Local Tech Companies Nominated for Awards

It’s almost May, and you know what that means:  The NewVa Corridor Technology Council has announced a list of companies nominated for the various awards handed out at the annual awards banquet.  You can find a link to the NCTC website to register for the awards ceremony here.

Awards are handed out in the categories of Rising Star, Educator, Entrepreneur, Leadership, and Innovation.  Sometimes they hand out another special award for a local technology leader whose contributions don’t fit exactly into any of the single categories.  It’s a fun networking opportunity and a chance to reward the technology leaders who help drive the local economy.  This year it will be at the Hotel Roanoke, in beautiful downtown…er, …..Roanoke.

The list of nominees is provided by the local newspaper here.

Now, a comment about the NCTC name.  I liked it better before, when it was the New Century Technology Council.  Apparently they decided that once the New Century had cut it’s first teeth, it would seem passe’ to keep that reference.  So instead, they decided to use the terribly expensive “NewVA” brand (I don’t know who paid for it, or who came up with it – it wasn’t the NCTC as far as I know, but a regional re-branding.).  NewVA is sort of short for New Virginia, as if Old Virginia would be something distasteful, or old fashioned, maybe.  I’m not going to gripe about it too much, except to note that “NewVA Corridor Technology Council” does not roll off the tongue as smoothly as “New Century Technology Council”.

Death of the power grid?

Whoa, check out this story about the installation of apparently feasible fuel cell power for a significant customer:  Server for cleaner energy unveiled.

Actually, multiple customers, including Google, eBay, Bank of America, Staples, Coca-Cola and WalMart.  Seriously!  (Note:  even though I am an SEO whore, I refuse to link back to the websites of these companies, not that they would notice one way or the other.)

Fuel cells are not new, so what’s all the hubbub, bub?  Well, even though the technology has been making progress toward commercial goals (meaning lower cost), the equation has not been favorable for broad adoption.  But Bloom Energy, whose CEO K R Sridhar was featured on this week’s 60 Minutes, seems to have been able to convert their $400 million investment into a winning product.

One of the problems with large scale power generation is transmission losses.  Power generated in Virginia, for example, goes onto the grid and is distributed to the users from there.  Of course it works, but if the power could be generated on the site where it is to be consumed, at least the costs and losses associated with transmission lines could be eliminated.  And of course, we have been worried for years about attacks on our increasingly ‘smart’, and therefore vulnerable, grid.  On a hot summer day, a transformer going offline in Miami can take out part of the power system in New England.  It’s a carefully balanced beast that does not have nearly as much redundancy built in as should be required for such an important service.

Bloom Energy’s units are about the size of a car, and can be arranged in modules for easy increases in generation as demand increases.  Plus, they are much cleaner than, for example, coal-fired power plants, since they can utilize green fuels.

So, it looks like our power problems are solved, right?

Meh, I don’ t know.  After all, this is coming out of Silicon Valley, the same folks who brought you the dot-com bubble whose burst created an economic mess that is still being cleaned up ten years later.  As mentioned in the article, “the market will separate fact from fiction, and will prove claims versus reality”.

I hope it works.  Competitively priced electric power generated locally using green fuels and distributed without the need for landscape blighting high tension power lines cutting broad swaths across my forest covered mountains, has to be a good thing, right?

Free lunch?

I know there is not supposed to be any such thing as a free lunch, but maybe chemist Karen Brewer has reduced the price considerably.

Over the past few years the ever increasing cost of gasoline, coupled with the increased scrutiny of possible changes in global climate that may be a result of man-made acivities, has once again focused our national attention on alternative sources of power, or at least alternative fuels.

I’ll take a look at some new technology for producing fuels from plant matter and such at a later time, but right now I want to look into the generation of hydrogen from sunlight.

Hydrogen can be used as a fuel for two major power generating schemes.  First, there are hydrogen burning engines.  As the name implies, these are essentially internal combustion engines that burn hydrogen instead of gasoline.  Prototypes of these  vehicles are being tested now in some places, such as this bus in Iceland and the Ford P2000 automobile.  Then there are vehicles that utilize electric drive powered by hydrogen fuel cells, which combine hydrogen and oxygen to produce electricity and waste water, as demonstrated in this fuel cell bus.

One of the bigger problems associated with hydrogen power is….well….where do you get the hydrogen?  Normally, hydrogen is produced by hydrolysis, that is by passing an electric current through water and breaking it down into hydrogen and oxygen.  But the electricity has to come from somewhere, so if you use fossil fuels to generate the electricity to generate the hydrogen, it begins to look like you are not really gaining anything.  Every time you convert energy from one form to another, you lose a little in the conversion.  So, while the burning of hydrogen is much better environmentally than burning fossil fuels, if you have to burn fossil fuel to generate the hydrogen, you still lose.

Another way to generate electricity is to use solar cells.  Sunlight falls on silicon photovoltaic cells which then produce electric current, and that can in turn be used to generate hydrogen via hydrolysis.  Of course, the solar cells have their own problems, so that efficiency thing comes back to get you.  No free lunch here.

To get around this problem, chemist Karen Brewer has figured out a way to generate hydrogen directly from sunlight.  No solar cells, no algae gardens, just plain old sunlight.

For many years Brewer has been researching how to use materials and catalysts to break molecules apart.  She has been experimenting with certain molecules that essentially perform a function like photosynthesis, except in reverse.  Instead of using light to put molecules together, she uses light to break them apart.  By adding some of her materials into a water solution, and then shining light on it, she can directly break the water molecules apart into hydrogen and oxygen without using electricity.  If you want to know more, read all the geeky details in these papers from her research group.

So, of course her work is in its early stages, but it promises to provide a pathway for more efficient hydrogen generation by eliminating the need for electrical current, which is a good thing.  Maybe not a free lunch, but at least a cheaper one.

Energy Innovations

Virginia Tech is committed to research and education that provides solutions for the Nation’s energy needs.  In 2006, the Deans’ Task Force on Energy Security and Sustainability was formed to assist with university-level efforts in energy research.  These efforts include assisting faculty members with the preparation of large grant proposals in research areas related to energy security and sustainability, seeking partnerships that position Virginia Tech as a national and international leader in areas of expertise, and  coordinating campus-wide events, such as a speaker series and community engagement activities.

The university has a long history of producing innovations in the areas of alternative fuels, energy production, and many related technologies.  One example is the recovery of waste coal through a novel cleaning and dewatering process developed by Dr. R-H Yoon in the department of Mining and Minerals Engineering.  Using this process, billions of tons of coal that have been considered mining waste for decades can now become a low-cost energy source.

For more information on this technology, or to inquire about licensing opportunities, contact Michael Miller using the subject VTIP 10-074, via the VTIP link to the right.