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Glycon Garcia

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

www.ted.com/..._link_to_renewable_energy.html

renewable battery

shared by Glycon Garcia on 27 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • 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
  • Glycon Garcia on 27 Mar 12
     
    "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
xxx xxx

Hulamin expects global demand to hold, but warns local sales may slow - 0 views

www.engineeringnews.co.za/article.php

aluminum

shared by xxx xxx on 22 Jul 08 - Cached
  • xxx xxx on 22 Jul 08
     
    Despite a slowdown in the global economy and a softening in demand for aluminium rolled products in some regions, JSE-listed aluminium reroller Hulamin expected global demand to increase this year. CEO Alan Fourie on Tuesday commented that the company, which exported about 70% of its products, had seen some softening in demand for aluminium rolled products in some regions, but added that demand for these products was expected to grow by between 5% and 7% this year. "Obviously the slowdown of the [global] economy puts pressure on margins, it is an economic consequence, but we are still selling into a growing international market," he said. Locally, however, the softening economic climate was expected to impact on sales volumes for the second half of the year. However, Hulamin expected these high-value products to continue growing as a percentage of its sales in the next few years. Fourie noted that five years ago, these products equated to just over 50% of its sales volumes, while their contribution was just below 60% in 2007. They now comprised about 64% of its total sales volumes. Meanwhile, Hulamin stated that its costs had increased by 16%, influenced by a 58% increase in energy costs, increasing alloying costs caused by magnesium prices rising from $2 000/t to $4 500/t, and increases in other metals. Excluding the cost of increasing energy and metals prices, the company's costs had increased by 6%. Fourie noted that while the rising aluminium costs did not affect its profitability, it did have an effect on its working capital. "We hold aluminium in our working capital. So when the aluminium price increases, the cash tied up in working capital increases and we have seen a significant increase in working capital during this period, because the rand price of aluminium has increased by close to 40% in the last six months," he explained. Further, Fourie did not expect the increasing electricity prices to have too great an impact on its futu
Panos Kotseras

Germany - Wieland-Werke to introduce short-time working - 0 views

www.reuters.com

Germany Wieland-Werke short-time working

shared by Panos Kotseras on 10 Dec 08 - Cached
  • Panos Kotseras on 10 Dec 08
     
    Due to a major contraction in orders intake, Wieland-Werke announced that it will introduce short-time working for 3,450 staff. Earlier plans of the company considered short-time working for 1,100 out of its 4,300 employees in Germany. The decision is attributed to very weak demand across all regions and industries, especially the automobile, electronics and construction sectors. As a result, impacted staff will work 20% less than normal.
Wade Ren

Demographic projections and trade implications - 0 views

piaohaoreport.sampasite.com/...aphic-projections-and-trad.htm

trend

shared by Wade Ren on 22 May 08 - Cached
  •   To summarize the raw numbers, China’s population is expected to grow from 1.32 billion today to 1.46 billion in 2030, after which it will decline slowly, to around 1.42 billion in 2050.  Its working population is currently around 840 million.  This component of the population will rise in the next ten years to around 910 million and then will decline quite rapidly to around 790 million by 2050.
  • The graph below shows the composition of China’s population by age group.  Needless to say the most dramatic change is the explosive growth of the over-65 population, followed by the decline in the share of the young.  Another way of understanding this is to note that China’s median age basically climbs over this period from 24 to 45 (which, by the way, may have favorable consequence for long-term political stability).
  • I don’t have the figures yet from before 1990, but looking at other sources I would guess that China’s working population grew by about 2% or more annually during the 1970s and 1980s.  In the 1990s, as the table indicates, the growth rate of the working population slowed to 1.72%, declining further in the current decade to around 1.42% on average.  The number of working Chinese keeps growing until around the middle of the next decade, and then begins to decline by about half a percent a year.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • All this has important implications both for nominal growth rates and per capita growth rates in the next few decades.  For one thing, a country’s GDP growth rate can be expressed as a factor of the growth rate of its working population and the growth rate of average productivity per worker.  As the growth rate of the working population swings from positive to negative – by a little more than 2%, depending on what periods you compare – this will have a commensurate impact on Chinese GDP growth rates, i.e. all other things being equal (which of course they are not).  China’s equilibrium growth rate should be about 2% lower than the equilibrium growth rate of the past two or three decades.
  •  This implies that over the last three decades China has had a demographic bias towards trade surpluses (working population, a proxy for production, grew faster than total population, a proxy for consumption), but over the next three decades it is likely to have a demographic bias towards trade deficits.  
  • Three years ago I argued in a Wall Street Journal OpEd piece that because of the aging and declining populations of Europe and Japan (and to a lesser extent China and Russia), compared to the growing population and relatively stable age distribution in the US, it was not unreasonable for the former countries to run large current account surpluses with the US since they would need the accumulated claims against the US to pay for the current account deficits they would need to run to manage their demographic adjustments.  This is why I have never been terribly worried about the sustainability of the US trade deficit.  In the next decade it is likely that demographic changes will create pressures to reverse those US trade deficits.
xxx xxx

