Filed under: Feature
The mayor of Los Angeles plans to stop LA using electricity from coal by 2020.
Here is a link to short video on the story:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2009/11/23/2751374.htm
Filed under: Feature
According to this report, the cost of solar energy will halve by the end of 2009.
A Photobioreactor Facility has opened at West Beach, Adelaide. The $5 million facility will be used to foster R&D into microalgal biofuels and will be available to researchers on a national and international basis.
More details here.
A secret report written for the NSW government and leaked to the press argues that renewables are unlikely to be able to compete with clean coal, even at a carbon price of $100 / tonne.
The report does not state what sort of clean coal technology is considered, however, the author of the report, Richard Hunwick, has presented on the permanent disposal of carbon dioxide using silicate minerals.
The report advocates the building of a new coal fired power station in NSW.
The report finds that in 2015, with a $50 per tonne carbon tax, electricity produced from a state-of-the-art coal-fired power station in NSW would, at about $80 per megawatt hour, still be cheaper than wind ($115 per MWh) or solar ($130 per MWh).
The report states that:
With the application of modern technology and with suitable encouragement, stick as well as carrot, coal can continue to maintain its competitive advantage as a fuel for power generation for several decades to come, and do so in an essentially sustainable manner
Recently, Dr Paul Golby, chief executive of E.ON UK was reported as insisting that clean coal was a “critical, crucial technology”, but raised doubts about its current viability.
The energy giant E.ON recently delayed its flagship Kingsnorth trial carbon capture and storage plant for two to three years.
TheFederal Opposition’s emissions trading spokesman, Ian Macfarlane, has been reported as saying that clean coal technology has passed Australia by and will probably never work.
The question is, will governments provide the incentives to make clean coal viable?
Filed under: Feature
According to this report, there is a danger that nations like Australia will be locked into dirty technologies because the signals for investing in clean technologies are weak.
Achim Steiner, the head of the UN environment programme, said: “Far more worrying [than formally ratifying a climate treaty] is that every month we delay we send a ambiguous signal into the world economy, the markets, investors and R&D.”
Filed under: Feature | Tags: intellectual property, li ion, lithium ion, patnet
According to this report, the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), Taiwan’s national research organization has applied for 29 patents in the United States, Taiwan, Korea, China and Japan for a new technology to prevent lithium-ion batteries from catching fire or exploding.
This problem is seen by many a reason not to use the technology in electric vehicles, for example.
Apparently, from 2003 to 2005 more than 300 incidents occurred involving lithium-ion laptop and cell-phone batteries overheating or catching fire. Many of the incidents involved personal injury.
This potential problem with lithium-ion batteries is multiplied by the thousands in vehicles. In the case of Tesla Motors’ car, for example, almost 7,000 batteries are packed behind the passenger compartment to power the car.
When lithium-ion batteries develop internal shorts they can quickly heat up to as much as 500 degrees centigrade (932 degrees Fahrenheit) and catch fire or explode.
The invention sits between the positive and negative sides of the battery and when the battery hits 130 degrees centigrade (266 degrees Fahrenheit), it transforms from a porous material to a film and shuts down the reaction.
Filed under: Feature
Wind power is frequently touted being able to contribute to green power production in Australia, and a $2.2 billion wind farm is being planned for near Broken Hill in New South Wales. This privately funded wind farm could include up 598 wind turbines. There is also potential for offshore wind farms that might for example take advantage of the strong winds in the Bass Strait.
But does Australia have the capability to develop key technologies in this area, or will imported technologies dominate? One means of answering this question is to look at overall trends for Australian patents filed for wind power related technologies in recent years, Figure 1.
The results show that:
- The overall number of wind power patents appears to be falling. This suggests a mature technology. This is not surprising – wind power has been around for a while, and many of the key technical issues have been resolved.
- A relatively low proportion (8%) of these patents are filed by Australian applicants. This is less than the 14% of Australian patents filed for all types of technology over the same period. In other words, Australia is underperforming in wind power innovation.
But which countries and companies are performing well? This is answered by Figures 2 and 3, which show that:
- Germany, Denmark and the US are the leading countries.
- Aloys Wobben, Vestas and General Electric are the leading companies.
