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Kamath expects the cost of large-format Lithium-ion (for electric vehicles and utility-scale storage) to drop to $250 per kilowatt-hour. Jonathan Howes, the Chief Technical Officer of U.K. start-up Isentropic Energy, is out to prove otherwise.  Howes is claiming large-scale storage costs that are an order of magnitude lower than Lithium-ion batteries or other stored energy technologies — $55 per kilowatt-hour currently, with a path to get down to $8 per kilowatt-hour.
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Saudi Arabia must be “very serious” about any possible peak in oil demand, which is an “alarm” for OPEC’s biggest exporter to diversify its economy, a Saudi Oil Ministry adviser said. Saudi Arabia is making a push into renewable energy and is starting its first carbon-capture project, Oil Ministry adviser Mohammad al-Sabban said today at the Jeddah Economic Forum. The country will start injecting carbon dioxide into Ghawar, the world’s largest oilfield, in 2012, he said.

“Talk of oil demand peaking is an alarm to speed up the economic diversification process,” al-Sabban said. “The challenges facing Saudi Arabia are huge: we need to develop Saudis in order to be innovative, creative, to catch up with the rest of the world.” The world’s largest oil producer is investing in new industries such as aluminum and steel and pushing for more science and technology in education as it seeks to diversify away from dependence on income from exporting crude oil. More than 25 percent of the kingdom’s youth are unemployed.

Oil demand in some developed industrialized nations is contracting, partly as a result of the economic slowdown. Those concerns are different from “peak oil” theorists who say oil production has already reached maximum levels and will inevitably decline.
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Thin-film silicon PV cells are garnering attention because they use just 1% the amount of silicon material required for crystalline silicon PV cells, which helps to save resources as well as reduce costs. Although thin-film silicon PV cells are lower in photoelectric conversion efficiency than crystalline silicon PV cells, their lower product costs offer benefits for midsized and large industrial PV systems, such as those used in factories, electric power utilities and municipalities. In addition to expected growth in these fields, there is great upside potential in other fields if their efficiency can be improved in the coming years. Multi-junction layers offer an efficient way of raising conversion efficiency in thin-film silicon PV cells because each layer absorbs different wavelengths of sunlight. It is extremely difficult, however, to adjust the characteristics of each layer in the multi-junction structure, so most thin-film silicon PV cells today are only single or double layered.

Mitsubishi Electric, however, has met a technological breakthrough to achieve 14.8% photoelectric conversion efficiency, according to its own evaluation, by using a triple-junction configuration in which the first layer absorbs short wavelengths and the third layer absorbs long wavelengths, thereby enabling the use of a wide solar spectrum from visible light to infrared rays. Key technologies that help to make this possible include: + Semiconductor materials that tune to a particular frequency of the spectrum

+ High-quality film-deposition processing for each layer + Texture fabrication applied to transparent electrodes for optimal confinement of sunlight
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This week, British Airways announced that it is partnering with U.S.-based Solena Group to build the first European commercial plant that will produce jet fuel from municipal solid waste streams like food scraps, grass, and tree cuttings, as well as agricultural and industrial waste.
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What is striking about the BA announcement is the size. Solena will annually convert 500,000 tons of waste into 16 million gallons of jet biofuels.
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Solena’s technology involves feeding waste streams into a large plasma reactor whose arc torches heat the biomass to 5000 degrees Celsius. The biomass is then transformed into a syngas that is a combination of hydrogen and carbon monoxide.  After the syngas is cooled and cleaned of its particulates, it is transformed into jet fuel via an undisclosed “advanced Fischer-Tropsch” technology.  Although Solena has been mum on which catalysts it will use to convert the syn gas into jet fuel, the most common F-T catalysts are derived from iron, cobalt, nickel, and ruthenium.
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