Clean Energy Roundup: 11/11/11

DOE-MIT Search Engine Speeds Materials Research DOE Recognizes 2011 Sustainability Awards Winners NREL Wins 2011 GreenGov Presidential Award Ford, Chevy Introduce New Electric Cars Kansans Save $2.3 Million in Energy Challenge DOE-MIT Search Engine to Speed Materials Research "The Materials Project" is a new online tool developed by researchers at DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). It operates like a "Google" of material properties, enabling scientists and engineers from universities, national labs, and private industry to accelerate development of new materials. Discovering new materials and strengthening the properties of existing materials are key to improving just about everything humans use. Wind turbines, solar panels, and a variety of clean technologies depend on roughly 14 elements (including nine rare earth elements). With about 90% of these currently coming from China, there are concerns about potential supply shortages and disruptions. With the Materials Project, researchers can use supercomputers to characterize properties of inorganic compounds, including their stability, voltage, capacity, and oxidation state, which had previously not been possible. The results are then organized into a database that gives all researchers at DOE’s national labs free access. The database currently contains properties of more than 15,000 inorganic […]

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