakthrough for superefficient conversion of heat to electricity could boost coal plan... - 0 views

  • 54% Efficient Coal Plants for one third less coal for the same powerThe new thermoelectronic approach promises efficiencies in the high 40-50% range, achieving the latter by acting as a “topping cycle” to a lower temperature steam system. For example a coal furnace burns at ~1500 C (1773 K), but a steam turbine runs at 700 C (973 K) and outputs at 200 C (473 K). Thus there’s significant loss due to the mismatch between furnace and steam power-cycle. A thermoelectronic converter covering the 1773-973 K range will add significantly to the overall power extracted by the power-plant pushing its efficiency above 50%. In this case a 45% efficient coal plant can be pushed to 54%, thus increasing the power output for no additional fuel costs and NO MOVING PARTS.40% efficient concentrated solar powerSwitching to solar-power applications, imagine a thermoelectronic converter at the centre of a concentrator system which focuses sunlight to 500 times its normal intensity (temp ~1900 K.) By using a Photon Enhanced Thermionic Emission (a cousin of the Photoelectric effect) the system can convert raw sunlight to electrical power at over 40% efficiency
Colin Bennett

Copper still a viable solution for fast broadband says BT - 0 views

  • UK incumbent BT may well extend the life of its copper broadband network rather than switch to fibre for faster broadband.
Colin Bennett

Utilities get ready for the smart buildings wave - 0 views

  • Quick Take: As if utilities didn't already have enough to prepare for -- distributed generation, electric vehicles, fuel switching to natural gas, customer engagement, intermittent renewables, etc., etc. -- a burgeoning smart buildings trend is sending another wave of change their way.
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