creativforce

Energy Storage: Chrysler - A123 Alliance Likely to Spark Interest in Sector

New Whole Foods Market(R) in Dedham to Generate On-Site Power with Fuel Cell Technology from UTC Power--PR Newswire

Energy Storage: Chrysler - A123 Alliance Likely to Spark Interest in Sector

Here' some more "good" news for the energy storage sector: news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20...

Cyberspies have hacked the energy grid!

Just one more reason why upgrading the grid is becoming an emergency, not an option. Of course I strongly disagree that we should help the energy monopolies upgrade so that we all become even more dependant on them. National and individual security would be better served if the grid was more like the web--a convenience that connected micro energy producers and storage rather than a lifeline that can be easily severed.

Electric transmission allows 30% + waste. Economies of scale don't apply when distribution is so expensive. Better in every way to generate and store energy locally. Also a consumer market would be much better for the storage industry.

Cost Effective Energy Storage: The Orphan Stepchild of Alternative Energy

Lost my power this weekend (due to tornadoes in the area) and realized again just how vulnerable the average Joe is to grid disruption (especially in cold climates). If the International credit markets froze up so bad that the local power company couldn't order coal from Canada, we northerners would become refugees. In the Great Depression, folks could burn their furniture in the boiler, but today everything runs off the grid. Can't even get my gas furnace to light without electricity. And of course the gas company relies on credit markets too! Cheap batteries and a home windmill could tide you over until things got better, but I haven't heard anyone talking about cheap home power storage appliances. Tied to the grid they could be win/win for power companies and consumers (government and power companies should subsidize the cost). The consumer is worried, and that sounds like a big market to me. Gas generators are useless in a gas shortage. They don't help the grid. And, they're not "green."

Long Live the Cleantech Revolution

John, I often make the mistake of investing in things as they should be rather than things as they are. Energy consumption, energy generation and energy transmission "should" change dramatically. The infrastructure changes we need are at least 30 years overdue.

However, there is no incentive for power companies to do anything about that. It's not like we as consumers can easily unplug if they don't meet our needs for reliable green energy.

The consumer market has always been the only place where dynamic change takes place. If it weren't for the break up of Ma Bell, we'd all be dialing phone numbers and listening to our neighbor's phone calls as we waited for them to get off the multi-party line. Instead, today, we get to interact with your blogs on our i-phones.

The gas and electric meter on the side of my house is the same one that was there when I was born in the 50s and the energy is delivered over the same pipes and lines. The electricity is generated at the same coal-fired plant. Do you really think they are going to make huge investments to become more reliable, green and efficient today because they should? Do you really think all that free government money pouring into Homer Simpson's power plant will get him up off his ass ... or will he just use the money to buy more donuts?

Look at where the changes are happening today in the US--wind mills and solar plants are popping up in rural cooperatives (where the public owns the utility), on military bases where they are forced to consider efficiency and where paranoia makes them consider becoming energy independent, and in CA where the mountains don't blow the coal smoke to Canada or the next state over (somebody else's problem).

Europe is making great strides because they have to buy their NG from Russia, and that's enough to scare anyone into being green.

The only other signs of progress are public relations stunts such as solar panels on the Children's Museum, etc..

What incentives will drive this sweeping revolution you keep talking about?

Smart Grid's Enabler - Alternative Energy Storage

Again a great article! But I wonder if all this energy investment money is going to disappear along with the TARP money. I am getting fed up waiting for the smart grid to start happening. I've been reading about the need for it since the 80's and have lost money every time I have tried to invest in it. I remember a Buckminster Fuller lecture I attended in '82 where he predicted that the smart grid would end the cold war because solar power would flow around a global grid from countries in daylight to countries in darkness.

The trouble as I see it is the Homer Simpson effect. Once your home plugs into the grid, they have you by the short hairs for life. Homer gets a paycheck no matter how much he charges, no matter how short sighted he is, and no matter how much he screws up. If we could deregulate energy like we did the phone companies, then cool stuff would start happening. If AXPW sold their batteries at Home Depot, I'd buy a windmill and enough batteries to disconnect. The off-grid battery systems available today are dangerous, require constant maintenance and have very short life spans. But the incredible life span of these batteries you have written about here make it seem like you could count on them for decades like you do your furnace. If they could develop a turn-key home energy system for under $30,000, it would be the biggest revolution since the PC.

I like Fuller's utopian dream of sharing free energy, but since that ain't gonna happen, I want my own.