So is all over for Australian wind innovation? Possibly. However the next generation of technologies for wind power appear to relate to the installation of wind turbines in deep offshore sites, where the wind is generally stronger and more consistent. Such as the Bass Strait for example, which besides being windy, is not too far from the existing extensive energy infrastructure in Victoria’s La Trobe valley. Placing wind turbines offshore creates significant maintenance and other engineering issues which will require new innovations to overcome. This may create an opportunity for Australian companies to carve their own niche in this wind technology. Only time will tell how successful Australian companies will be at this – but if Australian companies are able to take advantage of this opportunity, this will likely show up in patent filing data.
- Mike Lloyd
The Australian PV association compiled a list of installed and planned solar PV installations of at least 100kW in Australia. The results are summarised in the graph below. The locations with a (*) are planned but not yet installed.
Most installations are less than 400 kW with one installed and one planed 1MW facilities.
Location and size of largest PV installations in Australia
Some of the PV manufacturers behind the featured installations include First Solar, BP Solar, Sun Power and Solar Systems – they represent most of the installed PV.
In our recent report on solar patents in Australia, BP and Solar Systems were found to be prolific patent filers between 2003-2008. Sun Power also has a very respectfully sized Australian patent portfolio.
According to this press release, Coulomb Technologies has singed an agreement with ChargePoint Pty Ltd to distribute its electric vehicle recharging technology through out Australia.
The press release notes that the first mass produced electric vehicles will arrive in Australia in 2010. Most manufacturers expected to release models in 2012, which will create demand for charging stations.
The Canadian company SaltWorks is commercialising what appears to be a radical desalination technology that needs much less electrical power than traditional approached.
Instead of either evaporation followed by condensation or reverse osmosis, the SaltWorks technology uses ion bridges that selectively pass either chlorine or sodium ions in an ionic circuit that strips salt from a stream of salty water.
This article has an accessible summary of the technology.
Filed under: Feature
Mark Twidell has been appointed Executive Director of the $100 million Australian Solar Institute (ASI), the Australian Government’s primary mechanism for supporting research and development of solar technologies in Australia.
More information is at http://www.australiansolarinstitute.com.au/
According to the Australian Solar Energy Society, the NSW government plans to introduce a gross feed in tariff paying 60 cents per kilowatt hour.
The scheme will have a cap for systems at 10kW.
According to this report, wind power in Spain reached a new record recently, providing at its peak 53.7% of Spain’s total electricity demand – 10.7% greater than the previous record set in November last year.
According to this article, the amount of nitrogen released into the environment, predominantly by fertiliser use, may exceed the planet’s ability to recycle it.
The consequences are bleak, particularly for the worlds seas, oceans and rivers, which are starting to exhibit dead zones devoid of much life. The article argues that nitrogen is to water what carbon dioxide is to the atmosphere.
As this NASA site explains, enhanced phytoplankton blooms can create dead zones. Dead zones are areas of water so devoid of oxygen that sea life cannot live there. If phytoplankton productivity is enhanced by fertilizers or other nutrients, more organic matter is produced at the surface of the ocean. The organic matter sinks to the bottom, where bacteria break it down and release carbon dioxide. Bacteria thrive off excessive organic matter and absorb oxygen, the same oxygen that fish, crabs and other sea creatures rely on for life.
There appears to be massive opportunity for agricultural innovations that address this issue.
Many of the agricultural methods developed may be patentable. Like other clean technology areas such as hybrid cars and solar that we have investigated, it will be those that get into the field before it becomes a mainstream issue and patent first that will profit the most.
Filed under: Feature
According to this report, the concentrated solar thermal power (CSP) market could reach 24 GW by 2020 with most of the growth in Spain and the US. The growth of the industry in Spain in particularly strong because of strong government backing – by way of feed in tariffs.
Filed under: Feature
According to this report, by 2020, the world’s biggest potential solar markets will be found in the developing world, areas largely ignored by solar industry today.
Filed under: Feature | Tags: intellectual property, lithium air battery, lithium ion battery, patent, rechargeable battery, secondary cell
Some people project that the market for lithium ion batteries will grow 11% per annum to US$6.9 billion per annum by 2012. But I think this is too conservative.
Why? Because that projection does not account for one of the biggest growth opportunity yet - powering electric and hybrid cars. The CEO of NISSAN says that the electric cars – let alone hybrid cars – could make up 10% of the market by 2020.
Neither does that projection account for lithium ion batteries storing energy from alternative energy sources such as wind and solar – which is expected to be a $1 billion dollar industry by 2018.
