WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. home resales jumped in July to their highest level in over three years, suggesting a sharp increase in borrowing costs is having only a limited impact on the housing market's recovery.

The National Association of Realtors said on Wednesday that existing home sales jumped 6.5 percent to an annual rate of 5.39 million units.

That was above analysts' expectations and could make the Federal Reserve more comfortable with its plans to wind down a major economic stimulus program. Plans to end the program have already pushed mortgage rates higher.

While some of July's surge in home resales may reflect buyers rushing to lock in rates before they rise further, the data inspired some confidence that the housing recovery was strong enough to withstand higher borrowing costs.

"The basic take-away is that the rise in mortgage rates has been manageable," said Ryan Sweet, an economist with Moody's Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania.

After being devastated by a financial crisis and the 2007-09 recession, the U.S. home market appeared to turn a corner early last year, helped by steady job creation and extremely low interest rates.

July's increase marked the fastest pace of sales since November 2009, when a home buyer tax credit was expiring. Such a strong rate of growth could prove temporary, however.

Applications for mortgages to buy homes rose slightly last week but have fallen sharply since the spring and remain near a seven-month low, a separate report from the Mortgage Bankers Association showed.

"We expect to see some moderation in activity in the coming months, as higher mortgage rates take some of the air from the recovery," said Millan Mulraine, an economist at TD Securities in New York.

Since early May, mortgage rates for 30-year loans have risen more than a percentage point. Last week, the average rate for a 30-year mortgage climbed 12 basis points to 4.68 percent while refinancing activity slumped, the MBA said.

The Fed currently buys $85 billion a month in bonds but is expected to throttle back purchases in September. Financial markets were waiting for clues on this from the minutes of the Fed's most recent meeting, which were due later on Wednesday.

The housing data appeared to have little impact on Wall Street. U.S. Treasury prices dipped ahead of the release of the Fed's minutes, while stock prices also fell slightly.

Economists polled by Reuters had expected home resales to increase to a 5.15 million unit pace in July.

The housing market recovery, marked by a surge in prices and dwindling inventories, is helping to shore up the economy by bolstering household finances and supporting consumer spending.

This helped Lowe's Cos Inc. report on Wednesday that it posted a bigger-than-expected rise in quarterly profit and sales. The news came a day after larger rival Home Depot Inc. also reported strong results.

Luxury home builder Toll Brothers Inc. on Wednesday reported a 24 percent rise in quarterly revenue as its clients appeared undeterred by rising mortgage rates.

A stronger overall economy is also helping home owners avoid foreclosure.

The NAR said distressed properties - which include short sales and foreclosures - accounted for only 15 percent of sales last month. That matched June's reading, which was the lowest since the real estate group started monitoring them in October 2008.

The median price for a previously owned home soared 13.7 percent from a year ago to $213,500. The inventory of unsold homes on the market rose 5.6 percent, for an unchanged 5.1. months' supply.

(Additional reporting by Richard Leong in New York; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Dan Grebler)

A group of veteran security experts and former White House officials has been selected to conduct a full review of U.S. surveillance programs and other secret government efforts disclosed over recent months, ABC News has learned.

The recent acting head of the CIA, Michael Morell, will be among what President Obama called a "high-level group of outside experts" scrutinizing the controversial programs.

Joining Morell on the panel will be former White House officials Richard Clarke, Cass Sunstein and Peter Swire. An announcement is expected Thursday, a source with knowledge of the matter told ABC News' Jon Karl.

The group will "consider how we can maintain the trust of the people [and] how we can make sure that there absolutely is no abuse," President Obama said two weeks ago when announcing the group's formation, without identifying who would be on the panel.

The identities of the panelists have been a topic of speculation online, raising questions over whether the group would truly be independent in its review. The White House has insisted the group has full independence.

The president made clear that - in addition to looking at potential abuses by the program - the group will also assess whether the U.S. government "appropriately" accounts for "insider threats" and unauthorized disclosures.

"[Recent] technological advances have brought with them both great opportunities and significant risks for our intelligence community," President Obama said.

In 60 days, the review panel will provide an interim report to the director of national intelligence, who will then brief the president on the panel's findings.

A final report and subsequent recommendations will then be provided by the end of the year "so that we can move forward with a better understanding of how these programs impact our security, our privacy and our foreign policy," President Obama said two weeks ago.

Morell was acting director of the CIA until March, when John Brennan was sworn in as director.

Morell has worked at the CIA since 1980, holding a variety of senior positions, according to the CIA. In fact, he was serving as President George W. Bush's intelligence briefer on the day of the Sept. 11, 2011, attacks.

Richard Clarke served the last three presidents as a senior White House adviser, including as national coordinator for security and counterterrorism, according to his private security firm's website. He became a vocal critic of the Bush administration, causing consternation in some Republican circles.

He has been an on-air consultant on terrorism for ABC News.

Swire recently became a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology. At the start of the Obama administration, he served as a special assistant to the president for economic policy and, during the Clinton administration, he served as the chief counselor for privacy.

Sunstein left the White House a year ago as President Obama's so-called "regulatory czar," returning to Harvard Law School, according to the Center for American Progress, where Sunstein is also a senior fellow. As President Obama's administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Sunstein's post was considered one of the most powerful in Washington, given its ability to shape how laws were implemented.

Word of the group members came only hours after President Obama's intelligence advisers mounted a new defense against what they see as a misperception that the NSA is engaged in an "intentional or a wholesale breach of the privacy of Americans."

There is a system in place at NSA "toand to fix it when we don't get it right," a senior intelligence official told reporters Wednesday.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, revealed Wednesday that errors by the NSA meant that tens of thousands of emails from Americans not tied to terrorism were collected and archived for years.

