Green Energy

It might sound like science-fiction, but Mazda reckons its new third-generation SKYACTIV-3 combustion engines will emit less CO2 than comparable electric vehicles.

Many would argue that it’s disingenuous to say a petrol engine that burns fossil fuels can be as efficient as an EV but Mazda’s powertrain chief, Mitsuo Hitomi, is convinced technology will keep the combustion engine viable.

According to trade journal Automotive News Hitomi wouldn’t put a timeline on when the third-generation SKYACTIV-3 will reach new car showrooms. The second-generation SKYACTIV-X hasn’t even arrived yet, due in Australia in early 2019 paired with the next Mazda3, previewed via the KAI concept (pictured).

But the Mazda powertrain boss said that viewed holistically, combustion engines can be improved to such a level as to rival the emissions of EVs.

The key term is ‘well-to-wheel’ emissions, which include the CO2 emissions and other pollutants involved in the entire process of energy generation, not just vehicle operation. In a petrol sense, that means the energy required to refine and transport the fuel.

For electricity, it is essentially the means required to generate it, whether from coal, natural gas or renewable sources.

By Mazda’s measure, the CO2 emissions required to produce the electricity for an EV, via liquefied natural gas, are greater than for a very efficient petrol-powered car.

The thermal efficiency of its SKYACTIV-3 is tipped to improve to 56 per cent, up from the current 27 per cent, which would further cut CO2 emissions.

In 2011 Mazda deployed its SKYACTIV technologies, a range of features designed to reduce CO2 emissions, while improving fuel economy and engine response. SKYACTIV-X is the next step in Mazda’s grand plan to keep the combustion engine alive beyond 2050, and will deliver an innovative ‘spark controlled compression ignition’ (SPCCI) petrol engine. It’s claimed to reduce fuel consumption while improving refinement and power output.

Check out our first review of the new SPCCI system in a current Mazda3.

Mazda is serious about maintaining its combustion engines into the long-term future, which is at odds with many mainstream car manufacturers that are investing heavily in battery-electric vehicle technology.

However the Japanese company is clearly hedging its bets, after Mazda and Toyota formed a joint-venture to develop a brand-new range of EVs.

The long and often contentious relationship between Pueblo ratepayers and Black Hills Energy over the high cost of power in recent years has gotten the attention of a fast-emerging new field in energy production: battery and power storage.

JLM Energy is a California-based energy storage company whose vice president of marketing, Ellen Murray Howe, lives in Conifer, Colo. When Howe was doing research this past year on communities with high power costs, Pueblo popped right up.

“It was easy to see that Black Hills’ rate structure was quite high, so I called (the Pueblo Economic Development Corp.) and got a tour of the community,” she said. “Pueblo has high power costs, and that’s where my company can help, so it was a near-perfect scenario.”

What’s important here isn’t that JLM has been talking to local businesses in the past year, but that the company and its competitors are offering a new way to use electric power: getting it as cheaply as possible — whether on or off the grid — and storing it for later use. JLM is especially interested in commercial customers and light manufacturing.

“I’ve talked to commercial users in Pueblo that are spending $150,000 or more a year on electricity,” said Howe. “Those are businesses that would benefit from being able to buy and store cheaper power.”

For example, Black Hills business customers pay a rate, called a demand charge, that is based on peak use. If the customer could spread out that use so it bought power at a lower demand price, it could use that stored electricity at peak times but without the higher cost.

Similarly, utilities sometimes offer “time-of-use” rates, meaning cheaper power at times of low demand, like at night. With a storage system, customers can buy that power at night, store it and then use it during the day.

It’s a simple idea but stayed on the drawing board in past decades because battery technology was so cumbersome. Not any more. Storage batteries are now in cars, attached to solar arrays, even replacing full-blown power plants.

Utilities are investing in the storage systems to cut the costs of power they buy off the grid during peak hours.

“The level of knowledge is growing so fast we’re seeing it on both sides of the meter,” Howe said.

And, right now, customers who purchase solar-power and storage systems can still get a 30 percent federal tax credit.

As Pueblo looks at creating its own municipal-owned utility, power storage will likely be a larger part of the conversation because it is changing how businesses and even households operate and use power.

“I think we see Puerto Rico moving into power storage in a big way as it rebuilds its power system,” Howe said. “We seem to have hit a tipping point.”

84 new villas in Kuwait will be partially powered by the sun with the help of ABB’s solar inverter technology, power solutions company has revealed.