The prospects for the technology are so great that this article describes lithium based car batteries as becoming a “major disruptive force”, dictating the fate of the world’s largest vehicle makers, and reshaping the electronics industry.
The Toyota Prius is just one example of a hybrid car that has a very big battery in it. Sales of the Prius – and the battery packs in them – grew by about 500% when the Japanese government introduced inducements worth around US$4,000 per purchased car. In fact, the Prius recently became the most sold car of any type in Japan.
Expect this to be repeated across the globe. Other governments are now introducing strong measures to increase the fuel efficiency of their countries’ car fleet to improve energy security and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. United States President Obama wants national fuel efficiency to increase by 5% each year from 2012 to 2016. The United Kingdom government has confirmed it will offer from ₤2,000 to 5,000 to purchasers of electric and hybrid cars. Highly efficient hybrid and electric cars are expected to flourish under the new measures – and the sales of Li-ion batteries will boom.
Tech-savvy readers may point out that the Prius does not use lithium ion batteries. But Toyota’s Prius is the exception. Lithium ion batteries are, in fact, the prefered choice by vehicle manufacturers. Volvo, Subaru, GM, and VW are all developing hybrids with Li-ion batteries. The Nissan Leaf, Tesla Volt and concept cars by Audi, Ford all use lithium ion batteries.
Graph 1 shows the number of published International Patent Applications (PCT) by year describing a secondary cell (that is, a rechargeable battery) having lithium as a component – including lithium ion and lithium air cells. Since year 2000, the number of published International Patent Applications has nearly quadrupled.
Graph 1 - Published International Patent Applications by year
In fact, there are many more patent applications because not all patent applicants go down the International Application route. Our searches indicate that there are about 10 times as many patent applications per year as shown in Graph 1- around 2,500 per year!
Graph 2 shows the breakdown for the country of origin of the International Applications.
Graph 2 - International Patent Application Country of Origin
If we look at country of origin for all patent applications, not just International Applications, the slices of the pie change but the top five countries remain. They become China 13.4%, Korea 11.7%, Japan 11.2%, US 6.3% and Germany 1.3%.
Clearly China’s IP position in battery technology is becoming very strong and it is challenging Japan and Korea in this area.
According to this report, Japan currently meets half of world demand for lithium batteries, Korea is the second-largest manufacturer with a market share of 27 percent, with China standing at third place with a 23 percent market share.
Already fortunes are being made in China. According to this report, Wang Chuanfu, the founder of car and lithium ion battery maker BYD has become China’s richest man.
The US has recently injected $1.5 Billion in grants to US-based manufacturers to produce batteries and their components and to expand battery recycling capacity. A123 Systems, a manufacturer of nano-iron phosphate lithium ion batteries was awarded $249 Million, presumably in an attempt to bolster the US industry. We found 10 published international patent applications by A123.
Given the dominant patent position of Asia, howver, it may be difficult for US manufactures to make a big impact.
We found that the top industry players had roughly somewhere from 10 to 102 published International Patent applications. In no particular order, the companies that have strong patent positions include SAMSUNG SDI CO. LTD, SANYO ELECTRIC CO LTD, MATSUSHITA ELECTRIC IND CO LTD, SONY CORP, MITSUBISHI CHEMICALS CORP, LG CHEM LTD, PANASONIC CORPORATION, 3M INNOVATIVE PROPERTIES COMPANY, and BYD COMPANY LIMITED.
According to this report, SANYO and SAMSUNG SDI Co. are the worlds first and second largest markers of lithium ion batteries. This is reflected in their patent positions with the second most and most patent applications respectively. SAMSUNG SDI just reported its biggest profit in 5 years, aided by its commanding patent position.
Breakthroughs in alternative lithium based battery technologies are being regularly reported by many groups. These typically have vastly superior storage capacity than today’s commercial lithium ion batteries. Recent breakthroughs have occurred in lithium air batteries, lithium sulfur batteries, and nanotechnology based batteries, for example. With so many alternatives it is hard to know which technologies and companies are going to be the long term winners. However, the patent filing rate will accelerate and the winners will have well protected technology.
While for sure there are great opportunities, the secondary cell patent landscape is rapidly becoming a mine field that needs careful mapping before being traversed.
The patent landscape will undoubtably shape the direction the various industry players will take – depending on what options they can secure. For example, some may license or cross license patents or try to work around existing patents to ensure they are free to operate.
Those that don’t have patents to bargin with may find themselves locked out of this growing clean technology market.
