Global Energy Prize honours scientists for rechargeable batteries, physics work

The Global Energy Prize (GEP), one of the world’s most prestigious awards recognising outstanding achievements across the world in energy research and technology, has announced this year’s two honourees for their important contributions and research in rechargeable batteries and physics.

The prize comes with an RUB 38 million ($1.17 million) endowment to help laureate honourees fund future research projects. It is the largest energy research grant of its kind in the world.

The 2013 Global Energy Prize laureates are:

• Dr Akira Yoshino of Japan for his groundbreaking work in the development of the lithium-ion rechargeable battery, the beating heart of mobile electronic devices, electric vehicles and hybrid electric vehicles. Dr Akira is a Fellow at Asahi Kasei and is President of the Lithium Ion Battery Technology and Evaluation Center (LIBTEC) in Japan.
• Vladimir Evgenyevich Fortov, the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Department for Power Industry, Mechanical Engineering, Mechanics and Control Processes in Russia, for his pioneering work in thermodynamic, thermophysical, electrophysical and electronic properties of fluids and construction materials.

Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation, hailed this year’s honourees and said they represented the best of the Global Energy Prize’s rich and growing tradition. “Since its inception, the Global Energy Prize has been one of the most prestigious international awards, rallying around shared goals [of] the creative community of talented scientists, researchers and experts in the field of energy from Russia and many other countries,” President Putin said.

This year’s Global Energy Prize honourees were announced before a globally represented audience of scientists, diplomats and journalists at the RIA-Novosti Press Center in Moscow. This year’s laureates were selected from a field of 82 world-class researchers by their peers. GEP candidates can be nominated only by the highest-rated scientists, which include laureates of the Kyoto, Max Planck, Wolf and Balzan prizes and Nobel Prize laureates in physics or chemistry.

For more information about the 2013 laureates and about the GEP, go to http://www.globalenergyprize.org/en/.