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"You cannot be serious!?" -John McEnroe
A lot of time, money, and opportunities were lost just to get to a license.
"C'mon man!" Really?
The drought you can't see
Authors
Marcia McNutt, Editor-in-Chief
Science journals
Summary
The Western Hemisphere is experiencing a drought of crisis proportions. In Central America, crops are failing, millions are in danger of starvation, and if the drought doesn't break soon, even vessels transiting the Panama Canal will need to lighten their loads, which will increase prices for goods transported globally. In the western United States, the drought-stricken region spans a vast area responsible for much of the nation's fruits, vegetables, and beef. As the drought's grip has tightened, water users have turned to tapping groundwater aquifers to make up the deficit for people, crops, livestock, and industry. But even when the rain does return, regreening the landscape and filling again the streams, lakes, and reservoirs, those aquifers will remain severely depleted. It is this underground drought we can't see that is enduring, worrisome, and in need of attention.
http://m.sciencemag.org/content/345/6204/1543.short
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-marijuana-cause-psychosis/
Can Marijuana Cause Psychosis?
MIND & BRAIN
See Inside Scientific American Mind Volume 25, Issue 5
Cannabis might trigger psychosis in vulnerable individuals, but conflicting evidence leaves many open questions
Aug 14, 2014 By Victoria Stern
Many studies show that teens who use marijuana face a greater risk of later developing schizophrenia or symptoms of it, especially if they have a genetic predisposition. For instance, one 15-year study followed more than 45,000 Swedes who initially had no psychotic symptoms. The researchers determined that subjects who smoked marijuana by age 18 were 2.4 times more likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia than their nonsmoking peers, and this risk increased with the frequency of cannabis use. The connection still held when researchers accounted for participants' use of other drugs.
Yet despite these results and an uptick in marijuana use in the 1970s and 1980s, other researchers have not uncovered an increase in the incidence of schizophrenia in the general Swedish population—suggesting that perhaps people who were going to develop schizophrenia anyway were more likely to use marijuana. Another study, conducted in Australia over a 30-year period, also found no increase in schizophrenia diagnoses among the general population, despite rising rates of teen marijuana use. These authors concluded that although cannabis most likely does not cause schizophrenia, its use might trigger psychosis in vulnerable people or exacerbate an existing condition.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-marijuana-cause-psychosis/
Probably no tpm, or wave anywhere nearby. Maybe push others forward as wave customers, but what do I know? Like an idiot I bet on aapl some years ago....
For example:
Net Element to integrate Apple's pay services, shares soar
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/net-element-to-integrate-apples-pay-services-shares-soar-2014-09-17
It will be fun to watch when the near field payment system is secured and unveiled.
Competing endeavors for limited resources, passion, and focus increases the risk of failure for both endeavors.
I am of the opinion that TAUG should divest of one of its efforts and focus on just one; Pilus Energy or Medical Marijuana. Or mothball one and revisit it when resources are available to decrease the failure risk.
NPR Science Friday and Pilus Energy?
Our bodies create energy by stealing electrons from food and transferring them to oxygen, which is what we need to breathe. But certain bacteria have figured out how to thrive in the absence of oxygen. They form tiny nanowires with their bodies, through which they dump their electrons onto rocks and other surfaces—creating, essentially, “breathing” rocks. USC's Moh El-Naggar says engineers are now plugging those bacterial nanowires into fuel cells.
Produced by Christopher Intagliata, Senior Producer
GUESTS
Moh El-Naggar
Assistant Professor
Physics and Biological Sciences
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, California
http://sciencefriday.com/#path/segment/08/29/2014/electric-bacteria-form-nanowires-shoot-out-electrons.html
What a freakin' mess! Eom
Markets have a tendency to be correct.
I wonder if the new CEO is selling shares like she did late last year under the guise of tax losses?
And the biggest loss to the Company was its loss of Seth's leadership. Knowing science does not equate to knowing people, relationships, and how to do a deal.
This was not a simple oversight. Yet another example of the current "leadership" needing to be smarter than everyone else in the room, and not listening.
"GEEEEEEEEZ"....well I would like to see the filing and have the right to vote on it. Transparency goes well to prevent misunderstandings.
We need to know the plan for nearly doubling the authorized.
Spending stock like printed money, instead of focusing on generating revenues is concerning.
