ARPA-E is investing in moonshot energy ideas that are so audacious, they might just change how we power our society.
Batteries made with chemicals that we mine from rhubarb plants, rather than expensive metals taken out of the earth. Magnets that clip onto electrical lines and reroute electrons. Solar panels that work efficiently even when they get hot or are shaded. These are just a few of the advanced energy research projects in the works that could bring the promise of a future electricity grid that is decentralized, resilient, and less carbon-heavy closer to a reality.
All are projects of ARPA-E, a young federal agency created just five years ago as the U.S. Department of Energy’s analog to DARPA, the military’s research agency that funds the development of mind-reading science, cyborgs, and deadly robots. Similarly, ARPA-E’s mission is to fund big, risky ideas in energy that might have trouble otherwise getting off the ground because they haven’t been proven to work yet. This year, it had a $280 million annual budget (still small compared to the overall $5 billion budgeted for the Energy Department’s Office of Science). It has funded a total 362 projects since its beginning.
“We’re trying to take really crazy ideas … and we get it from the impossible to the plausible. That’s an important place. Once people think it’s plausible, then they can decide they want to step up and put some money to do a demonstration,” says acting director Cheryl Martin.
“We’ve taken the idea of taking big chances from being unacceptable to acceptable. Failure is becoming part of the process,” Martin says.
The Latest on: ARPA-E
via Google News
The Latest on: ARPA-E
- Oak Ridge Project Receives ARPA-E Energy Storage Projects To Advance Electric Vehicle, Grid Technologieson May 9, 2020 at 5:00 pm
These projects are supported through two new ARPA-E programs -- Advanced Management and Protection of Energy Storage Devices (AMPED) and Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) – and will ...
- Sequoia, MIT, Scripps to Develop Instrument for Monitoring Impact of Deep Sea Miningon May 6, 2020 at 8:31 pm
SBIR grant from the US Department of Energy's (DoE) Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) to develop novel environmental instrument technology that will monitor key elements of suspended ...
- Lehigh University team awarded $2.5 million from ARPA-Eon May 6, 2020 at 4:06 am
The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) of the U.S. Department of Energy announced that an interdisciplinary faculty team at Lehigh University's Institute for Cyber Physical ...
- BU-led interdisciplinary team awarded $3 Million from ARPA-Eon May 4, 2020 at 10:24 pm
Boston University was awarded $3 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) for an academic-industry research collaboration that will be ...
- Federal funds allotted to develop ultrahigh-temperature materials for gas turbineson April 30, 2020 at 2:14 pm
Gas turbines currently produce an estimated 35% of the electricity generated in the U.S. and improving their efficiency will broaden opportunities to increase energy savings and lower carbon emissions ...
- CVD MesoScribe Awarded ARPA-E Grant in Collaboration with Penn State Universityon April 26, 2020 at 3:54 pm
Before it's here, it's on the Bloomberg Terminal.
- As the coronavirus interrupts global supply chains, people have an alternative – make it at homeon April 24, 2020 at 5:22 am
The rush to make personal protective equipment like facemasks and face shields using 3D printers shows that the technology can help circumvent global supply chain disruptions.
- Ideal Power Inc. Announces First Quarter 2015 Resultson March 30, 2020 at 5:00 pm
Revenue consisted primarily of sales of our 30kW battery converter. The ARPA-E grant program was fully funded in 2014 and, as a result, 2015 revenues are expected to be entirely product related.
- ARPA-Eon August 9, 2019 at 11:29 pm
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- ARPA-Eon August 4, 2018 at 4:26 am
The overarching goal of this project is to develop and implement the control technologies aimed at maximizing the energy efficiency of a 2016 Audi A3 e-tron plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) ...
via Bing News