MIT Goes Nuts for Renewables, Grid, etc...

...on energy, climate, research. From MIT's Technology Review:

Companies to Watch: Private Companies

Company: Nanosolar
Company: Tendril
Company:1366 Technologies
Company: Deepwater Wind

Many more. With funders, descriptions of tech, links.

Can Renewables Become More than a Sideshow?

The Energy Belts

Read more:

» Intelligent Electricity

» Solar Power Will Make a Difference--Eventually

» Coping with CO2

» Clean-Energy Bill Will Have Little Impact

» Giving Up on Grids

» Companies to Watch: Public

» Venture Capitalists Struggle with Renewables

» Q&A: Mark Little, Head of GE Global Research

» Research to Watch:

Project/Principal Institutions: Energy Storage Systems Research Program
www.sandia.gov/ess
Sandia National Laboratory

Is investigating ultracapacitors and flywheels, along with zinc-bromine, sodium-sulfur, vanadium redox flow, and lead-acid batteries, to more efficiently store electricity on the grid.

Project/Principal Institutions: Energy Smart Miami
www.energysmartmiami.com
General Electric, City of Miami, Cisco Systems, Silver Spring Networks, Florida Power and Light

A two-year, $200 million smart-grid project, rolling out a million smart meters to consumers.

Project/Principal Institutions: Upwind
www.upwind.eu
A consortium of 40 European universities and businesses, led by the Technical University of Denmark

Is developing the components need for large wind turbines, each able to generate 8 to 10 megawatts; also investigating new materials for rotor blades and improving generator designs.

Project/Principal Institutions: Large-Scale Wind Generation Analysis
wpweb2.tepper.cmu.edu/ceic/research.asp
Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center

Is studying how the grid can cope with the intermittent nature of wind power as it becomes responsible for a bigger portion of generated electricity...MANY MORE