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(h/t to RareMetalBlog) Two U.S. senators from Alaska and a U.S. representative from Colorado are steamed about what they perceive is the Department of Defense’s lax attitude toward the strategic supply of rare-earth elements. Senators Mark Begich and Lisa Murkowski along with Representative Mike Coffman last week dispatched a long letter to DOD Secretary Robert Gates to express their concerns about the agency’s dependence on non-U.S. suppliers of REE.

“[E]arly indications are the DOD has dismissed the severity of the situation to date. Based on initial discussions with the DOD Office of Industrial Policy, we understand the effort to precisely ascertain and fully comprehend DOD consumption of certain rare earth elements is still an ongoing effort. In our view, it is a fundamental responsibility of DOD industrial Policy to have a comprehensive understanding of the security of our defense supply chain, which requires understanding detailed knowledge of the sources and types of components and materials founds [sic] in our weapon systems.

. . .

Despite the uncertainty surrounding DOD consumption, DOD Industrial Policy Director Brett Lambert was recently quoted as saying, ‘the U.S. must only survive a few more years of Beijing’s dominance over rare earths minerals supply and pricing, then American and key allies should be able to turn the table.’ He has also argued market forces will naturally bring new supply sources on-line in the foreseeable future. However, the new sources of rare earths projected to be available in the near-term are primarily light rare earths. The recent Department of Energy Critical Materials Strategy notes some the most critical materials are heavy rare earths.

. . .

[M]anufacturing capabilities required to convert materials into the components needed for our defense systems are virtually non-existent in the United States Today and tour our knowledge, no prime contractor has long-term supply agreements to ensure access in a fully secure supply chain. Given the dwindling domestic supply chain and struggle to accurately identify DOD consumption of rare earth elements, we respectfully disagree with Director Lambert’s initial assessment.”

The three elected officials go on to recommend that the DOD demand contractors account for all REE consumption, define the agency’s current and future demand for REEs, and propose “real solutions on rare earth availability” in its upcoming report to Congress (National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011).

Murkowski is the ranking member on the Senate Energy Committee. Begich sits on the Senate’s Commerce, Science, & Transportation and Armed Services Committees. Coffman has weighed in on REE issues before and in 2010 introduced the Rare Earth Supply chain Technology and Response Transformation (RESTART) bill. It should be noted that Alaska is one of several states that may have exploitable REE reserves, and Colorado is home to MolyCorp.

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Grad student Martin Duran and Azad, right, working on the processing of nanoscale ceramic catalysts.

(the following is a guest post from Abdul-Majeed Azad, associate professor, chemical engineering, University of Toledo)

As we know, the ultimate chemical fate of the conventional fossil fuel combustion is always CO₂ and H₂O, two well-known greenhouse gases responsible for contributing considerably to the global warming. In 2007 the global level of CO₂ was 30 billion metric ton and is projected to be 43 billion metric ton by 2030. The United States contributes the largest amount - 22.2% - of global CO₂ emissions.

What if we could convert CO₂ into carbon monoxide (CO), water into H₂ and a mixture of CO₂+H₂O (the ultimate product of complete combustion of hydrocarbon-based fossil fuels, including biofuels) into syngas (CO+H₂), respectively? Syngas is a valuable precursor for the well-known Fischer-Tropsch process perfected by Germans during WW II to make synthetic fuels since Germany had coal but no oil reserves. All these streams (CO, H₂ and CO+H₂) are also ideal fuels for solid oxide fuel cells. Hence, essentially the waste products of combustion could become a fuel source and can be recycled. Alternatively, if desired, CO could be converted into H₂ via catalytic water-gas-shift reaction that then could become feed for proton exchange membrane fuel cells.

We have developed an inexpensive heterogeneous ceramic catalyst that we experimentally found capable of converting CO₂ and H₂O into CO and H₂, respectively, on a 1:1 molar basis, under mild temperature and atmospheric pressure. These streams when fed into an intermediate temperature SOFC at 650°C create an open circuit voltage, quite comparable to that of the same SOFC run with pure H₂.

The technology is also of relevance to NASA’s in-situ resource utilization program for MARS exploration since Martian atmosphere is ~ 96% CO₂. NASA might be interested in looking at our technology for creating CO from Martian CO₂ and, use it either as such or after water-gas-shift reaction to generate hydrogen as fuel for a SOFC stack. In the Martian context, to make the process truly self-sustained one could use solar concentrators to generate enough heat to raise the temperature to cause the desired conversion (CO₂ to CO to H₂). Thus, the fuel can be generated (and used) during daytime and stored and utilized to run fuel cells in the night hours.

