Energy Innovation Companies Receive Seed Funds from U.S. Government

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Written by Richard Finlayson, Senior International Editor for Industrial Info (Sugar Land, Texas)--U.S. government funding totaling $130 million will be channeled to 66 energy projects through the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E). The MIT Technology Review looked at five of the most promising of these projects.

A number of projects received funding to find a method of turning natural gas into fuels that are liquid at room temperature at very low cost. The discovery of such a process would decrease oil imports.

Pratt & Whitney, a United Technologies (NYSE:UTC) (Hartford, Connecticut) company, received $4.4 million to develop a system that would partially oxidize natural gas at high temperatures and pressures inside a gas turbine. The process creates new hydrocarbon compounds that are easier to convert into liquid fuel.

The company also will receive $600,000 to use its knowledge and expertise in the field of liquid-fueled rockets to develop a cooling system for gas turbines that could make burning the gas with oxygen at high temperatures a practical option. Natural gas burnt in a mixture of pure oxygen creates extremely high temperatures, reduces the consumption of natural gas, reduces carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and greatly increases the efficiency of the whole process. The problem has been that the ultra-high temperatures pose the threat of melting the materials of the turbine.

Electron Energy (Landisville, Pennsylvania) has received $3 million to develop a revolutionary manufacturing technique, which could drastically cut the amount of rare earth metals needed to create magnets. The technology mixes very small amounts of rare earth metals with much cheaper materials. The magnetic properties of the rare earths transfer into the other material. Clean energy technologies would benefit from this cheaper option.

In a similar process to the rare earth's mix, Grid Logic (Lapeer, Michigan) will mix super-conducting materials with cheaper materials. This would allow long super-conducting cables to be laid for efficient and low-cost electrical power transmission. Grid Logic will receive $4 million for the project.

GE Water & Power (NYSE:GE) (Fairfield, Connecticut) will receive $4 million to design a new wind turbine blade that consists of cloth stretched taut over a frame. The blades can then be transported in pieces and assembled on site. In theory, the size of the blades and turbines would be limitless. Wind turbine efficiency increases with size, but size is currently limited by the towns through which the turbine blades can be transported. Many roadways cannot accommodate the passage of larger-sized blades.

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