Los Alamos is working to eliminate the environmental concerns associated with the use of fossil fuel, which will continue to be an important energy source well into this century. One technology the Laboratory is developing to achieve this goal is a zero emission process for converting coal and water into hydrogen, which is then converted into electricity, with virtually no emissions of pollutants.

Los Alamos is proposing to use their supercomputing capabilities to address policy analysis of utility restructuring by modeling the entire power system at an unprecedented level of detail -- and breadth. Building on experience in transportation modeling**, they suggest that computer simulation at a sufficient level of detail calls for very high-performance computing.

This is the website of the DOE's Distributed Power Program which is responsible for distributed resources' system integration research and development. The site describes the Distributed Power Program and its activities, and provides information and current news about barriers to distributed power, policies and regulations, technical interconnection issues and upcoming events.

The DOE Hydrogen Program website has been completely redesigned. This site contains important information on R&D advances and technology validation efforts within the US Department of Energy's Hydrogen Program.

Light Engineering is introducing a patented, new and revolutionary motor/generator technology using amorphous metal materials. The use of amorphous metal leads to dramatic improvements in the performance, operating efficiencies and cost effectiveness of Light Engineering’s motor/generator.

Finally, energy storage appears to be breaking through, across a broad front. There are about 100 MW of pending purchases for systems in the US, and a comparable amount in Europe. This new success isn't limited to one technology either, but is spread across many different ones, from flywheels to SMES to advanced Pb Acid to "flow" batteries.

The information presented in these interviews is pretty basic, starting with a primer on the big changes underway in the utility industry. Hugh Holman (see the UFTO home page for his earlier report) is one of the very few Wall Street analysts concentrating on energy technology.

This unique device would replace or work with standard insulated hangers on power transmission towers, to counteract the effect of temperature on the sagging of overhead transmission lines. This allows increased line ampacity (load current capacity) of existing lines during curtailed summer months, reduced tower heights, and/or increased tower spacing.

Here's some "big picture" stuff. George Gilder, who's staked himself a huge role as prophet of the internet, is now tackling energy as well, with the help of two longtime energy industry figures. There are some challenging ideas here for all of us.

The CRF continues to be a significant contributor to combustion science, and in particular has amassed a major database of the combustion characteristics of over 50 different biomass fuels, most recently in the context of cofiring with coal. This work has been funded mostly by DOE, and includes information on emissions, carbon burnout, ash, and corrosion/deposition.

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson today received the department's Power Outage Study Team final report on electricity outages and system disturbances during the summer of 1999. The report contains the team's findings and recommendations of appropriate federal actions to help enhance electric reliability, and avoid the types of problems that occurred last summer.

I recall being intrigued with the idea that sensors could be deployed inexpensively, almost on the spur of the moment, and in as many inaccessible places as you wanted, throughout a power plant or substation -- to monitor temperature, noise, vibration or any other parameter. It makes a lot of sense.

Sitting through this conference, I had the contradictory feelings of "same old same old", while at the same time there seemed to be so much good stuff being said that it was hard to absorb it all. Perhaps it was the combination of a lively mood, good speakers who could clearly state the big picture, and some genuinely new ideas.

An IEEE-sponsored working group has developed an interconnection standard that will simplify the process of interconnecting photovoltaic systems with an electric utility. Photovoltaics (PV) is a solar-electric technology that uses solid-state solar cells to convert solar energy to electric energy.