If the leadership vacuum is printing money to self enrich, then we need to know.
GE to Present Three Papers Detailing Wastewater Management at Singapore International Water Week
GlobeNewswire General Electric | Water & Process Solutions - Strategic Account 5 hours ago
TREVOSE, PA., May 23, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Singapore International Water Week will take place June 1-5, 2014, in Singapore, and GE (GE) will have experts from its water and process technologies business on-site to present technical papers and posters.
Three papers will be presented as part of the "Treatment Processes and Energy Recovery—Effective and Efficient Wastewater Management" track sessions.
GE's Jeff Peeters, Glenn Vicevic and Wajahat Syed's paper "MBR with Enhanced Primary Treatment to Reduce Energy Consumption" will be presented on Tuesday, June 3, 2014, at 11 a.m. in Cassia JR Room 3211, Level 3.
Membrane bioreactor (MBR) technology is considered for small and large plants and their design philosophy has evolved to include primary treatment to reduce energy consumption and shunt organic matter to solids treatment. The preferred primary treatment for MBR is rotating belt sieves (RBS), which have a performance equal or better than primary clarifiers but only occupy one-tenth of the footprint.
An RBS+MBR process provides diversion of organics from biological treatment resulting in smaller biological reactors and lower oxygen requirements when compared to a conventional MBR. The technology also offers options for sludge handling. For situations where sludge management and/or energy cost reduction is a driver, the use of RBS with MBR presents significant benefits over primary clarifiers.
The paper "An Innovative Membrane-Aerated Biofilm Reactor (MABR) for Low Energy Treatment of Municipal Sewage," written by GE's Nick Adams, Youngseck Hong, John Ireland and Geert Koops and COTE Membrane Separation Ltd.'s Pierre Cote, will be presented on Tuesday, June 3, 2014, at 2:15 p.m. in Cassia JR Room 3211, Level 3.
An innovative gas transfer membrane has been developed for use in a MABR that is at the core of an energy-neutral flow sheet for municipal wastewater treatment. The new gas transfer membrane is comprised of multiple oxygen diffusion hollow fibers and reinforcing filaments that support the development of a biofilm.
The new MABR product can achieve greater aeration efficiencies, resulting in an aerobic biological treatment process that consumes four times less energy than fine bubble aeration. The pilot results validate the performance targets for the gas transfer membrane and demonstrate the benefits of its application in an MABR process to significantly reduce the energy required for biological treatment.
On Wednesday, June 4, 2014, at 2 p.m., "The Role of Innovative Technologies in Achieving Energy-Neutral Wastewater Treatment," written by GE's Jeff Peeters, Glenn Vicevic and Geert Koops and COTE Membrane Separation Ltd.'s Pierre Cote, will be presented in Cassia JR Room 3211, Level 3.
A new flow sheet is proposed to achieve energy-neutral wastewater treatment (even better, electricity neutral) while removing nitrogen using the proven nitrification-denitrification metabolic pathway. It is compatible with solid-liquid separation by conventional clarification or membrane filtration. The new energy-neutral flow sheet is compared to a conventional activated sludge flow sheet including complete wastewater and sludge treatment with anaerobic digestion and combined heat and power energy recovery.
Also during Singapore International Water Week, GE will be presenting two more papers, one on low-fouling reverse osmosis (RO) elements and one highlighting an RO-electrodialysis reversal hybrid system for high water recoveries from MBR filtrate and eight poster presentations.
For more information on Singapore International Water Week activities and the schedule of events, please click here.
About GE
GE (GE) works on things that matter. The best people and the best technologies taking on the toughest challenges. Finding solutions in energy, health and home, transportation and finance. Building, powering, moving and curing the world. Not just imagining. Doing. GE works. For more information, visit the company's website at www.ge.com.
About GE Power & Water
GE Power & Water provides customers with a broad array of power generation, energy delivery and water process technologies to solve their challenges locally. Power & Water works in all areas of the energy industry including renewable resources such as wind and solar; biogas and alternative fuels; and coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear energy. The business also develops advanced technologies to help solve the world's most complex challenges related to water availability and quality. Power & Water's six business units include Distributed Power, Nuclear Energy, Power Generation Products, Power Generation Services, Renewable Energy and Water & Process Technologies. Headquartered in Schenectady, N.Y., Power & Water is GE's largest industrial business.
