Next Energy Technologies (United States)

U.S. energy infrastructure companies—spanning pipelines, power transmission, LNG facilities, and renewable generation platforms—operate in capital-intensive, rate- and commodity-exposed markets where financing choices strongly shape long-run performance. This review synthesizes theoretical and empirical insights on how firms optimize capital structure to balance growth, risk, and cost of capital under evolving regulatory, technological, and macroeconomic conditions. We compare corporate-level financing (common equity, preferreds, unsecured/secured debt, hybrids) with asset-level structures (project finance, securitizations, tax-equity and transferability mechanisms), and platform structures (MLPs, YieldCos, infrastructure funds). We assess determinants of leverage and payout policy—asset tangibility, cash-flow stability, regulatory compact, inflation and interest-rate regimes, commodity basis risk, counterparty quality, and ESG constraints—and link them to outcomes including WACC, investment cyclicality, default probability, and total shareholder return. The review integrates evidence across fossil and clean-energy assets, highlighting how contractual de-risking (long-term offtake, capacity payments, cost-of-service recovery) enables higher efficient leverage, while merchant exposure and technology learning curves favor flexible equity and hybrid solutions. We evaluate governance and disclosure practices that support scalable financing, outline decision frameworks for matching instrument to asset risk, and surface frontier topics—transferable credits, grid-modernization securitizations, storage revenue stacking, and transition-risk pricing. The paper concludes with a synthesis of best-practice capital structure playbooks for sustainable growth and a research agenda linking microstructure choices to system-level decarbonization and reliability goals.

Abstract Background: Current reimbursement models in healthcare overlook variations in medical procedure quality and are characterised by flat rates. This approach offers limited incentives for care providers to invest in more advanced medical technology and/or organisational practices. Methods: This study develops and applies a novel multi-parametric method to support the differentiation of reimbursement rates by classifying the delivery of medical procedures into three quality groups—excellent, advanced, and essential—based on two dimensions: technological excellence and organisational maturity. Results: The method was applied to five pilot medical procedures: CT angiography, prostatectomy, pacemaker implantation, total knee arthroplasty, and radiotherapy. Results confirm, on the one hand, the model’s capability to differentiate the quality of medical procedures and, on the other hand, care providers’ capability to collect all the required data. Conclusions: By integrating this method into current reimbursement systems, supplemental care funds could encourage care providers to continuously improve medical procedures by adopting more advanced technology or organisational practices, thus contributing to enhanced patient outcomes, in line with the principles of Value-Based Health Care.

Decentralized exchanges (DEXs) adopt automated market makers (AMM) as an alternative to the traditional limit-order book (LOB), which is too costly to implement with blockchain technology. To protect liquidity providers (LPs) against toxic trades by arbitrageurs, Uniswap v3, the leading DEX, has introduced a concentrated liquidity mechanism that allows LPs to restrict the price range accepting trades. We define a liquidity provision game of this setting and characterize the optimal strategy and equilibrium liquidity allocation. We demonstrate that LP profits consist of the competitive and non-competitive parts. Crucially, the non-competitive components arise from toxic trades by arbitrageurs. Consequently, liquidity provision involves a toxicity-competitiveness tradeoff as opposed to the literature understanding them as two independent factors. By incorporating this tradeoff, we derive a novel guideline and implications for liquidity provision in the decentralized financial market.

The idea of flexible body armor has been around for many years. Initial development included shear thickening fluid (STF) as a backbone polymer to impregnate ballistic fibers such as Kevlar. At the core of the ballistic and spike resistance was the instantaneous rise in viscosity of STF during impact. Increase in viscosity was due to the hydroclustering of silica nanoparticles dispersed in polyethylene glycol (PEG) through a centrifuge and evaporation process. When STF composite was dry, hydroclustering was not possible due to absence of any fluidity in PEG. However, particles embedded within the polymer, covered the Kevlar fiber and offered some resistance to spike and ballistic penetration. The resistance was meagre and hence, the goal was to improve it further. This was achieved by creating chemical bonds between particles, and by strongly attaching particles to the fiber. PEG was replaced with silane (3-amino propyl trimethoxysilane), and a fixative cross-linker, Glutaraldehyde (Gluta), was added. Silane installed an amine functional group on the silica nanoparticle surface, and Gluta created strong bridges between distant pairs of amine groups. Amide functional groups present in Kevlar also interacted with Gluta and silane to form a secondary amine, allowing silica particles to attach to fiber. A network of amine bonding was also established across the particle-polymer-fiber system. In synthesizing the armor, silica nanoparticles were dispersed in a mixture of silane, ethanol, water, and Gluta, maintaining an appropriate ratio by weight, and using a sonication technique. Ethanol was used as a dispersion fluid and was evaporated later. Several layers of Kevlar fabric were then soaked with the admixture for about 24 h and dried in an oven. Armor composites were tested in a drop tower according to NIJ115 Standard using spikes. Kinetic energy at impact was calculated and normalized with the aerial density of the armor. NIJ tests revealed that normalized energy for 0-layer penetration increased from 10 J-cm2/g (STF composite) to 220 J-cm2/g for the new armor composite, indicating a 22-fold enhancement. SEM and FTIR studies confirmed that this high resistance to spike penetration was due to the formation of stronger C-N, C-H, and C=C-H stretches facilitated by the presence of silane and Gluta.

