Copper use in current and future applications

• EU Energy Policy To Be Reconsidered

  tags: trends, copper, Europe, energy

  • EU energy policy is a basket of a number of policies that are concerned with energy markets and energy issues. Since the 2007 Spring Council, the basket is based on three pillars: climate change, competitiveness and supply security. Let’s look separately and then jointly at the Kyoto, Lisbon and Moscow summits of this magic EU triangle.

• History Of Aluminium Wire - Marketing material

  tags: aluminium

  • In order to preserve future generations, the European aluminium industry is actively looking for solutions to manufacture aluminium wire and products with the environment in mind. Their focus is on sustainability, longevity and the preservation of our planet. You can play an active role by recycling where possible and making sure only the highest grade of aluminium is used for production by demanding quality when you buy.

• Pan Pacific Copper to Make Final Decision of Full-Fledged Development of Caserones Copper and Molybdenum Deposits in Chile

  tags: trends, copper, Mitsui

  • Mitsui
    Mining & Smelting Co., Ltd., has, since May 2006 when PPC acquired a mining concession, been conducting a feasibility study for the development of the Caserones copper and molybdenum deposits in Chile

• Energy News and Commentary: Think You Know What a ‘Green Job’ Is? Think Again

  tags: sustainability

  • So what is a green job? Well green jobs are architects and engineers that build buildings, design buildings that operate at extremely low energy use. They are people that design, manufacture, and install devices in buildings ranging from high-tech windows to lighting to sensors and controls and electronics. It means looking at radically new industrial processes which simply replace previous kinds of industrial manufacturing with sophisticated bionumetics and nanotech approaches, to cutting down the material intensity and energy intensity of production, this is the kind of thing you need to do to stay competitive in the modern world.

• Is Distributed Thermal Storage Next?

  tags: thermal, storage

  • Here’s one electricity storage technology that’s been around for over 20 years, under the radar, but might be due for a resurgence in interest with the addition of more wind power to the grid.  Wind tends to blow at night when we don’t need it.

• Antofagasta breaks ranks via lift in dividend

  tags: trends, copper, Antofagasta

  • Copper production, which reached 477,000 tonnes last year, will fall 9 per cent in 2009 – broadly in line with rivals’ cutbacks. However, it should rise to about 700,000 tonnes in 2011 after expansion work is completed at Los Pelambres, the company said.

• Xiangguang Copper may buy 15% stake in CuDeco

  tags: Xiangguang, trends, copper

  • Xiangguang Copper, a copper smelting unit of chicken supplier Shandong Fengxiang Group is planning to acquire a stake in Australian gold and copper miner CuDeco, to bolster its raw material supplies.

• The trouble with clean energy $ources

  tags: renewables

  • But there’s another concern with clean energy that should give us pause, especially in a difficult economy like the one we’re in right now … and that’s the fact that renewables (we’re including nuclear here as well) remain prohibitively expensive compared to our old, dirty and carbon spewing energy friends like coal.

• How to Build a Small-Scale Hydroelectric Generator

  tags: hydro

  • After we saw how to produce electricity using magnets or wind power, it is time to talk about those people who live near a river.

    In this case, the best way to produce electricity is represented by a small-scale hydroelectric generator made at home. Often called as a low-impact hydro, micro-hydro or run-of-stream hydro generator, this system is not very hard to build.

• Nanotube cuff is ’solar cell’ for exhaust pipes

  tags: nanotechnology

  • All around us there are opportunities to soak up wasted heat and convert it into electricity, says Ray Baughman, who works on thermocells with colleagues at the University of Texas at Dallas. Car exhaust pipes and power stations are just two forms of technology that waste a lot of heat and could be improved by building thermocells into their designs to recover lost energy.

• Researchers To Develop Energy-harvesting Mat - Engineer Live, For Engineers, By Engineers

  tags: no_tag

  • Morgan Technical Ceramics is an expert in piezo-electric ceramics for applications including ultrasonic cleaning and welding, sonar and medical imaging. It is now carrying out this research to create a system based on piezo-electric devices connected to a mat for collecting and storing energy from footfall. The project will specifically look at how to best match the electronics to the piezo-ceramic to develop more efficient energy harvesters.