Follow GE Power & Water and GE's water business on Twitter @GE_PowerWater and @GE_Water.
Contact:
Jennifer Seiler
GE Power & Water
+1 215 942 3140
jennifer.seiler@ge.com
Beth Coffman or Howard Masto
Masto Public Relations
+1 518 786 6488
beth.coffman@mastopr.com
howard.masto@ge.com
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/ge-present-three-papers-detailing-175021488.html
BASF’s Enzyme-Research Overload Raises Prospects for Dyadic Work
Dyadic International Inc. wants to capitalize on BASF SE (BAS)’s burgeoning research needs into enzymes for catalysts, detergents and other products as the world’s biggest chemical maker has more projects than it can handle.
“In addition to the things they are doing on their own, they’ve basically told us that they have more things to do than they can even do with their own people,” Dyadic Chief Executive Officer Mark Emalfarb said on a conference call. “So they are looking for us to help them.”
For Jupiter, Florida-based Dyadic, conducting third-party research and development while continually developing its own technology is a balancing act, Emalfarb said. BASF paid a $6 million fee for a non-exclusive license to use Dyadic’s technology last year, and the project is already reaching milestones that were set for the end of 2014 and beyond, according to the CEO.
Dyadic has developed what it calls C1 technology, based on a fungus discovered in the early 1990s that can be used in diverse markets from second-generation biofuel to pharmaceuticals and animal feed. It’s poised to get a six-month extension to a research tie-up with drugmaker Sanofi. (SAN)
Emalfarb said Dyadic made a strong start to 2014, with first-quarter revenue growing 20 percent and gross profit almost doubling to $1 million.
BASF Facetime
Emalfarb said he met BASF in March and got the impression that they are embedding his company’s technology deeper into products across divisions.
It’s a further sign that the Ludwigshafen, Germany-based company is increasingly embracing enzymes, building on its $62 million acquisition of San Diego-based Verenium Corp. last year that added research and development capabilities. BASF also bought a detergent-enzyme business from Henkel AG, and CEO Kurt Bock said Feb. 25 that enzymes are a “strategic growth field.”
BASF has teamed up with Direvo Industrial Biotechnology GmbH to develop animal-nutrition enzymes. It’s looking to close the gap on market leaders DuPont Co. and Novozymes A/S (NZYMB) in the $3 billion industrial-enzyme market. Chemical companies make enzymes that are customized for client and industry needs to enhance the performance of products. Within detergents, enzymes enable washing powder to function at lower temperatures, saving energy.
Speedier Route
DuPont has taken a speedier route to expanding in enzymes, buying Denmark’s Danisco A/S for about $7.1 billion in 2011, as it moves away from the traditional chemicals and coatings that were the mainstay of the 212-year-old company.
Dyadic announced the appointment this month of Andre Klaassen, a former executive at DuPont’s enzyme business Genencor, as its sales director for Europe. That will help generate deeper relations with companies like BASF.
“I think that they see the potential, and want to realize it,” said Emalfarb. “You’re dealing with a major, major chemical company and they move like an oil tanker, a little slowly, but when that momentum goes, it goes.”
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-05-09/basf-s-enzyme-research-overload-raises-prospects-for-dyadic-work
Actually, we are in 100% agreement!
A leader is needed. An operator is not.
My thoughts...
Leadership. We had it. Now?
When and where?
Well, I never inhaled.
Supply and demand. Nothing more.
Link?
McKinsey & Company - Myths and realities of clean technologies
Don’t be fooled by high-profile setbacks. The cleantech sector is gaining steam—with less and less regulatory assistance.
April 2014 | by Sara Hastings-Simon, Dickon Pinner, and Martin Stuchtey
The world is on the cusp of a resource revolution. As our colleagues Stefan Heck and Matt Rogers argue,1 advances in information technology, nanotechnology, materials science, and biology will radically increase the productivity of resources. The result will be a new industrial revolution that will enable strong economic growth, at a much lower environmental cost than in the past, thanks to the broad deployment of better, cleaner technologies and the development of more appropriate business models. But how do we reconcile this bold and heartening prediction with recent challenges experienced by cleantech, the general term for products and processes that improve environmental performance in the construction, transport, energy, water, and waste industries? Over the past couple of years, many cleantech equity indexes have performed poorly; in January 2014, the American news program 60 Minutes ran a highly critical segment on the subject. The former chief investment officer of California’s largest public pension fund complained in 2013 that its cleantech investments had not experienced the J-curve: losses followed by steep gains. It’s been “an L-curve, for ‘lose,’” he said.
