West Gate’s 4th Cohort Innovators Pursue Advanced Energy Applications Throughout Energy Landscape - CleanTechnica

The article highlights the fourth cohort of West Gate, NREL’s Lab-Embedded Entrepreneurship Program, which supports innovators developing advanced energy technologies aimed at creating resilient, secure, and affordable energy systems. Supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office, the program embeds entrepreneurs at NREL for two years, granting them access to research resources and entrepreneurial training to help de-risk their innovations. The current cohort includes James Clegern of KineticCore Solutions, Kian Lopez of OsmoPure Technologies, Ying Sun of Rare Flora, and Ian Brownstein of XFlow Energy, each working on diverse technologies from flywheel energy storage to water filtration and rare earth element extraction. A key innovation presented is KineticCore Solutions’ redesigned flywheel energy storage system. Traditional flywheels face limitations in energy capacity due to their cylindrical shape and mass requirements, which increase costs. Clegern’s team developed a carbon composite flywheel with an ovoid, flying saucer-like shape that can spin