Alternative Energy & Solar Products Manufacturing

Current Industry Research

Research under way at the Center for Advanced Energy Studies (CAES), a partnership between the Idaho National Laboratory, University of Idaho, Idaho State University and Boise State University:

Project under way: Fabrication and Radiation Testing of Semiconductor Materials Useful as Photovoltaic and Nuclear Detection Devices. The objective is to improve fabrication methods for semiconductor thin films.
Consolidated Bioprocessing of Agricultural Wastewater Treatment and Bioenergy Production. Research will investigate the ability of potato and sugar beet wastewater streams to drive photoheterotrophic H2 production.
Carbon sequestration. INL is looking at the feasibility of storing carbon in geologic rock formations that can absorb carbon and reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. Research is linked to the Idaho Office of Energy Resources and sponsored by several major corporations.
Research on cellulose to determine how to maximize cellulose production and plant structure to benefit ethanol production.

ISU’s Center for Advanced Energy Studies has several research projects of interest in the Alternative Energy field.

Research under way at Boise State University’s College of Engineering:

Wind: Looking into innovative energy storage systems for wind turbines. John Gardner, BSU Associate VP for Energy Research, Policy and Campus Sustainability, is leading the effort to find investors to commercialize the storage technology.
Geothermal: BSU Geology Professor Walt Snyder has been leading a multi-state multi-institutional effort to develop the Intermountain West Geothermal Consortium. One of the goals is to develop methodology to build and maintain a GIS data base to inventory geothermal resources throughout the United States.
BSU is one of six nationally recognized Wind Application Centers under the auspices of the Wind Powering America program at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Through this program, BSU assists the Idaho Office of Energy Resources to coordinate outreach efforts for people in Idaho who want to know more about wind energy. Includes work with rural schools to install educational wind turbines to be integrated in science and math curriculum.
Wind forecasting research. Paul Dawson, a BSU engineering professor, has a grant from the Bonneville Power Administration to develop an innovative method for site-specific wind power forecasting. Project is partnered by INL, Idaho Power, and John Deere.
Two BSU graduate students are working on unique materials called “shape memory allows” to construct devices that use principles of biomimicry to generate electricity from river currents and wind.
John Meitl and Katie Sewell from the Idaho Small Business Development Center at BSU have received an U.S. Department of Commerce grant to develop an energy audit service for small businesses.

Research under way at Northwest Nazarene University:

Dr. Jerry Harris, Associate Professor of Chemistry, has been awarded a $209,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to investigate the synthesis of nitrogen-doped zinc oxide, which is a material that is of interest to NASA for space solar cell applications. The grant is a collaborative grant with faculty at Boise State University. Since coming to NNU in 2003, Dr. Harris has been awarded two NASA Idaho Space Grant Consortium grants to study different aspects of solar cells, in collaboration with scientists at NASA Glenn Research Center.