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From CLS 2010: Rodney Lanthorne (Kyocera) , Joel Moskowitz (Ceradyne) and David Morse (Corning) jointly spoke on the topic, “Emerging Business and Technology Opportunities and Challenges for the Ceramics Community.” Similarly, representatives of small, medium and large enterprises will be featured in the CLS 2011 program.

Last week we reported that the employment outlook for engineers is looking rosier than it has for a long time. GlobalSpec just released a white paper, “2011 Economic Outlook Survey: Improving Conditions Present Market Opportunity for Suppliers” (pdf), which fills in some detail about the economic mood from the perspective of over 1,000 engineering, technical, manufacturing and industrial professionals representing 23 industries.

Over half of the companies that responded expect sales to be up in 2011; in contrast, less than half of the 2010 respondents expected sales to be up last year. In two industrial sectors that are important to the ceramic materials industry, for example, 65 percent of the automotive industry is expecting increased sales; aerospace and defense are expecting 48 percent more sales. According to the report, “Departmental budgets are also increasing, with 30 percent of engineers and technical professionals stating their departments will increase budgets in 2011, compared to only 18 percent in 2010. Engineers and technical professionals also are working on more projects than in the past.”

About half of all respondents reported they plan to invest more in 2011 in three key activities: researching future projects, product design and development and entering new markets.

A good manufacturing economy for is good for ceramics, but how good, and in what sectors will it be best? For what broad investment opportunities that companies are looking at this year will ceramic materials be critical? Are there emerging technologies that are dependent on breakthroughs in ceramic materials engineering? How does a ceramic manufacturer break into new markets domestically and abroad?

It can be difficult to extract meaning out of reports like these for industries like ours because so much of the visible manufactured world is coupled to less visible ceramic technology: steelmaking and refractories; automobiles and glass science, sensors; aerospace and thermal barrier coatings; electronics and capacitors, piezoelectrics, insulators; energy and PV materials, batteries, capacitors; etc.

How can you get reliable information on the prevailing business trends and best position your company?

ACerS is sponsoring its 2nd annual Ceramic Leadership Summit to provide strategic business information specific to ceramic businesses. Deliberately designed not to be a technical meeting, all speakers are known leaders in their fields and will focus on the business and strategic issues facing the industry today in three program tracks: energy innovations, business of ceramics and innovative application for ceramic materials.

Here is a small sampling of presentation titles:

• Advanced Ceramics for Sustainability — View from Siemens Corporate Technology
• Case Study: A Small U.S. Company’s Approach to China
• Emerging Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology Applications, Industry Trends and Current and Future Markets
• Raw Materials Trends Impacting the Ceramics and Glass Community
• The Market Outlook for Energy-Related Technologies
• Connecting Research, Technology and Manufacturing

There are a lot of great sources of general business information, but only one that can deliver business information specific to the ceramic materials industry. Timed perfectly to coincide with FY 2012 budget cycles, CLS 2011 will help you map a strategy in your business for growth.

Ceramic Leadership Summit 2011
August 1-3, Baltimore, Md.

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Via press release, Siemens has secured a contract to supply 70 wind turbines to one of Mexico’s largest wind farms, the Los Vergeles project, in a deal that marks its first major turbine order in Latin America.

Grupo Soluciones en Energias Renovables, a Mexican wind-energy developer, will pay Siemens $270 M for the SWT-101 turbines, rated at 2.3 megawatts each. The 160 MW Los Vergeles project will be built in the northeastern Mexican state of Tamaulipas.

“The Latin American wind power market is expected to grow significantly in the years to come,” says Andreas Nauen, chief executive of Siemens’ wind division.

The deal marks the largest order of Siemens’ new 2.3 MW turbine, launched in March 2009. The new turbine, which boasts a swept area of 8,000 square meters, is intended for use in low-wind areas. Siemens claims low-wind areas will soon account for one-third of global turbine sales.

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Just in time for the opening of Schott Solar’s new Albuquerque plant, where it plans on producing utility-scale concentrating solar power systems, here is a video that demonstrates the scale and operations of one such utility-sized system. This features Nevada Solar One, a 64 MW CSP project that went online in 2007. I don’t know if it is living up to its billing, but NSO is supposed to be producing more than 130,000 million KWh each year.

According to SolarPaces, NSO is the largest solar energy project to be built in the United States since 1991 and is is composed of 357,000 m2 of second-generation parabolic trough collectors (SGX2) developed by Solargenix Energy with the collaboration of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Schott actually produced 70 percent of the absorber tubes (made in one of their German plants), so this video probably gives a fairly accurate display of some the CSP materials it will initially be making in New Mexico. The other 30 percent of the tubes were made by Solel in Israel. The reflectors were produced by Flabeg in Germany. The heat exchange fluid is connected to a 70‑MW reheat steam turbine produced by Siemens in Sweden. NSO is also designed to have 30 minutes of thermal storage.