So, is cleantech failing? In a word, no. Rather, the sector has experienced a cycle of excitement followed by high (and often inflated) expectations, disillusionment, consolidation, and then stability as survivors pick up the pieces. We’ve seen this before with other once-emerging technologies, such as cars, railroads, elevators, oil, and the Internet. Much of cleantech is just leaving its disillusionment or consolidation phase. For example, in transport, Tesla Motors is looking good; Fisker Automotive went into bankruptcy in 2013. In energy, SunPower is making healthy margins and SolarCity raised $450 million in 2013, but over a hundred other solar companies are gone. The shakeout is brutal—and typical. It has weeded out weaker players, making the industry as a whole more robust. Despite the rough patch, annual growth is at double-digit rates.
It’s also important to look beyond financial statements. Global wind installations, for example, have soared about 25 percent a year since 2006 (exhibit). And global commercial investments in clean energy have more than quadrupled, from nearly $30 billion in 2005 to about $160 billion in 2012. Even countries with vast reserves of oil and coal—in the Middle East and Central Asia—recognize that they can’t miss out and are developing substantial programs for renewables. Meanwhile, the average real cost per oil well has doubled, and new mining discoveries have been flat, despite high investment. And, clearly, new ways are needed to meet the needs of the 1.3 billion people who lack electricity and of the 2.7 billion who rely on traditional biomass, such as wood and dung, for cooking.
Exhibit
Many clean technologies have seen a high rate of growth in installed capacity since 2006.
Enlarge
Cleantech is no passing, unprofitable fad. The sources of underlying demand—a growing middle class around the world and resource constraints2 —aren’t going away, and cleantech is pivotal in dealing with both. There are three major myths that undermine confidence in cleantech’s future.
Myth 1: Deployment and influence will be marginal
Not so, and we know this because we see what is actually happening. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), renewables already accounted for 18 percent of global consumption in 2010, and are growing faster than any other form of energy. Given the radically lower marginal costs of renewables, their position is even more promising over the long term. In fact, the IEA predicts they will account for more than 60 percent of new power-plant investment by 2035.
The effects of clean technologies will vary significantly by industry and geography. In some cases, they may truly transform markets, as light-emitting diode (LED) technology is now doing in lighting. In cases where penetration rates are lower, they can still have a dramatic impact on industry structures and market dynamics. Among US electric utilities, for example, the traditional business model relies on putting capital in the ground. But the potential of distributed solar generation to meet the majority of new demand growth can upend that model entirely. As more people install solar panels on their roofs and add new capacity, demand will increase more slowly for utilities. Some utilities are responding to this by trying to get regulators to allow them to include investments in energy efficiency or renewables in their rate base. In addition, shale gas, which already makes up about 40 percent of gas production in the United States (largely at the expense of coal-fired generation), has lowered the wholesale price of power, cutting into revenues and profit margins for deregulated utilities.
It’s important to remember, too, that the cleantech space is diverse; it cannot be painted with a broad brush. We looked at 16 important clean technologies3 and found that while every single one has made progress over the past decade, some are moving much faster than others. Just over half of them—advanced building technologies, advanced agriculture, food life-cycle optimization, grid analytics, grid-scale storage, intelligent transport, next-generation vehicles, solar PVs (photovoltaics), unconventional natural gas, and water treatment—could become truly disruptive to the incumbent industries. The others have enormous potential and could well succeed, but without disrupting the status quo.
Myth 2: Technologies have underdelivered
Profit margins have certainly been squeezed in some areas: for instance, Chinese production of solar panels has pushed many higher-cost producers in the United States and Europe out of business. In other cases, limited access to capital and decreasing subsidies have slowed deployment. In the case of second-generation biofuels, progress has fallen short of expectations. And many big incumbents have scaled back their cleantech investments.