Japan's Mitusi Mining to invest $144 mln in Malaysia-China Mining - 0 views

www.chinamining.org/...1221204299d17221.html

copper mining

shared by xxx xxx on 12 Sep 08 - Cached
  • xxx xxx on 12 Sep 08
     
    Japan's Mitsui Mining and Smelting Co Ltd will invest 500 million ringgit to build a new plant for making copper foils in Malaysia, a newspaper reported on Friday. The new plant, specialising in high-productivity 12-micron and thinner copper foils, will have a production capacity of 1,200 tonnes a month once fully operational, the Business Times said. Construction work on first phase of the plant, with a capacity of 700 tonnes a month, will begin in November and will be completed by June 2010, it quoted Masayuki Misawa, managing director of Mitsui Copper Foil Sdn Bhd, in which the Japanese firm is a stakeholder, as saying. Work on the 500-tonne a month second phase will start immediately after that, he said. The new plant is being constructed in Shah Alam, next to an existing facility of the company which has a monthly production capacity of 1,600 tonnes.
Colin Bennett

Batteries In the Works To Prop Up the Power Grid - 0 views

earth2tech.com/...orks-to-prop-up-the-power-grid

trends copper battery

shared by Colin Bennett on 26 Nov 08 - Cached
  • Colin Bennett on 26 Nov 08
     
    This week battery company Saft and power product maker ABB say they are working on "the world's first" high-voltage lithium-ion battery for the power grid.
Colin Bennett

Cleantech Blog: Carbon Offsets Work - Will the Mainstream Media Ever Get It? - 0 views

www.cleantechblog.com/...sets-work-will-mainstream.html

trends

shared by Colin Bennett on 20 May 08 - Cached
  • Colin Bennett on 20 May 08
     
    Carbon Offsets Work - Will the Mainstream Media Ever Get It
Panos Kotseras

Japan - KITZ integrates two plants - 0 views

www.kitz.com/thecompany.html

Japan KITZ brass bar

shared by Panos Kotseras on 17 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Panos Kotseras on 17 Apr 09
     
    KITZ Corporation has announced that it will integrate its two brass bar manufacturing subsidiaries with effect from July 1st. According to the plan, KITZ Metal Works will take over Kyoto Brass and brass bar production will be integrated at the Nagano plant, Japan owned by KITZ Metal Works. As a result, Kyoto Brass' plant in Kyoto, Japan will be closed. The decision is attributed to the global economic downturn that has been taking place since autumn 2008. Total brass bar output of the two plants in January amounted to 3,000t, down by 40% y-o-y. The company anticipates that demand will not recover in the short run.
anonymous

Japan - Furukawa Electric's magnet wire production recovers - 0 views

www.furukawa.co.jp/...what_e.htm

japan furukawa electric magnet wire production

shared by anonymous on 28 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Panos Kotseras on 28 Apr 09
     
    Furukawa Electric has reported a recent improvement in its magnet wire production, and plans a monthly production in fiscal 2009 (ending March 2010) of 1,500 tonnes of enamelled wire and 85,000 km of triple insulated magnet wire; this is 70-75% (for enamelled wire) and 80-85% (for triple insulated magnet wire) of the peak levels produced in April-September 2008. Enamelled wire production could reach 1,700-1,800 tonnes per month in October 2009-March 2010. Furukawa Electric's domestic magnet wire production is being consolidated into its Mie Works in order to cut costs; production at its Hiratsuka Works will transfer to Mie within 2009.
Colin Bennett

Cable Assemblies: Ignore Them and Be Sorry (Counterfeiting) - 0 views

www.eetimes.com/author.asp

trends copper counterfeiting

shared by Colin Bennett on 03 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • Colin Bennett on 03 Feb 15
     
    "We hear a lot about counterfeit components-mostly ICs and passives-but we don't see much about the situation with cabling. Yet, it seems to be a serious problem, especially as the cable may work to some extent if not full spec. According to Cabling & Installer, their 2011 article on the subject Counterfeit cable exposed was among their top 10 articles in 2014, three years after publication! (Also see Counterfeit cable is getting ugly.) The result is a cable assembly that doesn't fully meet the operating spec and may sort-of work but only support lower data rates, or a PoE (Power over Ethernet) installation unable to provide the specification's power."
Colin Bennett

