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46

Wire & Cable ASIA – January/February 2016

www.read-wca.com

From the Americas

Nearly three-quarters of a million British households are

now equipped with solar panels, compared with virtually

none five years ago. While solar energy still accounts for

only about four per cent of power generation in Britain,

despite an unpropitious climate for solar the country led the

European Union in new installations in 2014. Unquestionably

that showing is largely due to the programme of subsidies

– on which the government has been spending about

$1.9 billion a year – that is popular with homeowners but has

proved anathema to Mr Cameron’s supporters.

Environmentalists were prompt to denounce the cuts in

incentives, which according to analysts’ estimates enabled

participating Britons to reduce household energy bills by

as much as $1,000 a year. But in September Mr Cameron’s

new energy and climate change minister, Amber Rudd,

asserted that, “as costs continue to fall it becomes easier

for parts of the renewables industry to survive without

subsidies.”

What was immediately clear is that – as of the New Year –

the Missouri-based American company SunEdison, which

had figured prominently in Britain’s solar energy boomlet,

would no longer be offering the free installations that had

facilitated much solar conversion in the British Isles. Since

2010 the company and its customers had benefited from

an initiative to encourage the generation of low-carbon

electricity on a small scale. Through subsidised payments

known as feed-in tariffs, homeowners received around 12

pence per kilowatt hour for the electricity generated by their

systems.

While SunEdison would, it said, continue to “look after”

some 1,000 households which had signed on with the

company for 20-year terms, it will be shifting its focus

to the USA, Latin America, India and China. Betraying

some bitterness, SunEdison said in a statement: “[We are]

extremely disappointed that the draconian policy proposals

made by the government” will “essentially eliminate the

solar” market in Britain.

James Basden, head of utilities at the Oliver Wyman

consulting firm in London, was less pessimistic. “I don’t

think it’s the end of solar in the UK by any means,” he

told Stanley Reed of the

New York Times

. “Removing

subsidies is going to mean there is going to have to be

a lot more innovation.” (“As British Solar Industry Loses

Subsidies, Big US Backer Pulls Back,” 9

th

October)

For his part, Mr Reed drew this lesson from his

consultations with solar industry analysts: “Don’t bet

your company on a subsidised market.”

Technology

New fluorescent lighting phosphors

conserve on rare-earth elements, in short

supply in the United States

Today the phosphors in fluorescent lighting consume more

than 1,000 metric tons per year of rare-earth oxides including

europium (Eu), terbium (Tb), cerium (Ce), and lanthanum (La),

as well as even larger amounts of yttrium (Y) oxide.

This holds significance for the USA, which produces only a

very limited amount of rare earths and must rely on imports.

While LED lighting will likely replace fluorescent eventually,

low-cost linear fluorescent lighting is expected to remain a

dominant feature in American infrastructure for more than a

decade to come. Therefore, according to Anne M Stark of

the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, in California,

because of its high rare-earth consumption the current

triphosphor blend based on a mixture of blue, green and red

emitters – in use for over 30 years – required to be replaced.

(“Better Fluorescent Lighting Through Physics,” 8

th

October)

Teamwork among Livermore, the lighting division of

General Electric Co, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory

has reportedly succeeded in identifying a green phosphor

which reduces Tb content by 90 per cent and eliminates

La, and a red phosphor which eliminates both Eu and Y and

is rare earth-free. The phosphors reportedly hold promise

of meeting stringent requirements for long lamp life, high

efficiency, precise colour rendition, and low cost. The blue

phosphor reportedly has inherently low rare-earth content

and need not be replaced. Funded by the US Department

of Energy and its Critical Materials Institute research centre,

the work is now concentrated on improving the efficiency

of the new phosphors to the level of those in commercial

lighting. According to Steve Payne, the CMI leader on the

project, “The fundamental physics of these phosphors is

compelling.”

Of related interest . . .

As described in the journal

Science

(1

st

October),

connecting ultrathin metal wires to nanotubes holds

promise for enhancing the speed of computer

processors – stalled for a decade – by enabling the

semiconductor industry to shrink transistors beyond

present limitations. A team of scientists at IBM’s

Thomas J Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights,

New York, reported development of a new method of

transistor production that permits shrinking the width of

the wires without increasing electrical resistance.

Resistance and heat increase as wires become smaller,

thus curtailing the speed of the chips containing

the transistors and presenting a major challenge to

chip makers. The advance announced by the IBM

researchers would, they said, permit shrinkage of the

contact point between carbon nanotube and metal

wire to just 40 atoms in width, probably by early in the

next decade. Three years on, they projected further

contraction to just 28 atoms.

Steel

Chinese steel exports may have peaked

in 2015 but shipments are expected to

remain high

According to JPMorgan Chase & Co, Chinese steel exports

probably will have peaked last year as the doubling

of shipments over the previous two years provoked

protectionist sentiment around the world.