• Sizing the smart appliance opportunity

  tags: smart, appliances

  • AHAM lists the following six key features associated with smart appliances:

    1. Dynamic electricity pricing information is delivered to the user
    2. It can respond to utility signals
    3. Integrity of its operation is maintained while automatically adjusting its operation to respond to emergency power situations and help prevent brown or blackouts
    4. The consumer can override all previously programmed selections or instructions from the Smart Grid, while ensuring the appliance‘s safety functions remain active
    5. When connected through a Home Area Network and/or controlled via a Home Energy Management system, smart appliances allow for a total home energy usage approach. This enables the consumer to develop their own energy usage profile and use the data according to how it best benefits them
    6. It incorporates features to target renewable energy by allowing for the shifting of power usage to an optimal time for renewable energy generation, i.e., when the wind is blowing or sun is shining

    According to a research piece written by Zpryme, the smart appliance market is projected to grow from $3.06 billion in 2011 to $15.12 billion in 2015, with the U.S. accounting for 46.6 percent of that in 2011 and 36 percent in 2015.

    By contrast, China is expected to have an 11.6 percent share in 2011 and an 18.2 percent share in 2015.

    What’s more, there are some strong drivers to smart appliance investment:

    1. Pricing: Bringing smart appliances to the mainstream means aligning ecological innovation with affordability
    2. Environment: With the build-out of metering and real-time pricing, consumers will see economic and environmental incentives for reducing power consumption first hand with their smart appliances
    3. Energy efficiency: When a consumer buys an appliance, they commit to paying both the first cost and the operating cost for the life of the product. And over the existence of the appliance, the energy cost to run it could be significantly greater than the initial cost
    4. Smart grid build-out: Smart appliance growth relies heavily on how quickly smart grid infrastructure can be rolled-out and readily accessible to communities
    5. Government subsidies: Like the Cash for Appliances program in the U.S., governments could and should play an active role in furthering the smart appliance agenda

• LED streetlights perform best overall, say engineers

  tags: LED, lighting

  • Light-emitting diode (LED) streetlights perform best overall in terms of energy efficiency, lifetime, environmental impact and costs, according to the first comprehensive analysis by US engineers.

• Hydropower map - England and Wales

  tags: hydro

  • We have produced a report and map showing the hydropower opportunities in England and Wales and the environmental sensitivities associated with exploiting them.

• Drives Save

  tags: energy, efficiency

  • To solve the problem permanently, Sentridge suggested installing 75kW ABB industrial drives on all the pumps, each equipped with ABB Anti-Jam software, part of its Intelligent Pump Control (IPC) software. An add-on to ABB industrial drives, IPC contains all the common functions needed by water and waste utilities, industrial plants and other pump users.

• Solar Power for Buses

  tags: solar

  • The SunPods Sun Bus Power System™ “consists of four thin film solar panels that run the length of the bus and charge an on-board battery bank. When the bus engine is off, the batteries power the air-conditioning and wireless connectivity equipment, enabling transportation companies to effectively meet anti-idling standards without compromising passenger comfort.”

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Using copper in some sections, Electric Thermal Storage could see a resurgance in interest for the purpose of storing excess electricity generated through renewable electricity solutions. By heating up electric coils surrounded by ceramic bricks, in a sealed container, the bricks act as thermal sinks. When triggered, the heat is slowly released providing relatively low-cost heating. Excess electricity generated by renewable energy solutions could be stored at any time.

For further details please click on this Link

• Anglo American to support reconstruction in Chile with US$10 million donation

  tags: trends, copper, Anglo

  • Following the devastating earthquake in Chile, Anglo American is pleased to announce the donation of US$10 million (equivalent to just over Ch$5 billion), which will be allocated to projects to rebuild houses and schools and implement emergency water and electricity services. The company will work with the Chilean government to formulate the aid and reconstruction plans.

