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1 Prices for rare earth metals, many of them critical components for a variety of smart grid technologies, have jumped 300-700% in the past year because of a very limited global supply – and could hamper widespread adoption of those technologies in the U.S. What to do? DOE's Advanced Research Projects-Energy (ARPA-E) has made $30 million available for early stage technology alternatives that greatly reduce or eliminate the need for the scarce rare earths.
China has been the world's supplier of about 95% of rare earths for years, but last year announced severe cuts in exports.
And that last one, grid optimization, is big because one of every five electricity dollars is lost to power outages and 30% of the grid's hardware needs to be replaced, ARPA-E says. The agency has up to $30 million available to sink into innovative grid control software and high-voltage hardware that can reliably control the grid and better manage increasing amounts of intermittent wind and solar power, as well as resilient power flow control hardware to significantly boost transmission line capacity.
It's good to see that DOE acknowledges smart grid as one of the key areas for our energy future.
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Rare earths: Endangered supplies could spell trouble for smart grid technologies
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