Yet cleantech has far exceeded expectations in many areas; technological innovation and manufacturing improvements have driven prices down. Costs for onshore wind, solar PV, and lithium-ion batteries have all fallen faster than many industry watchers anticipated, for example, and are continuing to drop. The cost of electricity from onshore wind facilities is half what it was 15 years ago, thanks to technological innovation and business-model changes. In the lighting market, LED gained market share as manufacturing costs and prices fell; over the last 5 years, the cost of super-efficient LED lights has fallen by more than 85 percent. And the cost of electrical storage fell by roughly half, from $1,000 per kilowatt hour (kWh) in 2009 to $500 per kWh in 2012. Similar shifts are taking place in less prominent arenas, such as water reuse, waste separation, and anaerobic digestion.
Total installed costs that US residential consumers pay for solar PV have also been falling fast, from nearly $7 per watt of peak system capacity in 2008 to less than $4 in 2013. We think that could fall to as little as $1.60 by 2020.4 The bottom line: cleantech is getting more economically competitive.
Myth 3: The sector depends on regulatory support
Four critical elements—cost, access to capital, the go-to-market approach (broadly defined),5 and regulation—typically must come together to create successful cleantech businesses.
As the industry matures, the relative importance of these factors is changing: regulation is becoming irrelevant in many cases as clean technologies find their competitive footing. LED lighting is one example: in 2013, LED light sources accounted for the majority of the sales of several large lighting manufacturers, even in markets where incandescent bulbs are still widely available. That figure could rise to more than 80 percent by 2015.
Solar provides evidence both for and against the need for continued regulation. Given budget concerns, a number of countries have cancelled or reduced subsidies, and growth has slowed. But the larger point is that solar is still growing. For example, Germany has cut its feed-in tariffs to encourage renewables production, and its strategy of Energiewende—a long-term effort to deploy renewables, move away from fossil fuels, and phase out nuclear power—has had some troubles. But the use of renewables continues to grow. Globally, solar installations have risen by 57 percent a year, on average, since 2006. One lesson is that sudden changes in regulation can create peaks and valleys in demand, and that isn’t helpful to establish an industry on a sound footing. But the point is that while regulation can be and has been helpful to launch clean technologies, it is no longer critical in many sectors.
The reason isn’t only that these technologies continue to advance, although that is the case. What’s more interesting is the increased sophistication of business models, financing, and management practices. There are, for example, significant innovations in how cleantech companies are getting access to lower-cost sources of capital, such as cleantech bonds and third-party financing.
And business-model innovations are all over the cleantech map. Water-treatment companies are creating leasing options that reduce capital outlays for filtration technology to encourage its faster deployment. Car-sharing services save millions of tons of carbon in Europe and the United States by making auto ownership more efficient. There are initiatives to use waste products from one industry as feedstock for another; examples range from steam via gypsum to spent grain. So far, every company involved has reported increased profits and decreased carbon emissions. A whole new industry has been created around using IT to reduce energy consumption. Some companies, such as C3 Energy, sell electric utilities software as a service, which analyzes the data generated across their electrical networks to help improve grid operations and asset utilization, thereby increasing profits. Green businesses, in short, are benefiting from better, more creative management practices.
Partnerships and progress
The very big guns are taking note. For example, there are partnerships, like Daimler and Tesla’s, between the biggest global car giants and small but rapidly growing electric-car companies. The US Department of Defense is working with renewables producers on off-site energy production, and the European oil major Total has taken a controlling investment in SunPower. Such partnerships should help get offerings to market much faster, while giving the smaller firms access to lower-cost capital.
Advanced building technologies, having proved their economic worth and utility, are proliferating—and they are standard for new construction in some markets. So are smart water sensors. The price and energy requirements of water-treatment technologies have fallen, and investment is strong. Smart-grid hardware has been deployed widely in the past decade, and as companies figure out how to use big data and analytic tools, it will become much more important, as witnessed by Google’s recent acquisition of Nest Labs for $3.2 billion. For the first time, next-generation vehicles show signs of becoming this-generation vehicles.
We are witnessing the maturation of an industry and the adoption of proven management practices. Successful cleantech companies are making their offerings competitive by focusing on excellence in operations, marketing, sales, and distribution. The principles that apply to any manufacturing business, such as reducing procurement costs and improving productivity through lean manufacturing, are increasingly important for clean technologies as well. The same can be said for practices such as customer segmentation, channel access, and pricing. As these businesses continue to scale up, there will be additional opportunities for improvement.