• Copper Demand Is ‘Rather Weak’ in China, Tongling’s Wei Says

  tags: trends, copper, China, Tongling

  • March 5 (Bloomberg) — Copper demand in China, the world’s largest consumer of the metal, is weak because of lackluster consumption from the power and cable industry, Tongling Nonferrous Metals Group Co. said.

• Codelco to Return to Full Output Today After Quake

  tags: trends, copper, Codelco

  • March 2 (Bloomberg) — Codelco, the world’s largest copper miner, expects to return to full output today after a magnitude 8.8 earthquake on Feb. 27 knocked out power to two mines supplying more than a third of its production.

• Energy efficient driving should be part of the test

  tags: energy, efficiency

  • Energy efficient driving should be part of the driving test, says UK business lobby organisation the CBI, in a bid to save costs and reduce emissions.

• Detroit Automakers Invest in Energy-Efficient Engines

  tags: powertrain, retooling

  • The three major Detroit-based automakers—Ford Motor Company, General Motors Corporation (GM), and Chrysler—recently announced significant investments or changes as they move towards more efficient engines and vehicles. With an eye towards reducing fuel consumption and emissions, the companies are retooling some factories and redesigning vehicle powertrains.

• Global estimates of water withdrawals and availability under current and future business-as-usual conditions

  tags: water, availability

  • New global models provide the opportunity to generate quantitative information about the world water situation. Here the WaterGAP 2 model is used to compute globally comprehensive estimates about water availability, water withdrawals, and other indicators on the river-basin scale. In applying the model to the current global water situation, it was found that about 24% of world river basin area has a withdrawal to availability ratio greater than 0.4, which some experts consider to be a rough indication of “severe water stress”; the impacts of this stress are expected to be stronger in developing countries than in industrialized ones. Under a “business-as-usual” scenario of continuing demographic, economic and technological trends up to 2025, water withdrawals are expected to stabilize or decrease in 41% of world river basin areas because of the saturation of water needs and improvement in water-use efficiency. Withdrawals grow elsewhere because population and economic growth will lead to rising demand for water, and this outweighs the assumed improvements in water-use efficiency. An uncertainty analysis showed that the uncertainty of these estimates is likely to have a strong geographic variability.

• Production boost for solar panels

  tags: solar

  • Mitsubishi Electric, Toshiba and Showa Shell yesterday each unveiled plans to boost their solar panel production.

    Shigeaki Kameda, president of Showa Shell’s solar subsidiary, said the company intended to become the world’s largest producer of thin-film photovoltaic panels, with the business eventually rivalling its Y3,000bn ($33.6bn) oil-refining and petrol operations in scale.

    Mitsubishi said it hoped to produce 600 megawatts’ worth of photovoltaic cells annually by the financial year to March 2012, up from 220MW.

    Toshiba, which makes residential solar-power systems, said it was aiming to take 10 per cent of the Japanese domestic market by the year to March 2013.

• Pentadyne flywheels ready for railroads

  tags: UPS, flywheel

  • Pentadyne’s flywheel technology is primarily used for uninterruptible power supply (UPS) at places where even momentary power outages can be disastrous, such as hospitals and data centers. As a backup power source, the flywheel can provide about 15 seconds of power, giving enough time for the backup diesel generator to begin running.

• Codelco copper output up 16% in 2009

  tags: trends, copper, Codelco

  • SANTIAGO, Feb 25 (Reuters) - Chile’s Codelco, the world’s
    top copper producer, said on Thursday its copper output rose 16
    percent to 1.7 million tonnes in 2009, reversing years of
    dwindling production on higher ore grades at older mines.

• KGHM confirms 2009 net profit of 2.5bn zlotys

  tags: trends, copper, KGHM

  • Europe’s No.2 copper producer KGHM (KGHM.WA: Quote) closed 2009 with a net profit of 2.5 billion zlotys ($843 million), in line with its guidance, raised last week as a rebound in copper prices capped KGHM’s profit decline.

