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Stanford study quantifies energetic costs of grid-scale energy storage over time; current batteries the worst performers; the need to improve cycle life by 3-10x

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Only about 3% currently is generated from wind, solar, hydroelectric and other renewable sources, with most of the electricity produced in the United States currently coming from coal- and natural gas-fired power plants, followed by nuclear according to data from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA).

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Sandia progressing to demo stage with supercritical CO2 Brayton-cycle turbines; up to 50% increase in efficiency of thermal-to-electric conversion

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—principal investigator Steve Wright of Sandia’s Advanced Nuclear Concepts group. MPa enable the system to operate with very high thermal efficiency, exceeding even those of a large coal-generated power plant and nearly twice as efficient as that of a gasoline engine (about 25%). Wright et al. SAND2010-0171 ). 2009.03.017.

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US DOE Issues Request for Information on Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Market Development; Reports to Congress on Program

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Developing and demonstrating a novel cryo-compressed tank concept. Improving hydrogen-from-coal technologies, including developing membranes for separation and purification that show the potential, at laboratory scale, to achieve the 2010 technical targets for flux (200 ft 3 /hr/ft 2 ). wt%, which exceeds the 2010 system target of 4.5

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