Trends can accelerate, slow down, or even reverse. But it’s unlikely that all these technologies will fail, and many are now at the stage where management practices, and not regulation or subsidies, are the defining factor for success. Those that do succeed could be highly disruptive to incumbents, even (or especially) well-entrenched ones. Big changes in resource use and business models are just around the corner.
To be sure, some cleantech companies will go bust, and some technologies will not make the cut. But these ups and downs are simply the nature of business—part of progress. Notwithstanding the failures of individual companies, cleantech is not going away, either on the ground or as an investment opportunity. And that’s no myth.
About the authors
Sara Hastings-Simon is a specialist in McKinsey’s Calgary office, Dickon Pinner is a principal in the San Francisco office, and Martin Stuchtey is a director in the Munich office.
The authors would like to acknowledge the contributions of Jason Baum, Stefan Heck, and Sean Kane to this article.
http://www.mckinsey.com/Insights/Energy_Resources_Materials/Myths_and_realities_of_clean_technologies
Tauriga Sciences Inc. Launches $1,700,000 USD Commercial Pilot Test With the EPA and the Metropolitan Sewer District of Greater Cincinnati
http://globenewswire.com/news-release/2014/03/26/621700/10074175/en/Tauriga-Sciences-Inc-Launches-1-700-000-USD-Commercial-Pilot-Test-With-the-EPA-and-the-Metropolitan-Sewer-District-of-Greater-Cincinnati.html
Maybe AB is awaiting results from Cincinnati pilot?
Perhaps this is a suitor?
"The companies are targeting the second half of 2014 for future announcements regarding products in development."
Sandia Labs News Releases
April 15, 2014
Low-cost, hydrogen-powered forklifts with rapid refueling, zero emissions coming soon
LIVERMORE, Calif.— Zero-emission hydrogen fuel cell systems soon could be powering the forklifts used in warehouses and other industrial settings at lower costs and with faster refueling times than ever before, courtesy of a partnership between Sandia National Laboratories and Hawaii Hydrogen Carriers (HHC).
The goal of the project is to design a solid-state hydrogen storage system that can refuel at low pressure four to five times faster than it takes to charge a battery-powered forklift, giving hydrogen a competitive advantage over batteries for a big slice of the clean forklift market. The entire U.S. forklift market was nearly $33 billion in 2013, according to Pell Research.
Adrian Narvaez of Hawaii Hydrogen Carriers (HHC) observes a metal hydride storage tank, part of a project led by Sandia National Laboratories. The tank will be combined with a fuel cell system to make a fuel cell power pack to power a forklift. Hydrogen fuel cell technology could have a significant advantage over batteries for a large slice of the $33 billion U.S. forklift market. (Photo by Dino Vournas) Click on the thumbnail for a high-resolution image.
“Once you understand how these forklifts operate, the fuel cell advantage is clear,” said Sandia’s project manager Joe Pratt.
Refueling hydrogen fuel cell powered forklifts takes less than three minutes compared to the hours of recharging needed for battery-powered forklifts, Pratt said. Consequently, fuel cell-powered forklifts are able to operate continuously for eight or more hours between fills.
Currently, companies using battery-powered forklifts need to purchase three battery packs for each forklift to ensure continuous operation. They also need to set aside warehouse space for battery recharging.
Sandia has worked with the fuel cell forklift industry for several years to help get clean, efficient and cost effective fuel cell systems to market faster. Standards developed by Sandia soon will be published so industry can develop new, high-performing hydrogen fuel systems for industrial trucks.
Department of Energy grant leads to collaboration
Intrigued by the potential benefits of fuel cells over the electric batteries that now power most forklifts, HHC obtained a grant from the Energy Department’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and asked Pratt to help improve the design of a hydrogen storage system for fuel cells.
Pratt has spearheaded other Sandia efforts to introduce hydrogen systems into the marketplace. He served as technical lead, for instance, for studies on the use of fuel cells to power construction equipment, personal electronic devices, auxiliary equipment and portable generators. Most recently, he led a study and subsequent demonstration project on commercial use of hydrogen fuel cells to provide power at ports.
For its part, HHC is developing technologies for the fuel cell forklift market and expects cost reductions and performance improvements that will help the market grow. The company is developing a low-pressure hydrogen storage system that can be refueled at standard industrial gas pressures. That should reduce fuel system cost and expand the market to facilities that can’t accommodate conventional high-pressure fueling systems.