NASA Working on Robot to Mine Materials for Off-World Habitats - 1 views

www.wfs.org/...e-materials-for-world-habitats

trends copper mining

shared by Colin Bennett on 01 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • NASA has engineers working on prototype mining technology.
Emma james

UK Health and Social Work Centre got design awards - 1 views

healthcare.worldinteriordesignnetwork.com/...uk_scoops_design_awards_101118

design awards health architecture

shared by Emma james on 18 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • Emma james on 18 Nov 10
     
    The Renfrew Health and Social Work Centre in Renfrew, UK, designed by Scottish practice Holmes Partnership, has scooped three design and architecture awards.
Wade Ren

The end of Bretton Woods 2? - 0 views

blogs.cfr.org/...the-end-of-bretton-woods-2

2008-crisis economics

shared by Wade Ren on 29 Oct 08 - Cached
  • The Bretton Woods 2 system – where China and then the oil-exporters provided (subsidized) financing to the US to sustain their exports – will come close to ending, at least temporarily. If the US and Europe are not importing much, the rest of the world won’t be exporting much.
  • And rather than ending with a whimper, Bretton Woods 2 may end with a bang. In some sense Bretton Woods 2 has been on life support for a while now. China’s recent export growth has depended far more on Europe than on the US. US demand for non-oil imports peaked in 2006. One irony of the past year is that the US was borrowing far more from China that it was buying from China. Campaign rhetoric that the US was paying for Saudi oil with funds borrowed from China isn’t far off – though it leaves out the fact that the US also borrows from Saudi Arabia to pay for Venezuelan, Mexican and Nigerian oil.
  • If Bretton Woods 2 ends in 2009 – if US demand for imports falls sharply in the last part of 2008 and early 2009, bringing the US trade deficit down – it won’t have ended in the way Nouriel and I outlined back in late 2004 and early 2005. We postulated that foreign demand for US debt would dry up – pushing up US Treasury rates and delivering a nasty shock to a housing-centric economy. As Brad DeLong notes, it didn’t quite play out that way. The US and European banking system collapsed before the balance of financial terror collapsed. Dr. DeLong writes: All of us from Lawrence Summers to John Taylor were expecting a very different financial crisis. We were expecting the ‘Balance of Financial Terror’ between Asia and America to collapse and produce chaos. We are not having that financial crisis. Instead we are having a very different financial crisis. Catastrophic failures of risk management throughout the entire banking sector caused a relatively minor collapse in housing prices to freeze up global finance to a degree that has not been seen since the Great Depression. The end result of this crisis though could be rather similar: a sharp contraction in credit, a fall in US economic activity, a fall in US imports and a fall in the amount of foreign financing the US needs.* The US government is (possibly) trying to offset the fall in private demand by borrowing more and spending more — but as of now there is realistic risk that the fall in private activity will trump the fiscal stimulus.
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • Or, to put it more succinctly, Bretton Woods 2, as it evolved, hinged both on the willingness of foreign central banks to take the currency risk associated with lending to the US at low rates in dollars despite the United States large current account deficit AND the willingness of private financial intermediaries to take the credit risk associated with lending at low rates to highly-indebted US households.
  • But now US financial institutions are neither willing nor able to take on the risk of lending even more to US households. For a while the US government was able to ramp up its lending to households (notably through the Agencies) and in the process effectively take over the function previously performed by the private financial system (over the last four quarters, the flow of funds data indicates that the Agencies provided around $800 billion of net credit to US households). But now the US government is struggling to keep the financial system from collapsing. It doesn’t seem like it will able to avoid a sharp fall in the overall availability of credit.
  • It is now clear how the financial sector kept profits up: it took on more risk, as it shifted from borrowing short to buy safe long-term assets (Treasuries and Agencies) to borrowing short to buy risky long-term assets. Leverage in the system also increased (and for some broker dealers that seems to be an understatement), as more and more financial institutions believed that the US had entered into an era of little macroeconomic or financial volatility. The net result seems to have been a truly explosive concentration of risk in the hands of a core set of financial intermediaries in the US and Europe. Securitization – it seems – actually didn’t disperse risk into the hands of institutions able to handle it.
  • I hope that the process of adjustment now underway isn’t as sharp as I fear. The US economy gradually can shift from producing MBS for sale to US investors flush with cash from the sale of safe securities to China and Saudi Arabia to producing goods and services for export – but it cannot shift from churning out complex debt securities to producing goods and services overnight. Indeed, in a slowing US and global economy, improvements in the US deficit will likely come from faster falls in US imports than in US exports – not from ongoing growth in US exports.
  • But right now it looks like there is a real risk that the adjustment won’t be gradual. And it certainly looks like the flow of Chinese (and Gulf) savings to US households over the past few years has produced one of the largest misallocations of global capital in recent history.
  • US taxpayers are going to be hit with a large tab for the credit risk taken on by undercapitalized financial intermediaries. Chinese taxpayers may get hit with a similar tab for the losses their central bank incurred by overpaying for US and European assets as part of its policy of holding its exchange rate down. The TARP is around 5% of US GDP. There are plausible estimates that China’s currency losses will prove to be of comparable magnitude. Charles Dumas puts the cost at above 5% of GDP: “Charles Dumas of Lombard Street Research estimates that China makes 1-2 per cent on its (largely) dollar reserves. It then loses up to 10 per cent on the exchange rate and suffers a Chinese inflation rate of 6 per cent for a total real return in renminbi of about minus 15 per cent. That is a loss of $270bn a year, or a stunning 7-8 per cent of gross domestic product.”
  • Jboss — if some of the Chinese inflow could be redirected into investment in alternative energy, that would indeed be a win/ win. Some infrastructure bank style ideas have promise in my view — basically, the flow that used to go to freddie/ fannie could go to wind farms and the like. I would rather see more adjustment in china (i.e. more investment in Chinese infrastructure) but during the transition, if there is one, to a lower Chinese surplus, redirecting chinese financing toward new energy tech would be offer real benefits.
  • China likes 3rd generation nuclear power. Safe, lower cost than NG or coal, very much lower cost than coal with carbon sequestering, and zero carbon footprint. Wind is about 4X more expensive than our electric costs now. That’s in an area with consistent wind. Solar is worse. I don’t know if we can sucker them into investing in our technical fairy tales. Here’s a easy primer on 3rd gen nukes. http://nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/WebHomeCostOfNuclearPower
    • Wade Ren
      Wade Ren on 29 Oct 08
       
