department of energy

Oak Ridge National Laboratory will tap Nvidia chips to power what is expected to be one of the world's fastest supercomputers.

Oak Ridge's Titan supercomputer will eventually pack as many as 18,000 Nvidia graphics processing units (GPUs) and have the potential to deliver 20 petaflops of peak performance, making it one of the fastest computers in the world.

Last year, Nvidia made a splash when it announced that its chips were powering the Chinese "Tianhe-1A" supercomputer, which, at that time, became the fastest in the world. As of June, the Chinese system was ranked No. 2 in the world … Read more

The chief financial officer of bankrupt startup Solyndra, which had ramped up its operations after getting a government loan for solar companies, declined to say yesterday if potential buyers would keep its business in the United States.

Under questioning at a bankruptcy court hearing from a government attorney, CFO W.G. Stover declined to identify either of the two companies that have shown an interest in Solyndra's operations, or even where they were based.

Asked if the potential buyers might move Solyndra's unique solar cylinder business overseas, Stover would only say doing so would increase the cost to … Read more

A Virginia Tech University engineering team on Thursday won first place in the EcoCAR: The NeXt Challenge with an 82-mile-per-gallon, extended-range electric vehicle (EREV) using E85 (ethanol).

The results of the three-year EcoCAR competition were announced on L'Enfant Plaza, in Washington, D.C. United States Secretary of Energy Steven Chu congratulated the team at an award ceremony. A total of 16 teams participated in the competition that was co-sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and General Motors (GM).

A student team from Ohio State University took second place with an E85 EREV. Third place went to a … Read more

Tesla Motors and Electric Power Research Institute join U.S. Department of Energy, automaker research teams and energy companies to accelerate the development of new energy-efficient technologies for cars and light trucks and the infrastructure needed to support them.

According to the DOE, the collaborative effort formerly known as FreedomCAR and Fuel Partnership, is now U.S. DRIVE--Driving Research and Innovation for Vehicle efficiency and Energy sustainability. The goal is to beef up research and development of not only new vehicle technologies, but to also work on a broad range of energy infrastructure technologies.

"Government-industry partnerships like U.… Read more

The Department of Energy is hoping that "America's Next Top Energy Innovator" will be a model of success.

The program, which kicks off May 2, will offer start-ups the opportunity to license patents from among the 15,000 owned by the government's 17 national laboratories for a mere $1,000. The government also plans to reduce paperwork.

"America's entrepreneurs and innovators are the best in the world," U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu said today in a statement. "Today, we're challenging them to create new businesses based on discoveries … Read more

GENEVA--Fisker Automotive plans to use its recently acquired plant in Delaware in part to build vehicles for other automakers.

The start-up automaker plans to use only one-third of an installed 300,000 units of capacity at a former General Motors plant in Wilmington, Del., for its vehicles, which will be built there in late 2012.

"We want to offer this manufacturing capacity to other OEMs," Fisker COO Bernhard Koehler told Automotive News on the sidelines of the Geneva auto show.

Fisker is spending $120 million on the Delaware plant and, within the next two years, will expand its … Read more

At least part of the controversy over whether to limit the sale of fuel that's more than 10 percent ethanol is over, for now anyway. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today waived a limitation on selling 15 percent ethanol--known as E15--for cars and light trucks 2007 or newer.

Last month, a controversy brewed over whether vehicles older 2007, or 2001, would be cleared to use E15, based on tests. The organization, Follow the Science, said the 50 percent increase in ethanol could damage catalytic converters in older vehicles, as well as engines of boats, motorcycles, ATVs, snowmobiles, … Read more

Two organizations have squared off this week regarding whether increasing ethanol in fuels from 10 to 15 percent will damage engines in vehicles older than 2001, smaller gas-powered motors, and increase the cost of corn production.

One out-spoken organization, Renewable Fuels Association, hopes the Environmental Protection Agency will reconsider the limits they place on ethanol fuels based on a new study.

In a press conference today, Renewable Fuels revealed the findings of a new study conducted by Ricardo Inc. (the company that set octane standards). The study finds that moving from 10 percent ethanol (E10) in gasoline to 15 percent (… Read more

The U.S. Energy Department on Thursday awarded $1 billion for the FutureGen clean-coal power program and carbon dioxide storage network in Illinois, aiming to cut emissions of greenhouse gases from coal-fired electric generating plants.

"This investment in the world's first, commercial-scale, oxy-combustion power plant will help to open up the over $300 billion market for coal unit repowering and position the country as a leader in an important part of the global clean energy economy," said U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu.

Oxy-combustion burns coal with a mixture of oxygen and carbon dioxide (CO2) instead of … Read more