Demand for silicon from various industries, including semiconductor and computer chip manufacturers, has not only sent prices skyrocketing, but has also made wait times for solar panels prohibitively long. Couple that with the slow, meticulous method used to produce panels, and you get a coveted technology that's not particularly cheap or feasible, say executives at two new companies trying to make solar cheaper and more readily available.

In a Financial Times article, for instance, industry experts have warned that a worldwide shortage of polycrystalline silicon, used to make solar panels, will not ease in 2008, as some expected, but could continue for at least another five years.

Meanwhile, a Merrill Lynch report on solar panels cites recent transactions for the material, also known as polysilicon, at unsustainable prices of about $200 a kilogram, which is nearly 500 percent higher than in 2004.

Now CaliSolar, a start-up in Berkeley, Calif., plans to make solar panels from impure silicon. The technology is based on research from the University of California, Berkeley. Researchers at the school have come up with a way to make solar cells out of upgraded metallurgical silicon, which is less pure and less costly than the current industry standard of electrical-grade silicon, according to Roy Johnson, CaliSolar's chief executive officer.

CaliSolar isolates the impurities during manufacturing by coaxing them, through chemical and physical forces, to float to the top of a wafer, where they can be etched off.

Meanwhile, in Colorado, AVA Solar Inc. plans to begin using a new manufacturing method in late 2008 to mass-produce solar panels to reduce costs.

The production method is based on technology developed by W.S. Sampath, a mechanical engineering professor at Colorado State University in Fort Collins.

Sampath has developed a continuous, automated manufacturing pro-cess for solar panels that use glass coated with a cadmium telluride thin film instead of the standard polycrystalline silicon.

The cost to the consumer could be as low as $2 per watt, about half the current cost of traditional solar panels, according to Sampath.

Bulletproof vests can't actually repel the force of bullets. Instead, they absorb the force, which can still gravely injure the wearer in the process.

New research in carbon nanotechnology, however, could be used to create jackets that bullets bounce off of without a trace of damage, according to engineers from the Center for Advanced Materials Technology at the University of Sydney in Australia. A nanotube is a one-atom-thick sheet of graphite rolled into a cylinder held together by a strong chemical bond.

Nanotubes bind together into a strong rope because of the Van der Waals force they share. The Van der Waals force is the weak attraction that molecules have for one another when they are brought close together.

Researchers said they've found a way to use the elasticity of carbon nanotubes not only to stop bullets from penetrating material but also to actually rebound their force, said Kausala Mylvaganam, a lead researcher on the project.

ASME was a cosponsor with several other professional organizations of a recent Congressional briefing on alternative gasoline. The briefing, called "Green Gasoline: An Alternative Alternate Fuel," was held in conjunction with the House Congressional Research and Development Caucus. Other sponsoring organizations were the United Engineering Foundation, American Institute of Chemical Engineers, American Society of Civil Engineers, American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical and Petroleum Engineers, and IEEE-USA.

One of the principal speakers, John Regalbuto, director of the catalysis and biocatalysts engineering program of the National Science Foundation, discussed growing demand for renewable fuels in the United States.

Randy Cortwright, a co-founder of Virent Energy Systems, spoke about the company's work to develop alternative gasoline and other fuels.

Lisa Myers, director of biofuels R&D at ConocoPhillips, discussed research to develop alternative fuels.

The briefing was moderated by Dale Keairns, president-elect of AIChE.

A video of the briefing is available for viewing on the ASME Web site at http://www.asme.org/Communities/Technical/
Energy/Public_Policy.cfm. There is also a link to the video on ASME's home page: www. asme.org.

A consulting and software company, International TechneGroup Inc. of Milford, Ohio, is conducting a study to determine best practices in new product development. The company says it will attempt to establish measures for performance with regard to the speed, efficiency, costs, success, and profit and loss associated with introducing new products.

The company lists seven areas to be covered: product planning and marketing; project management; product development organization; design; engineering; manufacturing; and information technology and infrastructure.

According to ITI, companies that participate will receive a summary of the results at no charge that benchmarks their practices against industry average and best-in-class levels. They will also receive a report detailing where new product development process improvement can be focused.