      is this true?
  • btw, solar thermal installations are so easy & affordable to retrofit onto existing structures, it’s amazing that there aren’t more of them here…until you realize that they work to decentralize energy. cedric — china is already doing it in china. they are way ahead of the curve over there. my partner brought back some photos of shanghai — rows of middle class homes each with a small solar panel on top. and that’s just the tip of the iceberg — an architect friend just came back from beijing and wants to move to china (he’s into designing self-powering structures and is incredibly frustrated by the bureaucracy and cost-prohibitive measures in the US).
  • I went to engineering school right after the Arab Oil Embargo, and alternative energy was a hot topic then. All the same stuff you hear of nowadays. They even offered entire courses on it , which I took. Then my first mini career was in the power plant biz, before Volker killed it with interest rates and the Saudies killed any interest in alt. energy with their big oil field discovery. For the last 5 years I’ve been researching what’s changed, and it is frighteningly little. Solar cells are still expensive and only have a 15% conversion efficiency. They developed the new cost reduced film technology, but that knocks down efficiency to 7%. Wind power works where there is wind constantly. Generators are mature technology and are already 90 some percent efficient. Geothermal, tidal, ect. work where they are available. Looks like coal gasification and synfuel is out because it makes too much CO2. Good news is 3rd gen nuclear is way better than 1st gen plants. Hybrid cars are good, and battery technology is finally getting barely good enough for all electric cars to be practical.
  • According to news report today, Japan’s trade surplus is less than 1 billion $ in September 08, a whopping 94% decrease compared to September 07. Does it imply that going forward Japan can not buy as much treasury as before?
Colin Bennett

Fushi Copperweld to Form China's First Composite Conductor Working Group - 0 views

www.prnewswire.com/...or-working-group-79217067.html

trends copper Fushi

shared by Colin Bennett on 16 Dec 09 - Cached
  • DALIAN, China, Dec. 14 /PRNewswire-Asia-FirstCall/ -- Fushi Copperweld, Inc., (the "Company") (Nasdaq: FSIN), the leading global manufacturer and innovator of copper-clad bimetallic wire used in a variety of telecommunication, utility, transportation and other electrical applications, today announced that the Company's subsidiary, Fushi International (Dalian) Bimetallic Cable Co., Ltd., has been appointed to form and organize China's first ever composite conductor working group by the National Standardization Administration of China. The National Standardization Administration (SAC), established in April 2001, is authorized by the State Council of the People's Republic of China to draft, formulate, and implement state laws and regulations on product standardization.
Colin Bennett

