Altair Nanotechnologies, a Nevada company that makes high-powered battery systems, has completed validation testing of a two-megawatt, 500 kilowatt-hour battery system that holds real promise in the effort to find a way to store energy and feed it in reliable increments to the nation’s electrical grid.
The system, purchased by AES Corp., was tested at a substation owned by Indianapolis Power & Light.
Developers hail it as a big step toward commercial deployment of grid-scale energy storage systems.
If things stay on track, the system could help utilities move toward greater use of wind and solar power generation. A summary of the validation report tells how they did it.
Donald Mitchell, author of the much-hyped Guardian report blaming ethanol for 75 percent of the increase in the price of food, tells the Wall Street Journal that’s not exactly how it is.
Mitchell said the report was not top secret, was out in April and was one of a number of opinions in working papers that are undergoing peer review. It’s kind of “on the far edge” he said.
Ya think?
T. Boone Pickens weighs in this morning on the future of crude oil prices. Anyone shocked that Pickens – accurately described in the article as an oil investor – attributes the run-up to supply and demand?
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to write the following sentence on the Eagle newsroom blackboard 100 times, “I will not badmouth the electronic media for lazy oil price reporting.”
In the spirit of full disclosure, it should be pointed out here that Pickens is, shall we say, an avid financial supporter of Oklahoma State University. Your friendly writer here is not, shall we say, an avid supporter of anything remotely related to Oklahoma State University. To quote Forrest Gump, “And that’s all I’ve got to say about that.”
After a bit of a hiatus, things are percolating here again at Coffee Break headquarters. For those of you new to the scene, here’s the scoop: We search our Internet high and low for stories that might interest all of you Business Casual readers. And if you see something you like, send the link to me at dloving@wichitaeagle.com and we’ll include it. We’ll have the links up by about 10:30 or so in the morning.
And away we go:
- The New York Times looks into Kansas-based Sprint’s efforts to win back customers.
- Reuters says a newspaper in France is reporting that Airbus is going to launch an A320 successor in 2014 and put the new planes into service around 2018.
- USA Today has a story on T. Boone Pickens’ plan for making the energy crisis the No. 1 topic in this year’s presidential campaign. His Web site, www.pickensplan.com, went live today.
- European officials are reconsidering their use of biofuels, the New York Times says.
- Former KAKE newsie Beth Jett has landed in the anchor’s chair at a Fox station in Duluth, Minn. She has been a reporter in Minneapolis.
- In case you missed the reference to it in Carrie Rengers’ column today, be sure to check out the story from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that extols Wichita’s virtues as a travel destination. Yes, you read that correctly.
Have I got a suggestion for the Wichita City Council as they revive their search for a new city manager: Gene Stephenson. If anyone knows about the perils of cold feet, it’s Gene.
Carl Brewer, my number’s at the bottom of two stories on today’s business page. Or maybe there’s a reason I’m not on the city manager search committee …
Anyway, heard a brief discussion on the radio this morning that interested me. A caller was irate over the city’s willingness to loan Bill Warren money while at the same time being unwilling to give several million dollars to the proposed Broadview Hotel deal.
It’s criticism that seems to keep popping up. Still not sure I understand the logic behind it, with gifts and loans being different animals.
So explain it to me. If you’ve got an opinion, why was the proposed Broadview handout a better deal than the Old Town Warren loan?