The London REE Report
Saturday, October 22, 2011
The term energy revolution sounds light and airy enough, but how do human beings manage to wrest electricity from the sea? Germanys largest offshore wind farm, a power plant surrounded by a hostile environment, produces 12 times as much energy as the worlds first nuclear power plant. While the REE world tries to figure out the state
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Domestic Chinese demand for rare earths has increased as much as 200 percent in the last 12 months, with almost half of that increase coming since the start of the year, Liu said. Through the middle of last year, I along with many others, complacently assumed that China would eventually turn from exporter of REEs to importer,
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Kinect brings games and entertainment to life in extraordinary new ways without using a controller. Imagine controlling movies and music with the wave of a hand or the sound of your voice. With Kinect, technology evaporates, letting the natural magic in all of us shine. While I get myself organised after my trip to Toronto, and the
Tuesday, March 01, 2011
Time to touch on a couple of items held over from February. BMW is moving into Electric Vehicles on sale from 2013, and opening its own “mobility” venture capital company in New York. The next generation of 3D, 3G and 4G I-phones and gaming platforms has just been announced. Seems to me that BMW sees a rapid
Saturday, February 26, 2011
SolarPVT™ was developed using a highly efficient thermal panel, which was specifically designed to generate hot water in cooler climates. Naked energy added photovoltaic (electric) cells to enable the panel to generate both electricity and hot water, unlike traditional panels which only produce the latter. Earlier in the month the awards for Shell Oil UK’s “Shell Springboard
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
But a victory is likely to pave the way for the US to file a separate WTO complaint on the rare-earths policy, trade analysts said. Last Friday the Wall Street Journal ran an article stating that the World Trade Organisation was about to issue a preliminary finding concluding that China had no legal right to impose export
Continue reading "The London REE Report: WTO v China & Raw Materials." »
Monday, February 21, 2011
SAN FRANCISCO – Friday, February 18, 2011 – ECOtality, Inc. (NASDAQ:ECTY), a leader in clean electric transportation and storage technologies, announced today it would host four informational forums throughout Tennessee to educate businesses on how to become electric vehicle (EV) ready. The forums will provide updates on The EV Project, the largest rollout of electric vehicles and
Continue reading "The London REE Report: Gearing Up for EVs" »
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
And, to absorb the large swings in generation provided by wind and solar projects in the Great Plains, Texas and the Desert Southwest, Tres Amigas aims to install utility-scale batteries, a still-developing area of technology. The EU has long had a plan to integrate the differing national power grids into something approaching a continental sized power grid.
Continue reading "The London REE Report: Interconnecting Three US Grids." »
Monday, February 14, 2011
“Sony Ericson’s XperiaPlay – dubbed the “Playstation Phone” – caused the biggest stir. The handset embeds the familiar layout of a Playstation controller and will appeal to millions of game fans around the world.” The Times. February 14, 2011. It’s the Mobile World Congress week in Barcelona, Monday through Thursday, that’s as in cell phones. etc., not
Continue reading "The London REE Report: The Mobile World Congress." »
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Chinas rare earth reserves only account for a third in the world but China supplies more than 90% of rare earths globally -- thats obviously not sustainable, a ministry official was quoted as saying. With all eyes on Friday watching events in Cairo and nervously watching the crude oil price for any signs of panic buying entering
Continue reading "The London REE Report: China Tightens Again." »
Friday, February 11, 2011
In order to develop next-generation electric vehicles, solar energy systems, and other clean energy technologies, researchers need an efficient way to store the energy. One of the key energy storage devices for these applications and others is a supercapacitor, also called an electric double-layer capacitor. In a recent study, scientists have investigated the possibility of using a
Continue reading "The London REE Report: Electric Double Layer Capacitors" »
Wednesday, February 09, 2011
Building a taxi to meet the Taxi and Limousine Commissions Taxi of Tomorrow requirements demands a lot of design and engineering creativity. Karsan’s Hexagon Studio design and engineering group, along with the engineers and designers at Karsan’s headquarters, have generated a response that satisfied all of the TLCs RFP requirements. Not only does the Karsan V1 satisfy
Continue reading "The London REE Report: A Tale of Two Taxis." »
Monday, February 07, 2011
An exotic new superconductor based on the element ytterbium displays unusual properties that could change how scientists understand and create materials for superconductors and electronics. In a paper published Jan. 21 in the journal Science, University of Tokyo and Rutgers University researchers report that this material, beta-YbAlB4, can reach a point where seemingly contradictory electrical and magnetic
