Research Articles

The US Department of Energy's paper, "Grid Operational Impacts of Widespread Storage Deployment" analyzes requirements to 2050. It variously calculates 1.3 TWh required to just over 6.0 TWh in its 94% renewable electricity, Zero Carbon scenario. Earlier, other researchers calculated 80% wind and solar will require 5.4 TWh of energy storage so it is obvious that huge amounts of storage are needed. Even that is with massive over-production and therefore curtailment - electricity only being generated 10% to 20% of the time on average. Polluting peaker plants only have 11% capacity factor so, on that model, bad replaces bad in that respect.

Just jelly-like materials? Well, there is a new one that supports an elephant but goes squishy when it jumps off. The new IDTechEx reports, "Self-Healing Materials Markets 2022-2042" and "Hydrogel Markets in Agriculture, Industry, Energy, Electronics, Electrical, Consumer 2022-2042" have the big picture.

In our surreal world, we continue to subsidize fossil fuels. We rarely subsidize the huge missing link on the way to 100% renewables, which is providing massive amounts of delayed electricity. People misunderstand. They think we do. Uniquely, the IDTechEx report "Future Stationary Energy Storage: Hydrogen, Batteries, Gravity, Gas, Other 2022-2042" looks at all the proliferating needs and technologies on the essential 20-year timescale ahead. It finds that the problems are largely solved of very brief fluctuations previously avoided by the momentum of rotating machines used in fossil fuel plants.

Smart cities face new, exceptional challenges with new exceptional technologies. Those starting from scratch have seen a shakeout for reasons varying from push-back against people control to failing to raise the money. In contrast, work has begun on the NEOM smart city in Saudi Arabia and the more modest Toyota Woven City at the base of Mount Fuji in Japan that is, in some ways, more advanced. The IDTechEx report, "Smart City Materials, Systems, Markets 2022-2042" has the analysis and forecasts.

Gymnast of chemicals, the awesome hydrogel is a 3D network of hydrophilic polymers like a giant molecule that can swell in water and hold at least 10% of water while maintaining a well-defined structure. Medical hydrogels currently dominate hydrogel publicity, patents, and research but the rest will become a larger business 2022-2042.

Self-healing materials are a new megatrend. The need is massive, from saving trillions of dollars lost yearly by collapsing buildings and bridges to bionic man and woman living better and longer. In saving the planet and preserving resources, long life from self-healing beats recycling any day.

In the big picture, mining is a very large, growing business. Top mining companies net around $660 billion yearly. In this article IDTechEx analyzes how mining is being electrified, relocated and redefined.

The massive new challenges of desertification, rising sea levels, starvation, increasingly violent weather, dysfunctional national governments and the accelerating move to cities can be tackled on a human scale.

The new need for massive amounts of delayed electricity will provide major new business for the mining and cement industries while helping them to clean up their act and generate new earning streams.

With global warming kicking in and rising sea levels displacing millions to arid regions, there needs to be much more cooling of buildings. Two new passive options need to be welcomed that use readily available, non-toxic substances - metamaterials and unprecedentedly white paint reflecting maximum sunlight away from a building.

Several billion dollars have been put on the table for 6G Communication so far. The IDTechEx report "6G Communications Market, Devices, Materials 2021-2041" reveals how Europe, North America, and East Asia are all strongly committed to this dream. So who is ahead in the race to mass deployment maybe in 2030?

Ideas have moved on from a smart city being a dystopian world of sensors everywhere and people control by artificial intelligence - smart cities are primarily about progressing to water, food, and power independence and minimal transport. How to make smart cities in both deserts and the sea must be figured out.

No one complained about gasoline cars going much further than you would ever drive. As people got used to them, it was realized that long-range means less hassle. With electric cars, the argument is even stronger. Long-range saves you money.

6G Communications promises between ten to one hundred times the download speed for operating unpowered devices, remote holographic surgery and much more, but it will depend on how high a frequency is chosen and how much infrastructure investment is made.

Electraflyer has announced that it has passed crossover, meaning it now sells more battery-electric aircraft than polluting ones. Pipistrel sold over 100 battery-electric aircraft last year as they take over from its traditional offerings. Bye Aerospace does not even make conventional aircraft. With its Tesla-style approach, its order book exceeds 720 battery-electric aircraft evenly split between two and four-seaters. As the IDTechEx report, "Manned Electric Aircraft: Smart City and Regional 2021-2041" points out, this has caught Cessna, Cirrus and Piper by surprise.

