Underscoring president Obama’s commitment to a sustained, comprehensive strategy to ensure a secure energy future for the USA, energy secretary Steven Chu has announced a $30 million research competition that will "engage [the] country’s brightest scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs in improving the performance and safety of energy storage devices, including hybrid energy storage modules being developed by the Department of Defense for military applications."
Through its Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E), the energy Department is funding the “Advanced Management and Protection of Energy-storage Devices” (AMPED) programme to seek out transformational, breakthrough energy storage technologies that are too risky for private-sector investment but "have the potential to translate science into quantum leaps in energy technology, form the foundation for entirely new industries, and have large commercial impacts."
Since president Obama launched ARPA-E in 2009, it has invested over $500 million in 12 programmes, which has resulted in about 180 groundbreaking projects. This latest announcement is the agency's third funding opportunity for 2012. The Department announced last year that eleven of its projects secured more than $200 million in outside private capital investment after initial funding from its programmes.
Specifically, AMPED technologies already in existence – two civil and three military – are said to have the potential to create a new generation of electric and hybrid-electric vehicles, enhance the efficiency and reliability of the US electricity grid, increase the fuel efficiency of military generators, improve the reliability of military aircraft generators and enable next generation high power weapons systems and fuel efficient operations for naval vessels.
Linkedin