• New prospective copper discovery

  tags: trends, copper, Teck

  • International Nickel Ventures announced the discovery of a new prospective copper zone in the Sesfontein area, along a 26 km strike length within the Kaoko copper property, located in northwest Namibia. International Nickel Ventures is currently earning a 50% interest in the property from Teck Resources Limited.

• Rio Tinto beefs up position in Canada’s Ivanhoe

  tags: trends, copper, Rio, Tinto

  • Global miner Rio Tinto will increase its stake in Canada’s Ivanhoe Mines by 2.7 percent to 22.4 percent for $233 million, in a move tied to plans to jointly develop the giant Oyu Tolgoi copper mine in Mongolia.

• World’s Largest Solar-Powered Boat Hitting the Waves

  tags: solar

  • “The $24m multihull white catamaran is topped by around 5,300 square feet of black photovoltaic solar panels consisting of 38,000 next-generation solar cells provided by solar manufacturer SunPower,” Tom Young of Business Green writes.

• Chilean copper mines slowly resume operations as power supplies return - BASE METALS

  tags: trends, copper, chile

  • While port activities at San Antonia are closed, the larger and more important ports of Antofagasta and Mejillones were unaffected by the quake. As long as ports are open, the export of copper from Chile may see little disruption.

    Meanwhile, mines in northern Chile appear to be operating normally. BHP Billiton said its copper mines weren’t affected, while a Codelco spokesman said its northern Chilean mines are operating normally.

• Chilean copper mines slowly resume operations as power supplies return | MINING.com News

  tags: no_tag

  • Despite the 8.8 earthquake and resulting power shortages, copper mines in central Chile have begun resuming operation. However, copper markets are still somewhat nervous.

• Chile quake sends copper prices higher

  tags: trends, copper, Chile

  • The price of copper has jumped to the highest level in five weeks after the huge earthquake in Chile.
  • Production at some of the largest mines resumed on Sunday, although Chile’s mining minister said it could take two days for production to resume.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Practical Applications of Electrical Conductors

• SAE Press Room — News and Press releases for media and public relations professionals

  tags: no_tag

  • WARRENDALE, Pa., Jan. 15, 2010 -
    SAE International has released a standard that provides a standard interface between plug-in hybrid and battery-electric vehicles, and electrical charging systems.

    Standard J1772™, “SAE Electric Vehicle Conductive Charge Coupler,” spells out the general physical, electrical and performance requirements for the coupler, which consists of a connector and vehicle inlet.  The purpose of the standard is to define a common electric-vehicle charging network, thereby reducing costs and increasing convenience for owners of electric vehicles.
    

• SAE J1772 EV charging standard

  tags: charging, SAE, J1772, electric

  • SAE J1772 is a North American standard for electrical connectors for electric vehicles maintained by the Society of Automotive Engineers and has the formal title “SAE Surface Vehicle Recommended Practice J1772, SAE Electric Vehicle Conductive Charge Coupler”.^[1] It covers the general physical, electrical, communication protocol, and performance requirements for the electric vehicle conductive charge system and coupler. The intent is to define a common electric vehicle conductive charging system architecture including operational requirements and the functional and dimensional requirements for the vehicle inlet and mating connector.

• Will Google Charge your Electric Cars?

  tags: electric, charging

  • Google finally won approval from Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to be an electric utility. Now that they are making billions delivering web ads, do they want to make added billions selling electricity? Quite possibly. Google already offers a smart meter app that allows smart grid customers to manage their home electricity use. With their new approval to be a utility, Google could be a smart grid / smart charge service provider.

• Global aluminum market hit by structural oversupply

  tags: trends, copper, aluminum

  • Have fundamentals come home to roost? From a high of $2,390/t on 6 January, three-month aluminium fell to a low of $1,970/t on 5 February. This correction is not surprising given that the aluminium market remains in structural oversupply and prices above $2,000/t are unjustifiable in supply-demand terms.

