Raytheon Technology Today 2011 Issue 1

ENGINEERING PROFILE
Steven Klepper
Director, Research
and Development,
ET&MA
Steve Klepper joined
the Engineering,
Technology and
Mission Assurance
organization in
2009 as director of
research and development.
In this role,
he is responsible for
the development of the overall ET&MA strategy,
as well as supporting ET&MA-related growth
initiatives, including aligning investments to
required capabilities. Klepper joined Raytheon
10 years ago, focusing on finance and strategy.
Klepper describes his current role as a “homecoming.”
He explained, “My original training
is as a physicist. Being part of the ET&MA staff
allows me to combine my technical background
with my business experience to support growth
and innovation at Raytheon.”
Before Raytheon, Klepper received his Ph.D.
from Yale University, was a post-doctoral
researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, and made a career transition
into the business world. “I joined a strategic
consulting firm in the mid-1990s and had the
opportunity to serve a number of technology
and industrial clients on topics ranging from
strategy and finance to operations. It was an
opportunity for me to apply my analytical and
problem-solving skills learned as a scientist to
solve the rather different problems facing
these companies.”
Klepper advises others to take advantage of
their many learning opportunities. “Continuous
learning is key to success. There is no single
course that provides all the knowledge you will
need as you advance in your career. But there
are many excellent resources available, and
Raytheon has made a tremendous investment
in providing some of these resources
to its employees.”
16 2011 ISSUE 1 RAYTHEON TECHNOLOGY TODAY
Feature
Continued from page 15
to the extent that they are more efficient,
or have a lower carbon footprint, than traditional
combustion power technologies,
or when renewable (carbon neutral) fuel
sources are used.
Fuel cells offer the potential for a number of
benefits in providing power to systems large
and small versus traditional power sources:
higher efficiencies compared to combustion
sources, lower carbon profiles depending
on the fuel, and possible cost savings depending
on relative efficiencies and fuel
costs. However, like any emerging technology,
fuel cells must overcome a number of
challenges prior to widespread adoption.
Such challenges include life cycle/durability
of SOFC stacks and other components,
logistics and supply chain deployment of
the alternative fuels consumed by fuel cells,
and cost and performance trade-offs
versus power sources with similar energy
and power densities.
Fuel Cell Applications
At the lower-power end of the spectrum,
companies such as MTI MicroFuel Cells
Inc., NEAH Power Systems, Inc., Lilliputian
Systems Inc., and Angstrom Power, Inc.,
are focused on developing battery
replacement technologies to compactly
provide extended power to handheld
devices in environments where ready
access to the electrical grid for recharging
is impossible or impractical.
The key discriminator for such fuel cell
systems is the duration of power between
refills. They promise to provide as much as
two orders of magnitude greater energy
density than conventional chemical battery
technologies for power densities less than
10 W/kg. Target applications include consumer
electronics devices such as mobile
phones and laptops. Compact, high energy
density fuel cell systems equate to longer
effective life between charges. This may be
applicable to the power needs for man-
portable military devices and may also simplify
the logistics of providing such power
versus traditional batteries due to fuel cell
systems’ higher energy density.
Bloom Energy, Fuel Cell Energy, UTC Power
and Ballard are examples of companies
focused on the higher end of the power
spectrum. The power capabilities of these
systems can span the range from 100 kW to
50 MW using scalable architecture.
Figure 2 shows a Bloom Energy system.
Each 100-kilowatt EnergyServer SOFC
power system can be combined with additional
units to meet higher, megawatt-scale
power requirements, such as those at a
large business facility. (As a point of reference,
the average electricity usage of a U.S.
residence is just over 1 kilowatt, as reported
by the U.S. Department of Energy.)
Figure 2. Bloom Energy ES-5000 Energy Server SOFC system. (Source: Bloom Energy)
Fuel Cells