Warning: the video’s audio track may irritate non techno-music fans.

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Kenya fishermen are replacing CO2-emitting kerosene lanterns for OSRAM's eco-friendly lighting solutions.

A fascinating story is unfolding in Mbita, Kenya, where OSRAM - one of the world’s two leading lighting firms - is embarking on a program to improve the environment and the lives of more than 175,000 Kenya fishermen who live “off-the-grid,” in a remote area of the world with no access to electricity. These fishermen are just one segment of more than 1.6 billion people throughout the world who live “off-the-grid.”  For the most part, these people depend on portable, kerosene-burning lanterns for light. Every year, these people burn 77 billion liters of kerosene and, as a result, create more than 190 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions. In addition to being harmful to the environment, kerosene is also a poor light source, expensive to use, dangerous and hazardous to the health of the people who use it. On the positive side, it is readily available in most parts of the world, and it can be purchased in small portions - the latter being an important advantage to people with small, irregular incomes. OSRAM is confronting the dependence on kerosene directly with a pilot project that goes by the Swahili name of “Umeme Kwa Wote” or “energy for all.” It began in April 2008, after nearly a year of preplanning, with the construction of an energy hub - an OSRAM O-Hub - on the banks of Lake Victoria in Mbita, Kenya.

The O-Hub or energy hub.

A small cabin-like building, the O-Hub took nearly four months to construct and involved the help of OSRAM’s parent company, Siemens, and two partners - Solarworld AG and Nokia. Powered completely by solar panels, the O-Hub is a place where natives can come to recharge batteries for energy-saving lamps, luminaires and other electrical appliances - such as compatible mobile phones and radios - at a low cost. Initially, it was intended as a lighting infrastructure only. Quickly, however, other services were added - including the filtering of drinking water. With Siemens’ water-treatment units and OSRAM Puritec UVC lamps, bacteria and viruses are eliminated, enabling the O-Hub to produce up to 3000 liters of purified water daily.

Lighting solutions: Until OSRAM built the O-Hub, the area’s 175,000 fishermen depended on kerosene lanterns to light their nightly fishing excursions. Some were spending up to 70 percent of their income on kerosene, so they welcomed OSRAM’s lighting alternatives. The solutions OSRAM has offered are varied. All depend on batteries that are recharged at the O-Hub. These products currently comprise the program’s mainstay:

An O-Box.

●          O-Box - This rechargeable battery, complete with electrical components to control charging, comes housed in a sturdy case that includes a handle for easy transport. It can power a basic 11-watt O-Lamp (see below) for more than eight hours and also can be used to power a portable radio or recharge a compatible mobile phone. After the O-Box battery has been discharged, a fisherman can take it back to the O-Hub and exchange it for a charged battery. Users pay a deposit on the container.

O-Lamp Basic

●          O-Lamp (basic) - This is the luminaire fishermen use to illuminate their nightly fishing. Powered by an O-Box battery, it is water tight, dust resistant and comes with a screw-on cover. It uses a solar 11-watt bulb that provides about 600 lumen, sufficient light to illuminate an entire room.

O-Lamp 2 in 1

●          O-Lamp (two in one) - This lantern-type luminaire is more rugged than the basic model (see above). Powered by an integrated rechargeable battery, it offers two lighting levels. It is comprised of a seven-watt compact fluorescent lamp that produces approximately 400 lumens for about eight hours. On its second setting, the O-Lamp activates LEDs, which provide a longer-lasting light that’s bright enough to illuminate book reading.

LED Solar I

●          LED Solar I - Said to be a “great all-in-one solution,” this luminaire offers light for up to seven hours in its normal mode and up to 30 hours when power is reduced by 25 percent. It comes complete with a small solar panel and adapters for charging several types of mobile phones.

More O-Hubs to come: The O-Hub in Mbita is the first of many that OSRAM plans to build in remote areas. “OSRAM’s solar station … is a concept that can be replicated anywhere in the world,” says Wolfgang Gregor, OSRAM’s chief sustainability officer and off-the-grid project leader. OSRAM sees the Mbita, Kenya project (and others to come) as projects that win in three ways: 1)   They improve the lives of people living without electricity by bringing them lighting solutions that are more affordable and less hazardous to their health than kerosene. 2)   They improve the environment by reducing CO2 emissions from kerosene with clean solar power. 3)   They lay the groundwork for future business opportunities for OSRAM in the world’s undeveloped nations. The project in Kenya is one of many endeavors OSRAM is undertaking as part of its “Global Care” Initiative. “As one of the world’s largest lighting manufacturers,” says OSRAM CEO Martin Goetzeler, “we recognize that an intelligent, conscientious approach to the environment is not just the right thing to do. It is the only thing to do.”

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