To solidify the forklift collaboration, HHC sent Adrian Narvaez to Sandia’s Combustion Research Facility in California for several months. “Joe and I work together every day on the design, so it’s a huge advantage to be able to work on site at Sandia,” said Narvaez.
Pratt said: “If hydrogen refueling is short enough to occur during normal downtimes, such as during operator breaks, then a single hydrogen forklift can do the work of three battery packs over the course of 24 hours. That translates into a direct cost savings.”
Technical, economic barriers to overcome
Today’s hydrogen storage units require high pressure (5,000 pounds per square inch, or psi) to achieve a short refueling time — and high pressure refueling requires an on-site compression system. “That can be a big expense, especially for a small company,” Narvaez explained. “If we can provide a storage system that meets the target refueling time at, say, 500 psi, companies can get a break in the up-front costs. Plus, they no longer have to purchase battery rechargers or dedicate space for recharging. Instead, companies can simply purchase and store hydrogen tanks as needed.”
Designing a storage system that meets HHC’s specifications and can be integrated into a fuel cell power pack required overcoming some key challenges. Among these are identifying optimal metal hydride materials, determining an optimal shape and size for the storage tank and ensuring thermal management to achieve and maintain the temperatures required for fast refueling and supply of the hydrogen.
Work to identify the right metal hydride for the system focused on Hy-Stor 208, a misch metal-nickel-aluminum alloy that meets targets for hydrogen storage capacity, density and thermal conductivity. The material also provides sufficient hydrogen pressure for refueling at an operating temperature of 60 degrees Celsius.
While this type of metal hydride is heavy, the weight acts as needed ballast and thus is a benefit in forklifts. To increase thermal conductivity, the team also explored adding to the metal hydride two forms of expanded natural graphite, flakes and so-called “worms” because of their tubular shape.
Pratt and Narvaez drew on modeling and simulation results from an earlier project led by Sandia engineer Terry Johnson to identify a small-diameter tube as the best design for storing the metal hydride. They then varied several tube characteristics, such as the hydrogen distribution channel and the amount and type of thermal enhancement material used. Next, they conducted experiments to evaluate the effects of these variations on a range of performance parameters, including hydrogen storage capability, refill time, durability, discharge ability and residual capacity at a minimum discharge point.
“As the models predicted, we saw only minor differences in performance when we varied the graphite types. Likewise, the presence or absence of the hydrogen distribution channel had little effect on performance,” said Narvaez. “These findings show that this application is not aggressively pushing the performance of the metal hydride storage to the point where these variations would make a difference. In fact, this is good, because it means we can use the lowest-cost solution and still expect good performance.”
Using findings from their experiments, Pratt and Narvaez developed an optimized storage-system design.
More incentives to switch to fuel cell technology
During this time, the team also began to conceive of a tube array that would allow efficient thermal management (via water flows around the tubes).
With Sandia’s and HHC’s design complete, project activity will transfer to Hawaii, where HHC will produce the first prototype metal hydride storage system. HHC will work with Canadian fuel-cell company Hydrogenics, which will integrate the new storage system into its proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell power pack, designed to fit into a forklift.
“DOE catalyzed the market for fuel cell forklifts, using industry cost-sharing to deploy more than 500 units through the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act,” said Pratt. “The private sector recognized the advantages of fuel cell forklifts and deployed more than 5,000 additional units since then without government funding. If successful, the HHC project will lead to lower cost, improved-performance fuel cell forklift systems that will lead to even greater market growth.”
Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-program laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corp., for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration. With main facilities in Albuquerque, N.M., and Livermore, Calif., Sandia has major R&D responsibilities in national security, energy and environmental technologies and economic competitiveness.
https://share.sandia.gov/news/resources/news_releases/hydrogen_forklifts/#.U00tSF7dxa0
It's simply supply and demand.
I will correct myself.
It isn't about management.
It's about LEADERSHIP.
Great management may not pull off an RS. Great leadership can.
I agree too. The risk reward for TAUG doing an RS may significantly outweigh not doing it.
If an RS fails, then the firm is destined to stay in penny land anyway. What is lost if the RS fails?
I am not interested in staying in penny land. And without an RS or a buy-back, then it is unlikely TAUG will make it to a big board. At which point it will become, at best, a takeover target for its technologies.