Abstract. Wake steering is a form of wind farm control in which turbines use yaw offsets to affect wakes in order to yield an increase in total energy production. In this first phase of a study of wake steering at a commercial wind farm, two turbines implement a schedule of offsets. Results exploring the observed performance of wake steering are presented and some first lessons learned. For two closely spaced turbines, an approximate 14 % increase in energy was measured on the downstream turbine over a 10∘ sector, with a 4 % increase in energy production of the combined upstream–downstream turbine pair. Finally, the influence of atmospheric stability over the results is explored.

The presence of a wall near a rigid sphere is known to disturb the particle fore and aft flow field and thereby affect particle drag and lift. This effect has wide ranging implications in particulate flows such as the dynamics of blood cells in microvessels or the transport of particulates in channel and pipe flows. In this study, an Immersed Boundary Direct Numerical Simulation (IB-DNS) is used to predict the dynamics of a rigid spherical body in the presence of a wall at laminar flows. The wall effect is shown to be significant when the dimensionless ratio (L/D) of the particle diameter (D) to the wall distance (L) is less than 3, and when particle Reynolds number is less than 10. Based on the IB-DNS results, a correlation for the wall effect on drag coefficient is derived that can be used to predict the actual drag coefficient for rigid spheres under the influence of a wall for L/D between 0.75 and 3 and Reynolds number between 0.18 and 10. The data underlying the correlation developed herein is validated by comparison to published experimental, numerical, and analytical correlations. The application of the IB-DNS method to study the wall effect is both novel and significant. It is novel in that such an application is not yet demonstrated. It is significant in that it; (1) utilizes a uniform Cartesian fluid mesh and (2) requires no sub domains of higher grid resolution in the wall gap.

African Development in the 21st Century: Adebayo Adedeji's Theories and Contributions, edited by Amos Sawyer, Afeikhena Jerome and Ejeviome Eloho Otobo. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2014. xv + 216 pp. $29.95 (pbk) - Volume 53 Issue 4

Alkaline fuel cells are very promising because of their high efficiencies (1). In fuel cells the reduction of oxygen on cathode side is the performance-limiting step (2, 3). Catalysts, e.g. platinum, are used to enhance the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) rate and also the performance. Due to the high costs of the fuel cell components, especially for the platinum catalyst (4), the fuel cell is not common for various applications up to now. The alkaline media enables the use of non-precious metals, e.g. cobalt or manganese oxides (5-8), to enhance the kinetic on the cathode side. The electroactivities of different non-precious metal catalysts like cobalt oxide are promising to achieve a similarly high activity as platinum. A cobalt acetate precursor is plasma-treated and resulting cobalt oxide catalysts with different cobalt loading were investigated in different alkaline media and at temperatures between 25 and 75 °C using a rotating ring disk electrode (RRDE) analysis. The advantage of plasma treatment is the better distribution of particles, they are less agglomerated compared due to the common heat treatment (9-11). This leads to a higher activity of the catalyst material (9). Different characterisation methods are used to identify the catalyst material like XRD, TEM and SEM. A custom-built Teflon cell is used for the RRDE analysis to avoid glass corrosion in alkaline media. Glass corrosion affects the electrochemical measurements (12), therefore it is necessary to replace glass components for the experiments.

In today’s economic environment, larger capital investments by power plants, especially nuclear plants, are tending towards shorter project lead times; and at the same time with an emphasis on improved performance and future reliability. These ideas are generally not synonymous with cost effectiveness. Often it is very beneficial that the engineering phase for this equipment be flexible such that the needs of the end user, engineer, and equipment vendor are met in a cooperative fashion. The recent power uprate scope of supply at NextEra Energies Point Beach Nuclear Power Plant was modified about 36 weeks before the outage start date to include large replacement condensate coolers for each unit with the Unit 2 exchanger delivery being critical. This left a small window in which to generate a specification, purchase, and produce the first of two 14,500 ft2 heat exchangers. The project had many design challenges that needed to be addressed including the installation, size limitations, nozzle locations, nuclear plant quality requirements and consideration of lake/sea grass (string from algae) fouling, zebra/quagga mussel fouling, and alewife (small fish) pluggage concerns in order to bring the project to a successful conclusion. These issues needed the combined strengths of the Engineer, End User, and Fabricator working quickly and making timely decisions to bring the total project to the most cost effective and successful conclusion.