Slick Sheet: Project
The University of Wisconsin’s integrated toolset seeks to expedite molten salt materials development for technology by two orders of magnitude, compared with current methods. The team will combine advances in additive manufacturing, in-place testing for materials/salt compatibility, new molten salt-resistant mini-electrode designs, and machine learning algorithms to optimize and accelerate identification of molten salt corrosion-resistant materials. Those materials can be used in energy applications including molten salt nuclear reactors, concentrated solar plants, and thermal storage.
Slick Sheet: Project
Aquanis will develop advanced plasma actuators and controls to reduce aerodynamic loads on wind turbine blades, facilitating the next generation of larger (20+ MW), smarter wind turbines. The technology contains no moving parts, instead using purely electrical plasma actuators on the blade that set the adjacent air in motion when powered. This system can change the lift and drag forces on turbine blades to reduce blade mechanical fatigue and enable the design of larger and cheaper blades.
Slick Sheet: Project
AltaRock Energy will overcome technical limitations to deep geothermal drilling by replacing mechanical methods with a Millimeter Wave (MMW) directed energy technology to melt and vaporize rocks for removal. This approach could increase drilling speed by 10 times or more, reducing costs while reaching higher temperatures and greater depths than those achievable with the best current and proposed mechanical technologies. Project R&D will include benchtop testing as well as larger scale demonstrations of directed MMW drilling at unprecedented borehole lengths and power levels.
Slick Sheet: Project
CTFusion is developing an early-stage approach to a commercially viable fusion power plant. The company will pursue higher performance in a compact fusion configuration called a spheromak through targeted upgrades of an existing plasma system. The project aims to demonstrate the required physical parameters, engineering performance, and scalability of the team's fusion concept toward an eventual electricity-producing, economical fusion power plant.
Slick Sheet: Project
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) will lead a team including Georgia Tech, Louisiana Tech, and the Idaho National Lab in developing multimetallic layered composites (MMLCs) for advanced nuclear reactors and assessing how they will improve reactor performance. Rather than seeking complex alloys that offer exceptional mechanical properties or corrosion resistance at unacceptable cost, this team will develop materials with functionally graded layers, each with a specific function. The team will seek general design principles and engineer specific MMLC embodiments.
Slick Sheet: Project
Los Alamos National Laboratory will develop a scalable, compact, high-temperature, heat pipe reactor (HPR) to provide heat and electricity to remote areas. A 15MWth HPR could be built on-site in less than a month and self-regulate its power to plug into microgrids. The team will use high temperature materials via advanced manufacturing to reduce costs, and further cost reduction will be achieved from novel sensors embedded in the reactor core for continuous monitoring, reducing the number of operational staff needed.
Slick Sheet: Project
Los Alamos National Laboratory will develop proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells for light-duty vehicles that operate on hydrogen or dimethyl ether (DME) fuel in the temperature range of 80-230°C (176-446°F) without first warming or humidifying the incoming fuel stream.
Slick Sheet: Project
Foro Energy will develop a high-power laser tool to assist in removing the extremely tough materials constituting aging energy assets in a timely, cost-effective, safe, and environmentally responsible manner. This cutting and melting tool will be capable of transmitting high-power laser light at long distances in a field environment, greatly boosting decommissioning efficiency.
Slick Sheet: Project
The team led by the University of Virginia (UVA) will design the world’s largest wind turbine by employing a new downwind turbine concept called Segmented Ultralight Morphing Rotor (SUMR). Increasing the size of wind turbine blades will enable a large increase in power from today’s largest turbines – from an average of 5-10MW to a proposed 50MW system. The SUMR concept allows blades to deflect in the wind, much like a palm tree, to accommodate a wide range of wind speeds (up to hurricane-wind speeds) with reduced blade load, thus reducing rotor mass and fatigue.
Slick Sheet: Project
The team led by Accio Energy will develop an ElectroHydroDynamic (EHD) system that harvests energy from the wind through physical separation of charge rather than through rotation of an electric machine. The EHD technology entrains a mist of positively charged water droplets into the wind, which pulls the charge away from the electrically-grounded tower, thereby directly converting wind energy into a mounting voltage.