The 150 residential houses project is initiated and fully funded by Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences (KFAS). The project demonstrates the role of solar energy in Kuwait, as a key solution in the ever-growing demand for energy.

The project is implemented by Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR), in coordination with local renewable energy solutions contractor Life Energy. The project will prove that grid-integrated, rooftop Photovoltaic systems for homes in Kuwait are now a reality and is anticipated to encourage lawmakers, decision makers and the public, to be part of the effort to achieve the national target of 15 percent of electricity demand from renewable sources by 2030.

Indeed, with bright sunshine throughout the year, Kuwait’s desire to induct solar power into the energy mix has gathered momentum in recent years and solar installations like these are much welcomed by both local residents and governing bodies.

Hamad Alradhan, CEO of Life Energy comments: “Rooftop solar is an essential part of the solution to achieve Kuwait’s ambitious renewable energy goals. Residential applications pose unique challenges for manufacturers and system design engineers.  The extensive capacity range of quality string inverter from ABB enables us to successfully achieve the desired efficiency of our system designs and to take full advantage of the high solar irradiance in Kuwait.”

Each villa will be fitted with a 3.6 to 12.5 kW capacity solar power system, depending on the available space on the roof of each villa, with ABB’s string inverter technology. The main aim of those small plants is to reduce utility bills for the villa’s owners by 3-5 percent annually by making maximum use of the sun’s energy. A range of single and three-phase string inverters, convert DC power generated by the solar panels into AC power, helping the villas to be more energy self-sufficient.

Turkey Noor, Sales and Marketing manager from ABB’s Electrification Products division in Kuwait explains: “We firmly believe that solar technology should be a leading sustainable energy source for both distributed power generation and building applications. That is why we are always committed to innovating our range of solar technology, developing new PV storage solutions and product platforms to ensure the best possible performance for our customers.

“We are delighted to be working with Life Energy and are confident that this installation will demonstrate the effectiveness of our solar inverter technology in helping to realize Kuwait‘s energy objectives.”

Apple has registered an additional 24 autonomous prototypes with the Californian DMV, marking a significant expansion in the tech company’s self-driving car plans.

Under its initial permit granted in April, Apple registered just three Lexus RX450h SUVs to test its technology. Since then, the company has added two new prototypes in July, seven in October, two in November, six in December, and seven in January, The Verge reports.
Apple has been exceptionally secretive about its electric vehicle plans from the outset, in stark contrast to established carmakers and many of its rival tech companies, including Google.

Initially, it was widely reported that Apple intended on creating a bespoke self-driving vehicle that it would sell to the public. However, it later decided to scrap this project and instead re-focus solely on the development of self-driving technology that can be sold to existing automakers.

Sightings of the firm’s autonomous prototypes have been few and far between. In October, one example was snapped on the streets with no less than six LiDAR sensors, a host of cameras, numerous sensors, and various radar units.

In a recent leaderboard analysis of autonomous technologies published by Navigant, Apple ranked second-to-last in the race for self-driving cars, behind rivals like Uber, Waymo, and Aptiv, alongside a host of automakers. So it looks that it has some catching-up to do, hence the fleet increase.

 

The new report by the Automotive and Transport Market Reports has been published today. It provides updated in 2018 year analysis of automotive and transport industries.

This issue of the Advanced Coatings and Surface Technology TOE profiles advances in coatings for lithium-ion batteries and for medical and automotive Industries. Innovations include a lubricious coating that increases the durability of medical devices, UV-resistant coatings that can increase durability of automotive windows, a next-generation coating with high cure rate even at low temperatures, and a coating for increasing performance of lithium-ion batteries.

The Advanced Coating & Surface Technology TechVision Opportunity Engine (TOE) provides intelligence on technologies, products, processes, applications and strategic insights on various coatings across industries. This encompasses protective and functional coatings such as antimicrobial coatings, food coatings, energy-saving coatings, smart glazing, hydrophilic, hydrophobic and super hydrophobic coatings, corrosion protection coatings, barrier coatings and paints.

The Chemicals and Advanced Materials cluster tracks research & innovation trends and developments across specialty chemicals, plastics, polymers, chemicals, bio-chemicals, metals, coatings, thin films, surface treatments, composites, alloys, oil and gas, fuel additives, fibers and several other related technologies and its impact and application across industries.

Biomining is the kind of technique promised by science fiction: a vast tank filled with microorganisms that leach metal from ore, old mobile phones and hard drives.

