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General Motors is looking ahead to next-generation battery packs that are lighter and have a longer life.

The Detroit automaker and LG Chem, today announced a new licensing agreement to use Argonne National Laboratory's patented composite cathode material for lithium ion battery packs for the Volt.

With funding from the U.S. Department of Energy, Argonne has developed a suite of lithium ion battery inventions and patents that will reduce price and improve performance for the next-gen battery systems.

Cathy Zoi, acting undersecretary of energy and assistant secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, said the DOE has been … Read more

The Department of Energy announced yesterday that it's interested in funding more fuel cell research and development projects, as well as cost analysis studies for fuel cell manufacturing and use.

To that end the federal agency is offering a total of $74 million in funding, with $65 million going toward research and development, and $9 million going toward cost analysis studies. The funds are available to either academic or corporate laboratories with applications for the research and development funding due by March 3, 2011, and those for fuel cell cost analysis studies due by February 18, 2011.

It's … Read more

Grants for renewable energy projects are part of a planned tax bill being brokered in Washington, but incentives for manufacturing are not included and clean-energy research spending will remain flat at best, according to reports.

Even though corn ethanol subsidies have increasingly come under fire, the Senate is expected to vote on a tax deal on Monday that includes an extension to a 45 cents per gallon tax credit for blenders, reports E2 Wire today. A 54 cent per gallon import tariff, designed to protect the U.S. corn ethanol industry, was also extended through 2011.

Over the past few … Read more

LEXINGTON, Mass.--Energy Secretary Steven Chu toured tiny solar company 1366 Technologies here today, holding it up as an example of success in the ARPA-E program and the importance of federal funding for energy research.

Chu toured the labs of 1366 Technologies, a company spun out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2008 to bring the price of solar power down to the price of coal, after briefing incoming members of Congress at the Harvard Kennedy School of government in nearby Cambridge.

1366 Technologies received a $4 million grant from the ARPA-E program, which enabled it to attract private capital … Read more

The Department of Energy has confirmed that MiaSole's thin-film photovoltaic solar modules have reached an efficiency of 15.7 percent, the company announced today.

That is an efficiency improvement of more than 1 percent since last year when the company was given a 14.3 percent efficiency rating from the DOE's 's National Renewable Energy Laboratory, according to MiaSole.

Solar panel efficiency ratings signify how much power one gets out of a solar panel per square inch, something obviously of great interest to companies and consumers evaluating which solar panels to purchase for projects.

Santa Clara, Calif.-based … Read more

Look at who's logging supercomputing time these days and you are likely to get a glimpse of some major innovations on the horizon.

The U.S. Department of Energy announced today it has just granted the largest award ever of the department's supercomputing time through it's Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE) program, now in it's sixth year.

The large award, a total of 1.7 billion hours distributed over 57 projects, was partially attributed to the fact that the Energy Department has been expanding its supercomputing capacity, and, therefore, simply has the means to grant more time. But it also reflects a growing interest in using computer modeling now that it has increased in sophistication, according to the Energy Department.

The INCITE program is somewhat like the lottery in that everyone has a chance. The Energy Department has an open application process in which any scientist, whether working in the academic or commercial world, is welcome to submit a request to win supercomputing hours, and it's not restricted to energy-related science.

The winning hours are divided between two supercomputers, the IBM Blue Gene/P supercomputer at Argonne National Laboratory aka "Intrepid," and the Cray XT5 supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory aka "Jaguar," which recently lost its first place status to China's Tianhe-1A as the world's most powerful supercomputer.

Among these latest 57 recipients, are large companies like Boeing and General Electric that are going to use the time for sophisticated modeling of potential designs for jet engines and wind turbines, respectively. There are also the climate change and earthquake prediction simulation projects, as one might expect.

Most interesting to the energy sector perhaps is the Lithium/Air Battery Project led by Jack Wells, group leader of the Computational Nanotechnology Group at the Center for Engineering Science Advanced Research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. His team will be running simulations of lithium/air battery reactions. A successful version of the air battery would be capable of storing 10 times the amount of energy as a lithium ion battery of the same weight. Such a battery might make electric cars more competitive compared to gas-powered cars since it would offer greater driving range on a single charge than current models.… Read more

Energy Secretary Steven Chu today warned that "time is running out" for the U.S. to be the global leader in clean-energy technologies because China and other countries are racing ahead.

Chu gave a speech at the National Press Club where he suggested that the U.S. is reaching a "Sputnik moment" where political leaders and the general population will realize how the U.S. has fallen behind other countries in science and technology.

In 1957, the Soviet Union launched the first satellite to orbit the Earth, one of the seminal moments in launching the government-led … Read more

The Toyota Prius has nabbed the top spot once again on the U.S. government's guide to fuel efficient cars.

Earning a rating of 51 miles per gallon for city driving and 48 mpg on the highway, the 2011 Toyota Prius was named the most fuel efficient vehicle by the Fuel Economy Guide 2011, which is produced jointly by the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency.

The Ford Fusion Hybrid, the Mercury Milan Hybrid, and the Lincoln MKZ Hybrid tied for second place with all of them getting a fuel efficiency rating of 41 city mpg and 36 … Read more

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced Wednesday his agency would be directing more than $5 million in grants to wind energy projects.

About $1.8 million will go toward wind turbine manufacturing development, and $3.4 million of that grant money will go toward wind forecasting.

On the surface that may sound like a frivolous spending choice best left to a wet finger, but the Department of Energy says it's something that could save utilities a lot of money long-term and make wind a more reliable source of alternative energy.

The technology under development would predict fluctuations in wind surges in relation to affected wind turbines … Read more