By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Tue, 2009-10-06 05:30
Focus on PV, CCS, nuclear, hydrogen, biomass, and energy storage
In August, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced the delivery of $377 million in funding for 46 new Energy Frontier Research Centres. The centres will be hosted by universities, national laboratories, non-profit organisations, and private companies. The research domains that were chosen offer a good sampling of those technologies the US Department of Energy (DOE) sees as potentially important in the energy landscape of the future. The funded projects are focussed on:
- Improving the efficiency of photovoltaic systems; with particular projects dedicated to hybrid inorganic/organic PV cells and nanometre-sized PV cells
- Advanced nuclear techniques
- Carbon capture and geological storage (CCS)
- Hydrogen, including the production of hydrogen as well as hydrogen fuel cells
- Biomass, including energy-rich plants and the conversion of biomass into chemicals and fuels
- Energy storage systems
- Superconductivity (1 project)
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