• Energy storage - It’s not all about batteries

  tags: compressed, nitrogen

  • Compressed nitrogen
    The technology works by using specially designed hydraulic wind turbines to compress nitrogen into the existing gas or oil pipeline infrastructure. When electricity needs to be generated anywhere along the pipeline, the nitrogen gas is released and expands to turn a turbine that generates electricity.

• “Micro-generation technologies are the wave of the future”

  tags: batteries, microgeneration

  • It’s not enough to just find the very best solid oxide fuel cell distributed generation system, of which there are actually many to choose from already, which some journalists appear to have forgotten this week.  It’s not about the best SOFC technology, it’s about supplying kilowatt-hours (or joules of energy, or liters of clean water, etc.) at the right price and in the right way for each application.  And there are often many different ways to supply these commodities. 

• Mine of the future program - Rio Tinto

  tags: trends, copper, Rio

  • Rio Tinto announced is expanding its Mine of the Future programme to develop new equipment and systems for deep underground mines. The programme is designed to create next generation technologies for mining operations.

• The Future is Now with Light-Powered Circuitry

  tags: battery, circuits

  • The brain of any electronic device is the circuitry that operated the machine. Without the circuitry, the device is not even worth the cost of the plastic that it is made of. Any electronics device requires some kind of battery or it is nothing more than a paperweight. Recently, some new technology was created by scientists from the University of Pennsylvania that will no longer require a device to use a battery as the power can come from light-powered circuitry.

• Water analytics – yet another intersection of cleantech & IT

  tags: water, availability, analytics

  • Water analytics plays an increasingly critical role for end users across the verticals, much like energy management is top-of-mind for these same players.

• Anglo American: Total copper output to reach 1.2 million tonnes, by 2014

  tags: trends, copper, Anglo

  • Global miner Anglo American (AAL.L: Quote) said Monday it expects its total copper output to reach 1.2 million tonnes by 2014.

• Copper market surplus 144,000 T in Jan-Nov 09

  tags: trends, copper, mining

  • NEW YORK, Feb 22 (Reuters) - World refined copper

    production exceeded consumption by 144,000 tonnes between

    January and November of 2009, more than doubling a market

    surplus of 58,000 tonnes in the same year-ago period, the

    International Copper Study Group (ICSG) said in its latest

    monthly bulletin.

• Large-scale storage of wind energy using compressed nitrogen and old pipelines… Could it work?

  tags: wind

  • The basic idea is that specially designed hydraulic wind turbines are used to compress nitrogen into existing gas or oil pipeline infrastructure, some of it unused throughout North America. Several hundred, even thousand, kilometres of pipeline could be filled with nitrogen and kept under pressure, in effect becoming a kind of massive nitrogen battery for wind. When electricity needs to be generated anywhere along the pipeline, the nitrogen gas is released and expands to turn a turbine that generates electricity. Wind, under this setup, suddenly becomes dispatchable and has baseload characteristics. Also, the pipeline eliminates the need for transmission lines.

• Copper market case study from BME

  tags: trends, copper, price

  • The mathematical modelling of metals prices is a useful tool for the mining and investment communities by helping to explain market performance. As a service to Mining Journal readers, we provide here an explanation of Bloomsbury Minerals Economics Ltd’s model for copper.

    London-based BME models metals prices with reference to three ‘fundamental’ forces: stocks of the metal, economic growth (or specific metal demand) and performance of the US dollar. The models have progressed from dealing with commodities as industrial raw materials to dealing with them as a hybrid physical-investment market.

    BME is this year introducing the influence of investment/disinvestment on the market, and on ways of better understanding investor flows. 

• Smart metering the world: One size doesn’t fit all

  tags: smart, grid

  • Smart metering is a sexy topic in the energy world, with nearly all Western economies considering plans for large deployments.  It can be used in many different ways but normally there is more than one goal behind a smart metering deployment:

    • In the US, smart metering was, for the most part, driven by the desire to reduce the costs associated with manual meter reading, to reduce peak load and to enhance security of supply.
    • In Italy, one of the key drivers was tackling energy theft and the cost of managing meters.
    • In Ontario, it was peak shaving and the move toward time-of-use pricing.