It sounds futuristic, but it’s currently used to produce about 5% of the world’s gold and 20% of the world’s copper. It’s also used to a lesser extent to extract nickel, zinc, cobalt and rare earth elements. But perhaps it’s most exciting potential is extracting rare earth elements, which are crucial in everything from mobile phones to renewable energy technology.

The Mary Kathleen mine, an exhausted uranium mine in northwest Queensland, contains an estimated A$4 billion in rare earth elements. Biomining offers a cost-effective and environmentally friendly option for getting it out.

Biomining is so versatile that it can be used on other planetary bodies. Bioleaching studies on the international space station have shown microorganisms from extreme environments on Earth can leach a large variety of important minerals and metals from rocks when exposed to the cold, heat, radiation and vacuum of space.

Some scientists even believe we cannot colonise other planets without the help of biomining technologies.

How does it work?

Biomining takes place within large, closed, stirred-tank reactors (bioreactors). These devices generally contain water, microorganisms (bacteria, archaea, or fungi), ore material, and a source of energy for the microbes.

The source of energy required depends on the specific microbe necessary for the job. For example, gold and copper are biologically “leached” from sulfidic ores using microorganisms that can derive energy from inorganic sources, via the oxidation of sulfur and iron.

However, rare earth elements are bioleached from non-sulfidic ores using microorganisms that require an organic carbon source, because these ores do not contain a usable energy source. In this case, sugars are added to allow the microbes to grow.

All living organisms need metals to carry out basic enzyme reactions. Humans get their metals from the trace concentrations in their food. Microbes, however, obtain metals by dissolving them from the minerals in their environment. They do this by producing organic acids and metal-binding compounds. Scientists exploit these traits by mixing microbes in solution with ores and collecting the metal as it floats to the top.

The temperature, sugars, the rate at which the tank is stirred, acidity, carbon dioxide and oxygen levels all need to be monitored and fine-tuned to provide optimal working conditions

The benefits of biomining

Traditional mining methods require harsh chemicals, lots of energy and produce many pollutants. In contrast, biomining uses little energy and produces few microbial by-products such as organic acids and gases.

Because it’s cheap and simple, biomining can effectively exploit low grade sources of metals (such as mine tailings) that would otherwise be uneconomical using traditional methods.

Countries are increasingly turning to biomining such as Finland, Chile and Uganda. Chile has exhausted much of its copper rich ores and now utilises biomining, while Uganda has been extracting cobalt from copper mine tailings for over a decade.

Why do we need rare earth elements?

The rare earth elements include the group of 15 lanthanides near the bottom of the periodic table, plus scandium and yttrium. They are widely used in just about all electronics and are increasingly sought after by the electric vehicle and renewable energy industries.

The unique atomic properties of these elements make them useful as magnets and phosphors. They’re used as strong lightweight magnets in electric vehicles, wind turbines, hard disc drives, medical equipment and as phosphors in energy efficiency lighting and in the LEDs of mobile phones, televisions and laptops.

Despite their name, rare earth elements are not rare and some are in fact more abundant than copper, nickel and lead in the Earth’s crust. However, unlike these primary metals which form ores (a naturally occurring mineral or rock from which a useful substance can be easily extracted), rare earth elements are widely dispersed. Thus to be economically feasible they are generally mined as secondary products alongside primary metals such as iron and copper.

Over 90% of the world’s rare earth elements come from China where production monopolies, trade restrictions and illegal mining have caused prices to fluctuate dramatically over the years.

Reports from the US Department of Energy, European Union, and the US intelligence commission have labelled several rare earth elements as critical materials, based on their importance to clean energy, high supply risk, and lack of substitutes.

These reports encourage research and development into alternative mining methods to such as biomining as a potential mitigation strategy.

Heeding these calls, laboratories in Curtin, and Berkeley Universities have used microorganisms to dissolve common rare-earth-element-bearing minerals. These pilot scale studies have shown promising results, with extraction rates growing closer to those of conventional mining methods.

Because most electronics have a notoriously short lifespan and poor recyclability, laboratories are experimenting with “urban” biomining. For example, bioleaching studies have seen success in extracting rare earth elements from the phosphor powder lining fluorescent globes, and the use of microorganisms to recycle rare earth elements from electronic wastes such as hard drive magnets.

The rare earth elements are critical for the future of our technology. Biomining offers a way to obtain these valuable resources in a way that is both environmentally sustainable and economically feasible.