This report examines the technology, cost of production, environmental impacts & restrictions, and markets for the leading fluorocarbons that are widely utilized today, as well as the latest fluorocarbons that are being commercialized to replace legacy fluorocarbons that have negative environmental impacts.

Thermal energy storage (TES) technologies and systems provide a major opportunity for better economic benefits and enhanced energy management.  This includes expected mismatches in supply and demand for cooling or heating requirements, thereby offsetting differences in time and magnitude of cooling or heating production.  TES can also jointly assist in harnessing and integrating “stranded” renewable power supply through possible co-location with distributed energy resources such as based on solar and wind energy.  This report provides an overview of the various developing and commercial TES technologies in the United States and includes a methodology for structuring the levelized cost of storage (LCOS).  

This report is a comprehensive study of the lithium industry. In this study, Nexant has produced detailed analyses of the process technologies used for lithium extraction, cost of production estimates for several commercial and emerging extraction routes and sensitivity analyses for the cost of production.  As well as these detailed analyses, we provide an overview of industry trends, mining methods, geology and the lithium derivatives market.

Carbon fiber is a high-value product with exceptional properties (lightweight and high strength). This report reviews the commercial and developing technologies for carbon fiber production. The economics of the PAN-based and pitch-based processes have been estimated for plants located in the United States, Western Europe, Japan and China. In addition, the report discusses the motivations behind recent capacity additions and provides a high-level analysis of the business and strategic considerations as well as the technology availability from the perspective of a company entering or expanding into the carbon fiber market. This analysis is underpinned by a review of end-use sector consumption as well as regional market dynamics.