    But if smart meters have the potential to address a number of issues, that potential can only be realised by flexible system design and deployment, avoiding excessive rigidity. In this case, one size most certainly does not fit all. We fear that the UK’s current plans for a nationwide rollout of smart meters may well be taking us down the wrong path by imposing standard solutions on the wrong part of the system.

• The Bloom Box: An Energy Breakthrough?

  tags: energy, fuel, cell

  • (CBS)  In the world of energy, the Holy Grail is a power source that’s inexpensive and clean, with no emissions. Well over 100 start-ups in Silicon Valley are working on it, and one of them, Bloom Energy, is about to make public its invention: a little power plant-in-a-box they want to put literally in your backyard.

    You’ll generate your own electricity with the box and it’ll be wireless. The idea is to one day replace the big power plants and transmission line grid, the way the laptop moved in on the desktop and cell phones supplanted landlines.

    It has a lot of smart people believing and buzzing, even though the company has been unusually secretive - until now.

• 10 Things to Know About Bloom Energy

  tags: energy, efficiency, fuel, cell

  • 10). Magic Box: 60 Minutes reports that the magic behind the Bloom Box starts with the company baking basic sand and cutting it into little squares that are turned into a ceramic, which are then coated with green and black “inks.” Using a special process Bloom creates these ceramic discs and stacks them together interspersed with metal plates of “a cheap metal alloy.” The bigger the stack the more power the Bloom Box will create.

• ‘Mountains’ of e-waste threaten developing world

  tags: Reycling

  • India could see a 500% rise in the number of old computers dumped by 2020, found the survey of 11 nations.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

SAE J1772 is a North American standard for electrical connectors for electric vehicles maintained by the Society of Automotive Engineers and has the formal title “SAE Surface Vehicle Recommended Practice J1772, SAE Electric Vehicle Conductive Charge Coupler”. It covers the general physical, electrical, communication protocol, and performance requirements for the electric vehicle conductive charge system and coupler. SAE J1772 was adopted on 14 January 2010 by the North American SAE Motor Vehicle Council. The companies participating in or supporting the revised 09 standard include Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Nissan, Tesla and Toyota. Copper use in this technology is likely to be wide ranging, for example, in the the connector itself and in the adjoining cable. A second edition of SAE J1772-2009 is in preparation.

The intent is to define a common electric vehicle conductive charging system architecture including operational requirements and the functional and dimensional requirements for the vehicle inlet and mating connector. The connector is designed for single phase electrical systems with 120 V or 240 V such as those used in North America and Japan.

The round 43 mm diameter connector has five pins, with 3 different pin sizes.
* AC Line 1 and AC Line 2/Neutral- power pins
* Ground Pin- Ground
* Proximity Detection
* Control Pilot- Communication line used to coordinate charging level between and car and the charger as well as other information.

The connector supports communication over power lines to identify the vehicle and control charging. The connector is designed to withstand up to 10,000 connection/disconnection cycles and exposure to all kinds of elements. Approximating one connection/disconnection cycle daily, the average connector’s lifespan should be just over 27 years.

Source: Press release link
Source: Wikipedia link

According to The Times, Honda is manufacturing some 230,000 panels per year from its first solar plant, called Honda Soltec. Soltec’s solar panels are manufactured from a compound semiconductor which is constructed from copper, indium, gallium and selenium, as opposed to the more common crystalline silicon. The power generation layer is one-fortieth the thickness of a human hair. The copper based panels are not as efficient in regard to electricity generation compared with crystalline silicon but they are more tolerant to partial shading and have a glassy black rather than blueish appearance. This makes them less obtrusive in architecturally sensitive locations. Interestingly, the manufacturing process needs 50% less energy compard with a conventional solar panel factory. These panels may be developed for use in a range of applications, from automotive to building.

Link