Friday, February 04, 2011
An electron has a magnetic field attached - the so-called spin. One can imagine that all electrons carry around a little bar magnet. In flat graphite layers the small bar magnets point in random directions. By bending the atom thin graphite layer into a tube with a diameter of just a few nanometers the individual electrons are
Continue reading "The London REE Report: The Latest Advances in Carbon" »
Sunday, January 30, 2011
The cost of generating power from solar photovoltaic systems has steadily fallen over the last 10 years while the projected costs of constructing the new nuclear plants have ballooned. Slightly off message this morning, since nuclear is still the new “in thing” for base power supply in most of the “BRICs”, Brazil, Russia, India, and China. Well
Continue reading "The London REE Report: Solar PV Now Cheaper Than Nuclear." »
Thursday, January 27, 2011
By the end of 2010, 30% of all new devices sold in the United States were smartphones. That number is only going to go up. Nielsen predicts that by the end of 2011, fully 50% of all phones -- about 120 million devices -- used in the United States will be smartphones. Today we take our first
Continue reading "The London REE Report: The Rise and Rise of 4G Networks." »
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Beyond the issues of trade and jobs, solar power experts see broader implications. They say that after many years of relying on unstable governments in the Middle East for oil, the United States now looks likely to rely on China to tap energy from the sun. Today, this month’s news in solar developments. A big step forward
Continue reading "The London REE Report: Graphene for Solar" »
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Yuan said Chinalco signed a memorandum of understanding with Guangxi Nonferrous Metals Group in late December to develop rare earths in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region to bolster reserves. The central government has indicated that it wants large companies to lead the consolidation of the countrys rare earths sector. ----Yuan said Chinalco is also talking with local
Continue reading "The London REE Report: A New Chinese Entrant" »
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Sea water, which is 832 times denser than air, gives a 5 knot ocean current more kinetic energy than a 350 km/h wind; therefore ocean currents have a very high energy density. Hence a smaller device is required to harness tidal current energy than to harness wind energy. In the world of renewable energy, tidal projects have
Continue reading "The London REE Report: Tidal Renewable Update." »
Monday, January 17, 2011
The Chinese government is said to be looking to prepare at least 10 mn car parking spots for electric vehicles by 2020 in a new comprehensive policy due to be announced soon, a top executive at a local automaker said on Thursday. China relies on foreign oil for more than half of its oil consumption and is
Continue reading "The London REE Report: More on China’s BEV Future." »
Sunday, January 16, 2011
The Wall Street Journal reported earlier today that Toyota is developing motors that don’t use rare earth minerals. The carmaker revealed this week it’s also working on a magnesium-sulfur battery capable of holding twice the energy of lithium-ion cells. Electric vehicles will probably be big drivers of REE demand ahead, but not necessarily. We’d touched on Toyota’s
Continue reading "The London REE Report: EV Motors Explained" »
Thursday, January 13, 2011
However the beauty of electric motoring is that one worry is quickly overtaken by another. So it is that range anxiety is subsumed by charging post anxiety. Finding the post. Well admittedly the headline is misleading, but not being a twit on twitter, it was the best I could do to compress two different subjects into a
Continue reading "The London REE Report: More EV. Toyota and the BBC Challenge. " »
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
The investment nicely dovetails with the agendas of both companies. ABB is beefing up its portfolio as part of its effort to rival General Electric (GE), Siemens (SI) and Schneider Electric (SBGSF.PK) in the infrastructure market. (Collectively, they are the four horsemen of the smart grid.) What, I can hear readers ask is an ECOtality? It’s a
Continue reading "The London REE Report: ABB Invests in ECOtality." »
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
On the track the MINI accelerates with gusto and it is a unique experience to only have to modulate the accelerator to make turns through the autocross course. Fact is it probably made the electric the easiest car to drive fast, unless you were used to left foot braking techniques. The biggest different be it and the
Continue reading "The London REE Report: London To Edinburgh By EV Mini." »
Monday, January 10, 2011
Planar Energy has developed a game-changing technology for solid state batteries for electronics and automotive applications. Lithium ion battery technology has hit a wall - batteries need substantial cost reductions to be viable for energy demanding applications. Planars technology is superior to Li-Ion at less than half the cost per kWh, with three times the energy density.