The study is an online survey over a secure Web site. According to ITI's chief executive officer, Mike Benzakein, the study originated in Japan and is now being expanded into North America. Participants include Toyota, Hitachi, Sony, Toshiba, and Mitsubishi.

ITI asks companies that are interested in learning more to contact Doug Smithson at (800) 783-9199 or by e-mail at djs@iti-global.com. Information is also available at the company's Web site, www.iti-global.com.

Parker Hannifin Corp.'s Parker Aerospace unit has acquired Shaw Aero Devices Inc., a producer of aerospace components and equipment. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Based in Naples, Fla., Shaw Aero Devices was founded in 1956 and has 250 employees. The company, which invented patented safety-lock, flush-mounted fuel and lightning-safe caps, also produces other caps and adapters, fuel system components, lubrication and hydraulic system equipment, and water and waste components for aerospace markets, including both commercial and military aircraft and their engines. The business had sales of $45 million in 2007.

Shaw Aero Devices will be integrated into Parker Aerospace's air and fuel division, headquartered in Irvine, Calif. The air and fuel division is a leading provider of aircraft fuel system components, aerial refueling equipment, high-temperature bleed air valves, turbine clearance control valves, air turbine starters, and aircraft fuel tank inerting systems and components. The division also has facilities in Tolleson, Ariz., and Guaymas, Mexico.

Parker Aerospace, an operating unit of Parker Hannifin Corp., designs, manufactures, and services flight control, hydraulic, fuel, and pneumatic components, systems, and related electronic controls for aerospace and other high-technology markets.

With annual sales exceeding $10 billion, Parker Hannifin is a diversified manufacturer of motion and control technologies and systems. It employs more than 57,000 people in 43 countries.

Carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants have been linked to global warming, but they have something else in common with weather as well: Everyone talks about them, but no one does much about them. That situation is about to change, however, with the announcement in November of a commercial-scale demonstration of a carbon capture and sequestration technology in Texas.

Technology for capturing carbon dioxide from flue gases has been demonstrated on a limited scale of a few megawatts, and results in those trials have been mixed, often imposing steep penalties on a plant's efficiency and operating costs.

Powerspan Corp. of Portsmouth, N.H., claims that its system, based on an aqueous ammonia solution, will avoid some of the problems of earlier technologies, which relied on monoethanolamine to capture CO₂. According to the company, the aqueous ammonia process has a higher rate of carbon capture, requires less energy to regenerate, and costs less than MEA systems. The CO₂ capture takes place after other pollutants, such as NO_x and mercury, are removed, and almost no ammonia is consumed during the carbon scrubbing process.

According to the company, some 90 percent of the CO₂ in the emissions stream can be removed this way.

The agreement between Powerspan and NRG Energy of Princeton, N.J., calls for retrofitting a coal-fired plant in Sugar Land, Texas, with a 125 MW CO₂ capture facility. Once removed from the flue gas, the CO₂ is expected to be piped to oil wells in the Houston area to enhance oil recovery. Around a million tons of CO₂ may be sequestered at the plant.

The facility in Sugar Land is slated to be operational by 2012. A smaller pilot project is scheduled to begin next year at a plant in Ohio.

The Babcock & Wilcox Co. has received a 220-megawatt coal-fired boiler and selective catalytic reduction system contract valued at more than $50 million. The order is for a new power plant to be owned by Public Power Generation Agency, a partnership of five public power utilities in Hastings, Neb. Babcock & Wilcox is based in Barberton, Ohio.

ArvinMeritor of Troy, Mich., announced that its Body Systems business unit within the light vehicle systems business group has been awarded new business to supply more than four million window regulator motors annually to Hyundai Motor Co. worldwide. The agreement will supply Hyundai's future models with ArvinMeritor's New Generation Motor II from January 2010 through January 2017.

Siemens PLM Software of Plano, Texas, has released its Teamcenter 2007 product lifecycle management software in China.

The Santa Clarita, Calif., office of Algor Inc. of Pittsburgh has expanded and now provides direct customer service to Algor users in California. Algor makes finite element analysis software.

home | features | breaking news | marketplace | departments | about ME back issues | ASME | site search

© 2007 by The American Society of Mechanical Engineers