WCA January 2016

From the Americas Nearly three-quarters of a million British households are now equipped with solar panels, compared with virtually none five years ago. While solar energy still accounts for only about four per cent of power generation in Britain, despite an unpropitious climate for solar the country led the European Union in new installations in 2014. Unquestionably that showing is largely due to the programme of subsidies – on which the government has been spending about $1.9 billion a year – that is popular with homeowners but has proved anathema to Mr Cameron’s supporters. Environmentalists were prompt to denounce the cuts in incentives, which according to analysts’ estimates enabled participating Britons to reduce household energy bills by as much as $1,000 a year. But in September Mr Cameron’s new energy and climate change minister, Amber Rudd, asserted that, “as costs continue to fall it becomes easier for parts of the renewables industry to survive without subsidies.” What was immediately clear is that – as of the New Year – the Missouri-based American company SunEdison, which had figured prominently in Britain’s solar energy boomlet, would no longer be offering the free installations that had facilitated much solar conversion in the British Isles. Since 2010 the company and its customers had benefited from an initiative to encourage the generation of low-carbon electricity on a small scale. Through subsidised payments known as feed-in tariffs, homeowners received around 12 pence per kilowatt hour for the electricity generated by their systems. While SunEdison would, it said, continue to “look after” some 1,000 households which had signed on with the company for 20-year terms, it will be shifting its focus to the USA, Latin America, India and China. Betraying some bitterness, SunEdison said in a statement: “[We are] extremely disappointed that the draconian policy proposals made by the government” will “essentially eliminate the solar” market in Britain.  James Basden, head of utilities at the Oliver Wyman consulting firm in London, was less pessimistic. “I don’t think it’s the end of solar in the UK by any means,” he told Stanley Reed of the New York Times . “Removing subsidies is going to mean there is going to have to be a lot more innovation.” (“As British Solar Industry Loses Subsidies, Big US Backer Pulls Back,” 9 th October)  For his part, Mr Reed drew this lesson from his consultations with solar industry analysts: “Don’t bet your company on a subsidised market.”

This holds significance for the USA, which produces only a very limited amount of rare earths and must rely on imports. While LED lighting will likely replace fluorescent eventually, low-cost linear fluorescent lighting is expected to remain a dominant feature in American infrastructure for more than a decade to come. Therefore, according to Anne M Stark of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, in California, because of its high rare-earth consumption the current triphosphor blend based on a mixture of blue, green and red emitters – in use for over 30 years – required to be replaced. (“Better Fluorescent Lighting Through Physics,” 8 th October) Teamwork among Livermore, the lighting division of General Electric Co, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory has reportedly succeeded in identifying a green phosphor which reduces Tb content by 90 per cent and eliminates La, and a red phosphor which eliminates both Eu and Y and is rare earth-free. The phosphors reportedly hold promise of meeting stringent requirements for long lamp life, high efficiency, precise colour rendition, and low cost. The blue phosphor reportedly has inherently low rare-earth content and need not be replaced. Funded by the US Department of Energy and its Critical Materials Institute research centre, the work is now concentrated on improving the efficiency of the new phosphors to the level of those in commercial lighting. According to Steve Payne, the CMI leader on the project, “The fundamental physics of these phosphors is compelling.” Of related interest . . .  As described in the journal Science (1 st October), connecting ultrathin metal wires to nanotubes holds promise for enhancing the speed of computer processors – stalled for a decade – by enabling the semiconductor industry to shrink transistors beyond present limitations. A team of scientists at IBM’s Thomas J Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York, reported development of a new method of transistor production that permits shrinking the width of the wires without increasing electrical resistance. Resistance and heat increase as wires become smaller, thus curtailing the speed of the chips containing the transistors and presenting a major challenge to chip makers. The advance announced by the IBM researchers would, they said, permit shrinkage of the contact point between carbon nanotube and metal wire to just 40 atoms in width, probably by early in the next decade. Three years on, they projected further contraction to just 28 atoms.

Technology

Steel

New fluorescent lighting phosphors conserve on rare-earth elements, in short supply in the United States Today the phosphors in fluorescent lighting consume more than 1,000 metric tons per year of rare-earth oxides including europium (Eu), terbium (Tb), cerium (Ce), and lanthanum (La), as well as even larger amounts of yttrium (Y) oxide.

Chinese steel exports may have peaked in 2015 but shipments are expected to remain high According to JPMorgan Chase & Co, Chinese steel exports probably will have peaked last year as the doubling of shipments over the previous two years provoked protectionist sentiment around the world.

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Wire & Cable ASIA – January/February 2016

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