Thermoelectrics is a business impeded by the use of the toxic rare metal Tellurium. Commendably, there is a trend to alternatives in research but few volume sales as yet in any of the three uses. These are energy harvesting to make electricity where it is needed and the more successful cooling and heating, those last two constituting very-reliable, solid heat pumps.

Metamaterials are added-value materials. The IDTechEx report, "Metamaterial and Metasurface Markets Electromagnetic 2022-2042" helps you prosper by making and deploying them everywhere. Who should you partner with, emulate or buy?

To mark National Aviation Day, a celebration of the history and development of aviation, IDTechEx analysts consider the future of electric aircraft.

Local Motors with its Olli robot shuttle is progressing at a furious pace making others look - well - pedestrian. IDTechEx reports predicted the progress in the industry and the latest one, "Robot Shuttles for Smart Cities 2021-2041" roadmaps a lot more that will come from the Teslas of this industry.

Imagine mines with so much electricity production and storage that they do far more downstream processing. As reserves deplete, many will even transition to being zero-emission power stations and electricity storage for local communities and industry or even national grids. The cost of making-good becomes income from reinvention. That is the untold story of mining electrification, beyond the vital safety, greening, and cost reduction of electrics.

Thermoelectric cooling, heating, and harvesting is partly a great success now, partly to be a success later. First to analyze this big picture is the new IDTechEx report, "Thermoelectric Cooling, Heating, Harvesting: 90 Companies' Achievements and Strategies Appraised with Roadmap 2022-2042".

Air taxi operators are unfazed by the 200 or so organizations designing vertical take-off electric aircraft. Follow the economics and the orders not the fluid investments from people seeking the next Tesla. Those getting the huge investments often lack significant orders.

A more value-added approach to repurposing redundant fossil fuel assets such as coal mines and power stations is available.

A host of batteryless solutions have recently been announced. The rapid increase in adoption of batteryless solutions is tracked in the IDTechEx report, "Battery Elimination in Electronics: Market Impact IoT, 6G, Healthcare, Wearables 2021-2041".

Here come 600-mile electric cars and they will grab market share even as city cars. At last, you will be able to buy a car that lets you vacation in it wherever you wish.

"Thermoelectric Energy Harvesting and Other Zero-Emission Electricity from Heat 2022-2042", a new report from IDTechEx, finds that disillusioned manufacturers share a business of mere hundreds of millions of dollars after decades of trying, mainly with bismuth telluride and variants.

Coal, oil, and gas power stations are turning out to be expensive write-offs for power companies, particularly facilities that are not very old. The new IDTechEx report, "Stationary Energy Storage Without Batteries: Grid, Microgrid, UPS, Trackside 2021-2041" has the answer - repurposing as energy storage.

The term distributed propulsion (DP) primarily refers to a fundamentally new form of wing that combines aerodynamics with thrust and zero emissions, resulting in numerous benefits.

Would you prefer a car with 600 miles/nearly 1000km range or half that? Fast charging is all the talk now but doubling then trebling the range is seismic.

Robotaxis are nothing more than repurposed autonomous cars used for ride-hailing. Robot shuttles are the opposite - a totally new form of transport.

Starved of lithium-ion batteries and pumped storage sites, the stationary energy storage business is urgently looking for alternatives. See them in the new IDTechEx report, "Stationary Energy Storage Without Batteries: Grid, Microgrid, UPS, Trackside 2021-2041".

6G Communications needs graphene - making, manipulating and using the beams all potentially benefit from graphene.

The replacement of aircraft makers will be brutal - no not Airbus and Boeing, the other big names, starting with those making light aircraft, then those making regional aircraft. Stuck in the past, these cannot make what is now needed.

In Switzerland monster trucks carry ore down from mountainside quarries, the regenerative braking creating almost enough energy to get the empty truck back up again. The latest forestry example is carrying trees down from the mountains of Canada.

It is easy to make 1000-mile battery-electric vehicles, and the effect on market uptake will be profound.

While technologies are emerging for cities to be independent in food, water and energy, safe and pleasant, progress is mostly poor and global warming threatens migrants overwhelming cities. By all means, let us see the smart city advances take place that are in the IDTechEx report, "Smart Cities Market 2021-2041: Energy, Food, Water, Materials, Transportation Forecasts", but it would be prudent to try to reverse the move to cities that the UN and others see resulting in 70-80% of us in them by 2050.