Prysmian launches P-Laser, the first eco-sustainable high-performance cable for electri... - 0 views

www.yourcableandwirenews.com/or+electrical+grids_30407.html

trends copper Prysmian cable

shared by Colin Bennett on 03 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • Developed by Prysmian's R&D Headquarters in Italy, P-Laser technology is eco-sustainable. The HPTE insulating system of P-Laser cables uses thermoplastic materials unlike traditional XLPE cables with cross-linked polyethylene insulation.The metal used for the conductor and the outer cable screens under the protective sheath is also recyclable, making the cable 100% eco-friendly.From the efficiency point of view, P-Laser technology allows grid operators to work at temperatures above the typical 90°C as usual with XLPE traditional technology. This higher thermal performance allows them to increase the powertransmission for the same conductor section, or a longer cable life at the same temperature, but above all it allows higher capability. This is particularly important in the event of emergencies, grid congestion and "N-1" conditions(disconnection because of malfunction or maintenance of an adjacent line).
  • Colin Bennett on 03 Mar 11
     
    "Developed by Prysmian's R&D Headquarters in Italy, P-Laser technology is eco-sustainable. The HPTE insulating system of P-Laser cables uses thermoplastic materials unlike traditional XLPE cables with cross-linked polyethylene insulation. The metal used for the conductor and the outer cable screens under the protective sheath is also recyclable, making the cable 100% eco-friendly. From the efficiency point of view, P-Laser technology allows grid operators to work at temperatures above the typical 90°C as usual with XLPE traditional technology. This higher thermal performance allows them to increase the power transmission for the same conductor section, or a longer cable life at the same temperature, but above all it allows higher capability. This is particularly important in the event of emergencies, grid congestion and "N-1" conditions (disconnection because of malfunction or maintenance of an adjacent line)."
Colin Bennett

Seabed Council Approves 7 Plans of Work; Brazil Submits Proposal on Extension of Explor... - 0 views

www.isa.org.jm/994

trends copper seabed marine

shared by Colin Bennett on 25 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • Seven new applications for approval of plans of work for exploration in the international Seabed Area were approved this morning by the Council of the International Seabed Authority as it nears conclusion of its work of the twentieth session in Kingston.
Colin Bennett

Venezuela will work with China to develop 'mining map' - 0 views

www.metalbulletin.com/...ina-to-develop-mining-map.html

trends Copper Venezuela

shared by Colin Bennett on 25 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • Venezuela’s president Hugo Chávez has announced a partnership with Chinese businesses aimed at mapping the mining potential of the Latin American country.
Colin Bennett

NIST Releases Final Smart Grid 'Framework 2.0' Document - 0 views

www.nist.gov/...framework-022812.cfm

trends Copper smart grid utility

shared by Colin Bennett on 12 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • Its more than 1,900 volunteer members from 740 organizations serve as technical experts who work together to create usable standards for the Smart Grid. Hundreds of such standards—covering matters ranging from wireless communication to home energy meters to electric cars—are needed to ensure the many elements of the Smart Grid will work together seamlessly.
Colin Bennett

Overhead power lines removed and replaced with underground cables, restoring beauty of ... - 0 views

tdworld.com/...ity-underground-infrastructure

trends copper undergrounding distribution infrastructure

shared by Colin Bennett on 01 Jul 13 - No Cached
  • The works are being funded through a regulatory backed initiative to enhance landscapes in recognized Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs) and National Parks by removing electrical infrastructure like overhead lines and supporting poles. WPD has worked closely with steering groups made up with representatives from various AONBs and National Parks to identify suitable sites for consideration.
Colin Bennett

Light Weighting-Is It a Boon or Bane in Battling Emissions? - 1 views

www.frost.com/...display-report.do

trends copper automotive lightweighting

shared by Colin Bennett on 24 Aug 16 - No Cached
  • Colin Bennett on 24 Aug 16
     
    Light weighting as a strategy to combat emission and mileage targets has carved a niche corner in automotive original equipment manufacturers' (OEMs') and supplier's research and development. Almost all OEMs have been working on ambitious weight reduction strategies to adhere to future regulations. Light weighting has a profound effect as a long-term strategy, as OEMs transit from making ICE-powered vehicles to battery electric and fuel-cell vehicles. Light weighting as a strategy has implications in other industries such as aviation and power generation. This market insight provides insights on the key factors such as emissions, mileage targets, emission test cycles, electrification, urbanization, and cost and their influence on OEM light weighting strategies.
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