Forget the politicians: Vote for your favorite energy innovations
Published Wednesday, 1st February 2012
You can’t turn an energy-technology dream into reality by voting for it, can you?
Or maybe you can.
For the first time, the US Department of Energy (DOE) is using a social media strategy similar to Facebook’s “like” button to let website visitors choose which startup companies they think have the best chance of becoming “America’s Next Top Energy Innovator.” Between now and the morning of Monday, Feb. 6, people who visit the DOE’s Energy Innovator page can pick one or more companies they’d like to see go to the agency’s annual ARPA-E Innovation Summit, which brings together entrepreneurs, researchers, government officials and investors to share ideas and promote development of new energy technologies.
This year’s ARPA-E Summit is set to be held in Washington, DC, from Feb. 27 – 29.
The innovators being put to online voting include:
- 7AC Technologies, which has developed a liquid dessicant system for more energy-efficient heating, ventilation and air-conditioning units;
- Borla Performance Industries, whose technology can recover clean water from engine exhaust;
- California Lithium Battery, whose design for a low-cost, advanced lithium-ion battery could deliver improved battery life;
- Element One, which develops color-changing coatings to detect leaks of hydrogen and other hazardous gases;
- Integrated Dynamic Electron Solutions, whose technology enables imaging of nanoscale objects at “unprecedented time scales and frame rates”;
- Iowa Powder Atomization Technologies, which is working on a titanium powder-making process that’s 10 times more efficient than that used today;
- SH Coatings, which has created a coating to prevent ice accumulation on power lines;
- SynchroPET, which has developed an advanced PET scanner for biotech applications;
- Technikem, which makes an eco-friendly blend of chemicals for stripping paints and adhesives;
- TrakLok, which has designed “smart boxes” for electronic tracking of cargo containers in transit;
- Umpqua Energy, whose system lets a gasoline engine operate in “extreme lean burn mode”;
- US e-Chromic, which is developing a window film that can reflect sunlight on demand for greater energy efficiency;
- Vorbeck Materials, which created a new method for improving the performance of lithium-ion batteries; and
- Woodmont Enterprises, which makes a mold-resistant engineered wood product.
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