Continue reading "The London REE Report: EV Battery Game Changer." »
Sunday, January 09, 2011
Ford will begin applying start-stop technology—currently used in Ford hybrids and some Ford cars in Europe—in conventional cars, crossovers and SUVs in North America in 2012. When Auto Start-Stop debuts in North America, it will be available on gasoline-powered cars and utilities with either a manual or automatic transmission as well as vehicles that use Ford’s patented
Continue reading "The London REE Report: GM Invests in Inductive Charging." »
Friday, January 07, 2011
The electric coaches now serving on the Mt. Namsan circular routes are 11.05 meters long and run up to 83 km (52 miles) with a single charge. They can be fully charged in less than 30 minutes with a high-speed battery charger. The electric bus, with a maximum speed of 100 km/h (62 mph), has a low
Continue reading "The London REE Report: Hybrids. The Bus vs The Porsche." »
Wednesday, January 05, 2011
As for many nations, energy security is an increasingly crucial element on Chinas national security agenda. As of 2009, over half of Chinas oil was imported, much from political and security hot spots around the world. Automobile fuel consumption now makes up over one-third of total Chinese fuel consumption and will likely reach over 50 percent of
Continue reading "The London REE Report: China’s Big BEV Bet." »
Tuesday, January 04, 2011
The Toyota Prius became the biggest selling car in Japan in 2009, and has remained in that position throughout 2010. Several other hybrid models also made the leader board. Hybrids went from about 8% of sales in 2009 to over 11% in 2010. Honda believes that hybrids will account for r 23% of the market by the
Continue reading "The London REE Report: Crude Oil, REEs – A Red Flag" »
Monday, January 03, 2011
Disappointingly, theres once again no mention of personal jet packs but $6 billion in research funding has lead to the possibility of batteries which would power a car for 500 miles on a single charge and breakthroughs in desalination technology which could make sea water fit for irrigation. Straddling the Christmas break, there were a couple of
Continue reading "The London REE Report: IBM’s “Future”. RIM’s “PlayBook”." »
Friday, December 31, 2010
Rogue operations in southern China produce an estimated half of the world’s supply of heavy rare earths, which are the most valuable kinds of rare earth metals. Heavy rare earths are increasingly vital to the global manufacture of a range of high-technology products — including iPhones, BlackBerrys, flat-panel televisions, lasers, hybrid cars and wind-power turbines, as well
Continue reading "The London REE Report: HRE China Crackdown." »
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Xingcheng Xiao, Ping Liu, John S. Wang, M.W. Verbrugge and Michael P. Balogh (2010) Vertically aligned graphene electrode for lithium ion battery with high rate capability. Electrochemistry Communications doi: 10.1016/j.elecom.2010.12.016 The big news today is the interpretation of yesterday’s release of China’s REE export quotas for the first half of 2011. With that subject well covered on
Continue reading "The London REE Report: Graphene and L-ion Batteries." »
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
As the deployment of grid-connected solar photovoltaic (PV) systems has increased, so too has the desire to track the installed cost of these systems over time and by location, customer type, system characteristics, and component. This report helps to fill this need by summarizing trends in the installed cost1 of grid-connected PV systems in the United States
Continue reading "The London REE Report: Solar – Prices Down, Demand Up." »
Sunday, December 26, 2010
The United Nations estimates that 1.5 billion people across the globe still live without electricity, including 85 percent of Kenyans, and that three billion still cook and heat with primitive fuels like wood or charcoal. In this season of goodwill, the NY Times has a story of Chinese made solar panels starting to make a difference in
Continue reading "The London REE Report: Making A Difference." »
Thursday, December 23, 2010
The intellectual property is owned by Hitachi Metals and by Magnequench, which is now part of AMR Technologies, a company based in Canada that was bought by a Chinese consortium in 1995. Molycorps Smith says that producing alloys for magnets could increase the companys profit margins by 125 percent. I have been following the lively and always
Continue reading "The London REE Report: Molycorp, Hitachi and China." »
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Meanwhile, Nextek Power Systems and conglomerates like Panasonic and Sharp are studying ways to bring DC to commercial buildings or homes so solar panels could directly power appliances or electric cars. A 380-volt DC charger can charge an electric car in 10 minutes, said Liang Downey, director of digital applications. A 220-volt AC charger needs five hours.
