By Andy Ostmeyer
aostmeyer@joplinglobe.com
EaglePicher Technologies is one of 37 operations nationwide sharing $151 million in federal funding for energy research projects.
The Joplin company will share $7.2 million with its partner on the project, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, which is a U.S. Department of Energy laboratory in Richland, Wash.
“It will be about a $9 million project. There is a 20 percent cost share with EaglePicher,” said Ron Nowlin, vice president and general manager of aerospace operations for EaglePicher Technologies.
The money is to help EaglePicher develop what is known as a sodium-beta battery; like lithium-ion and nickel-cadmium, it is a battery chemistry technology.
“It is a bulk means to store power and dispatch it when it is really needed,” Nowlin said. “The target market is really for alternative energy storage.”
The goal is to produce “load-leveling” energy from wind farms, for example, with power being stored in batteries when the wind is turning the turbines and being released as needed, providing a steady rather than an intermittent flow of electricity to the grid.
The project is taking place at EaglePicher’s plant at C Street and Porter Avenue in Joplin.
“The contract is set up to finish and develop the product and to bring it to the point of manufacturability,” Nowlin said.
He said EaglePicher’s proposal is an alternative to another battery chemistry — sodium-sulfur — that already is being used by some utilities for storage of alternative energy. Nowlin said the advantage of the sodium-beta technology is that it offers a flat plate design rather than the cylindrical cells used now, which means it can operate at a lower temperature and is less expensive to produce.
The $151 million in funding was awarded through the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy. This is the first round of funding for ARPA-E money allocated under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
The grants went to small businesses, large corporations and educational institutions.
The ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit got under way last week in Washington, D.C., and highlighted some of the 37 winning projects.
Representatives of EaglePicher Technologies were at the summit.
Andy Ostmeyer is the metro editor for The Joplin Globe.
Other ideas
Other groups being funded include the Massachusetts Institute of Technology solar lab, which is exploring ways to cut by half the cost of photovoltaic cells, and General Motors, which wants to convert waste heat from car engines into electricity.