It just comes down to whether this team can do it.
I concur.
I've seen a number of RS' done. Only the best management teams pull it off. The vast majority of teams are unsuccessful.
However, those that do it properly with solid business metrics have superb outcomes.
Need to reduce the number of shares, or buy them back.
What announcement is expected?
Engineered, zinc finger domain–containing recombinases for site-specific delivery of therapeutic genes
An engineered recombinase could enable nontoxic, site-specific delivery of therapeutic genes to the human genome. Further details on the research, next steps and licensing status are discussed in the article.
http://www.nature.com/scibx/journal/v7/n13/full/scibx.2014.383.html
Cannabinoid CB2 receptor (CNR2)
In vitro and mouse studies suggest a CNR2-specific ligand–based photosensitizer could be useful for photodynamic cancer therapy. Further details on the research, next steps and licensing status are discussed in the article.
http://www.nature.com/scibx/journal/v7/n13/full/scibx.2014.368.html
Pilus Energy and NuclearBot...
If PCBs can be remediated, perhaps there is a perchlorate product development opportunity.
Feds Hope $5 Billion Settlement A Lesson For Polluters
by ELIZABETH SHOGREN
April 05, 2014 5:40 AM ET
This week, the federal government announced a record-breaking $5 billion settlement in a remarkable environmental case. The toxic legacy of the company involved, Kerr-McGee, stretches back 85 years and includes scores of sites across the country.
Kerr-McGee ran uranium mines on the Navajo Nation, wood-treating businesses across the Midwest and East Coast and a perchlorate plant on a tributary of Lake Mead, the nation's largest reservoir — and it was messy.
"Kerr-McGee's business all over this country left significant, lasting environmental damage," said Deputy U.S. Attorney General James Cole, who announced the plan in a press conference in Washington.
The company contaminated Lake Mead with toxic perchlorate, a component of rocket fuel, and exposed people on rural Indian reservations and in big city Chicago to radioactive wastes.
Kerr-McGee also left communities and the federal government to pay for cleanups. Over decades the government tried to get the company to pay to clean up, but Cole says the company tried to dodge responsibility.
It split off its profitable oil and gas business and sold it for $18 billion to Anadarko Petroleum Corporation. The rest of the company filed for bankruptcy.
"This plan was intended to isolate and shed these liabilities through a complicated, multistep corporate reorganization," Cole says. "Had Kerr-McGee gotten away with its scheme it would have skirted its responsibility for cleaning up contaminated sites around the country."
Instead, a bankruptcy court found that the reorganization was fraudulent, and now Kerr-McGee's buyer, Anadarko, will pay the $5 billion tab to clean up Kerr-McGee's pollution and compensate people who were harmed by it.
Among those people were those who lived in a residential community in New Jersey. U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara says their homes were built on the company's creosote waste.
"Those families didn't know that their homes were built on top of pools of toxic waste until 1996, when sludge literally began to bubble up into one resident's basement," Bharara says.
And in the Navajo Nation in Arizona, Kerr-McGee's uranium mines contaminated the water people drink, give their cattle and play in. The tribe even made a comic book to warn children about the danger of swimming in radioactive water.
The government says the $5 billion dollar settlement should more than cover the costs of cleaning up the company's toxic legacy. Bharara says the size of the settlement should send a strong message.
"If you are responsible for 85 years of poisoning the earth, then you are responsible for cleaning it up," he says.
The government says the benefit of settling instead of taking the company to court is that the money will be available as soon as the court OKs the settlement, instead of years in the future.
Anadarko declined to record an interview with NPR, but in a press release, the company said by settling it was eliminating the uncertainty the dispute created. The company's stock jumped up significantly after the news.
Business analysts say that suggests Anadarko is in good enough shape to pay $5 billion without crippling itself.
Mark Latham, a professor at Vermont Law School, says the settlement shows just how far reaching the country's toxic waste laws are.
"You might put off the day of reckoning for years as we've done here, but sooner or later those efforts are likely to be unsuccessful and you'll be on the hook for hundreds of millions, if not more," Latham says.
Latham also says there's a lesson here for big corporations like Anadarko, to heed the old adage: buyer beware.
http://www.npr.org/2014/04/05/299204172/feds-hope-5-billion-settlement-a-lesson-for-polluters