It is predicted that global clean energy markets are going to quadruple in the next decade from $55.4 billion in revenue in 2006 to more than $226.5 billion by 2016. The approximate market size of this greenhouse gas mitigation is over $1 billion. The technology and the product are potentially of interest to energy producers and suppliers, utility chains, SOFC manufacturers and users, organic synthesis companies and Mars human exploration missions. The United States Department of Defense uses logistic fuels for its operations and could employ the greenhouse gas-fueled SOFC technology for many military field operations, including mobile forward base units, auxiliary field hospitals, field command posts, operational forays, and unmanned aerial vehicles. NASA is also currently looking at non-petroleum-based jet fuels in the pursuit of alternative fuels that can power commercial jets and address rising oil costs. A greenhouse gas-derived F-T fuel could respond to that quest.

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Robot, powered by Adaptive Materials' SOFC hybrid system.

No, the little bot in the picture above is not a fugitive from a Star Wars movie remake. It’s actually an iRobotPackBot powered by a hybrid solid oxide fuel cell system developed by Adaptive Materials Inc.

According to an AMI press release, the Ann Arbor, Mich. firm recently completed tests that proved its hybrid SOFC system could power small ground robots across various terrains, while conducting surveillance and other mission-critical tasks for the U.S. military.

The release says AMI’s successful completion of these proof-of-concept tests marks a “key milestone” in a two-year project the firm has undertaken in conjunction with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, DOD’s central research branch.

Testing took place at the Southwest Research Institute, an independent R&D facility in San Antonio, Texas. Here, paired with a lithium battery, AMI’s SOFC system gave life to a Packbot, proving that, “Lightweight, convenient and powered by globally-available propane, Adaptive Materials’ fuel cells improve the overall functionality and duration of a robot in mission-critical settings,” reports AMI’s chief business officer Michelle Crumm. Although the army currently utilizes unmanned automated systems to disarm explosive devices, Crumm explains that many more military uses for the robots could be found, if their operational time could be extended.  She says long-running robots could even be helpful in nonmilitary situations, such as searching potentially harmful debris for survivors in the aftermath of a disaster. Crumm says AMI’s goal is to develop a SOFC that can power a small ground robot for 12 hours or more. She disses competitive fuel-cell systems based on hydrogen or methanol, saying that AMI’s propane-based system offers greater potential for commercialization because propane is readily available around the world.

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The DuPont/Smart Fuel Cell Team came out the million-dollar winner Oct. 8 in the Department of Defense’s Wearable Power Prize competition. DuPont is based in Delaware and SFC is headquartered in Brunnthal, Germany. DuPont has a minority stake in SFC and the group’s methanol-powered pack actually began to be deployed among combatants this summer:

“Our fuel cell technology represents a major breakthrough in portability that will benefit soldiers through significant weight reduction, while providing a prolonged source of power,” said Cynthia Green, VP and general manager of DuPont Fluoroproducts.

The contest was launched in the summer of 2007, initiated by the DOD’s Research and Engineering Directorate to fuel innovation and competition to develop a long-life, light-weight power pack for soldiers. Initially, 169 groups submitted entries. The group was narrowed to six finalists that were put to another round of testing Oct. 4 at the Marine Corps’ Air Ground Combat Center at Twentynine Palms, Calif. The minimum requirement was that the power packs had to be able to produced 20 watts average power for 96 hours and weigh less than 4 kilograms. According to the DOD news release, the winner’s power pack operated longer than the minimum, but offered no specifics:

DuPont/SFC won the competition by building the lightest wearable system that provided an average of 20 watts of power for more than 96 hours and weighed less than 4,000 grams, or 8.8 pounds.

Adaptive Materials of Ann Arbor, Mich., won  $500,000 for second place for their propane fueled solid oxide fuel cell. Jenny 600S of Middleburg, Va., won the $250,000 third place prize. DOD seems happy with the results of the competition:

“The winners, and really all the teams that competed, have moved wearable power technology forward,” said William Rees Jr., the deputy under secretary for defense laboratories and basic sciences. “But the real winners from this competition are our ground warfighters, as these systems show great promise to reduce the weight of batteries they have to carry while performing their critical missions.” Rees, who sponsored the DOD Wearable Power Prize, also hopes this competition will inspire scientists and engineers. “The rules we developed for this DOD competition attracted small businesses, individual inventors, and large companies alike,” said Rees. “Our nation has tremendous capacity for innovation, so we hope that this and future competitions also motivates the scientific community to continue important advancements in technology.” . . . “The M-25 has the capability to revolutionize wearable portable power sources in the field by extending soldier-mission times to 72 hours and beyond,” said Col. Richard Hansen, project manager of the Soldier Warrior program of the U.S. Army.

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