Continue reading "The London REE Report: Recharging EVs With DC." »
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Four-legged steel platforms rising from the seafloor will allow Deepwater Wind to operate in depths more than twice those of conventional steel monopole wind turbine platforms. As water depth increases, the diameter of monopoles must increase exponentially, making them uneconomical in water deeper than about 20 meters. By using a four-legged design, company officials say they will
Continue reading "The London REE Report: 1000 Megawatts of Wind" »
Monday, December 20, 2010
In 2009 alone, wind power installations accounted for 39% of new power installations in Europe and grew more than any other power-generating technology. Wind energy now represents 9% of the total EU installed power capacity. Today an update on the EU renewable wind industry. In the decade ahead, the EU is supposed to achieve a target of
Continue reading "The London REE Report: EU Wind 2010-2020." »
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Held over from last week was the news that Fisker Automotive has done a deal with China Grand Automotive to market their car in China, shipping to Chinese buyers in 2012. Why is this important to readers of this blog. Well I think the Fisker Karma is likely to be a big winner in the hybrid electric
Continue reading "The London REE Report: China Grand Auto + Fisker" »
Friday, December 17, 2010
The technically recoverable unproved shale gas resource is 827 trillion cubic feet (as of January 1, 2009) in the AEO2011 Reference case, 480 trillion cubic feet larger than in the Annual Energy Outlook 2010 (AEO2010) Reference case, reflecting additional information that has become available with more drilling activity in new and existing shale plays. The larger resource
Continue reading "The London REE Report: Time to be Prudent." »
Thursday, December 16, 2010
With their government-bestowed blessings, Chinese companies have flourished and now control almost half of the $45 billion global market for wind turbines. The biggest of those players are now taking aim at foreign markets, particularly the United States, where General Electric has long been the leader. When will China have to start importing rare earth elements to
Continue reading "The London REE Report: China – Reality." »
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
The Yo, which is expected to go on sale in Russia in mid-2012 and cost about $14,500, will have a top speed of 80 miles per hour and a range of 680 miles — if both its natural gas and gasoline tanks are filled Another day and another twist in the developing electric vehicle world, where everyone
Continue reading "The London REE Report: EVs: Russia v GB." »
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
In my post “Ultracaps And Buses”, readers Harvey and Tek commented “so.....what does all this have to do with rare metals?” Good question. I have replied in that posting, but think it important enough to post to the wider audience in this additional post. Not that I have any crystal ball to the future. In themselves they
Continue reading "The London REE Report: Ultracap Follow Up." »
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Although batteries have improved significantly in recent years, the cost of making them is the main the reason why hybrids cost thousands of dollars more than conventional vehicles. This is especially true of plug-in hybrids, which rely on large battery packs to supply all or most of the power during short trips. Battery packs are expensive in
Continue reading "The London REE Report: Ultracaps and Buses." »
Thursday, December 09, 2010
The report found that the clean energy sector continues to be an immense economic opportunity. G-20 members have the potential to gain an additional $546 billion in clean power project investments over the next decade compared to Business-as-usual. Under the Enhanced clean energy scenario, the projected $2.3 trillion investment in clean power projects would be equivalent to
Continue reading "The London REE Report: Clean Energy 2020." »
Wednesday, December 08, 2010
According to Reuters reports, Huang Huikang, the Chinese Foreign Ministrys envoy for climate change talks, confirmed the country was willing to see its voluntary emission goals included in an international treaty. We can create a resolution and that resolution can be binding on China, he said. Under the (UN Climate) Convention, we can even have a legally
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
Electric cars are virtually silent at speeds of up to 25 km/h (15.5 mph), which makes them hard to detect by pedestrians. Organizations for the blind worldwide therefore advocate giving quiet cars a unique sound; specifications or laws to this effect are already in place in the U.S.A. and Japan. Noise from the rolling of the tires
Continue reading "The London REE Report: The North Sea Grid" »
Monday, December 06, 2010
With the total electrode weight of a supercapacitor system being typically one-fourth to one-half of the total system weight, the system-level specific energy of graphene-based supercapacitors can exceed 21.4-42.8 Wh/kg, which is comparable to that of a modern nickel metal hydride battery used in a hybrid vehicle This morning an update on graphene supercapacitor development. I’m not
Continue reading "The London REE Report: Graphene Supercapacitor Development" »
Sunday, December 05, 2010
“Compared to a standard wind turbine with gearboxes we managed to reduce the number of parts in the new SWT -3.0-101 DD by half”, says Henrik Stiesdal, CTO of the Siemens Wind Power Business Unit. “With fewer moving parts, the direct drive technology has the potential to significantly reduce maintenance time, which could result in even higher
Continue reading "The London REE Report: Direct Drive Wind Turbines." »
Thursday, December 02, 2010
If you can see the Isle of Wight from Portsmouth, its going to rain. If you cant see it then its raining. Further north in Scotland they have 2 seasons: July and winter. Great Britainisn’t often thought of as a promising nation to site commercial solar parks in, all the more so as we freeze our way
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