Still, U.S. officials have insisted that the NSA program at issue collects phone numbers, email addresses and other "metadata" related to communications - but no content of those communications.

"We don't even capture any conversations, so there's no ability - no possibility - of listening to conversations through what we get in this program," a top Justice Department official recently told lawmakers.

Meanwhile, in announcing the review panel's formation two weeks ago, President Obama continued to defend the NSA programs as a matter of national security.

"We need new thinking for a new era," he said. "We now have to unravel terrorist plots by finding a needle in the haystack of global telecommunications."

ABC News' James Gordon Meek, Steve Portnoy and Ann Compton contributed to this report.

Thanks to Google Maps and Street View, there's no need to leave home to discover the world's most renowned zoos and walk amongst the animals.

Among the first zoos to arrive on Google Maps are those of San Diego, Houston, Atlanta and Chicago (United States), Toronto (Canada), Chapultepec (Mexico),Buin (Chili), Bauru (Brazil) and Dou la Fontaine (France).

Google introduces users to exotic species, including the tigers and kangaroos of Shou Shan (Taiwan), the polar bears and penguins of Asahiyama (Japan), Singapore's impressive orangutan habitat, and even Sydney's Asian elephants (Australia). Finally, panda fans can visit the Asian bears in the Chengdu research center in China, which is devoted to protecting the species and promoting their reproduction in captivity.

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Despite watching his team soundly defeat the United States 27-9 in the first leg of its Rugby World Cup qualifier last weekend to put Canada on the brink of earning a spot for England 2015, Crowley is looking for more.

An 18-point advantage in the two-match total-points series heading into Saturday's game at BMO Field puts Canada in good position, but Crowley wants a better showing than what he saw in Charleston, S.C.

"Very pleased with the result," Crowley said. "A little disappointed with what went on inside the game as far as our performance went, so we certainly had a lot to look at this week and a lot to work on."

Canada will make just two roster changes for Saturday's game, both through injury.

"The team that took the field last week got the job done," Crowley said at Thursday's press conference. "But they know they have a job to do for Canada on Saturday."

One of the two forced changes will see veteran lock Jamie Cudmore miss out with a hand injury.

The 34-year-old from Squamish, B.C., is hoping his teammates can provide him a chance to participate at his fourth World Cup.

"It's really the pinnacle for any Canadian athlete to get into a World Cup situation," said Cudmore, who will be replaced in the lineup by Tyler Hotson. "The honour of pulling on a Canadian jersey, especially on the world stage, is pretty much incomparable.

"I'll be very proud until the end of my days to say I represented Canada."

The winner of the Canada-U.S. series will join 12 countries that have already qualified automatically for the 20-team 2015 Rugby World Cup, slotting in Pool D alongside France, Ireland, Italy and another European qualifier.

All is not lost for the loser of the series, which moves on to play Uruguay in another round of qualifying.

Canada, ranked three spots ahead of the U.S. in 15th by the International Rugby Board, got off to a quick start in last Saturday's game with a try in the opening minute.

But the team stumbled a bit in its execution and Crowley is hoping the home fans can push Canada to an even better showing.

"It's in front of our own crowd and supporters that don't get to see a lot of rugby here in Canada," he said. "To be able to be playing in front of them is great."

The Americans, meanwhile, face the daunting task of travelling north with a big deficit following a disappointing performance.

U.S. coach Mike Tolkin said any player or coach that has made it to this level of rugby has experienced similar circumstances at one time or another.

"I think the most important thing to do is to focus on small battles," he said. "If you come into this game saying 'We need a 20-point win or we're all going to go down the tubes' ... totally wrong approach.

"It's winning the small battles and getting things going right ... If you try to do everything, you do nothing."

Canada and the U.S. met at the same stage of World Cup qualifying four years ago. The Americans scored a 12-6 victory in the opening leg in South Carolina, only to lose 41-18 in the second match in Edmonton.

The U.S. went on to beat Uruguay 27-22 and 27-6 to also make the 2011 World Cup in New Zealand.

Tolkin said sticking to the gameplan will be critical to the Americans on Saturday.

"You're not going to go week-to-week and turn the whole ship upside down," he said. "When we take the field we have to execute the plan. It's one thing to have it and to practise it, but we have to execute it on the field."

Notes: The other change due to injury for Canada will see Ray Barkwill slot in at hooker in place of Ryan Hamilton (knee). ... Former Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke, who was named to Rugby Canada's board of directors earlier this week, was at Thursday's press conference. ... Should the loser of the Canada-U.S. series also suffer defeat to Uruguay, the team has one last chance to make the World Cup via a repechage tournament. ... Saturday's game marks the 51st meeting between the North American rivals. Canada leads the series 37-12-1. ... The U.S. has lost its last six matches in 2013. ... The Webb Ellis Cup, the trophy awarded to the Rugby World Cup winner, was on hand in Charleston last weekend and will be on display in Toronto on Saturday. ... The last time Canada played in Toronto a 40-14 loss to Ireland in June the 20,396 fans who showed up to BMO Field were the largest ever for a rugby game in this country.

The Finn is out of contract at Lotus at the end of the season and was a leading contender to replace Mark Webber at Red Bull when the Australian moves over to endurance racing next year.

Fellow Australian Daniel Ricciardo, from Red Bull's junior team Toro Rosso, now looks most likely to get the 2014 seat alongside world champion and current standings leader Sebastian Vettel.

"Kimi will not be driving for Red Bull in 2014. We held some talks but a deal will not be happening," his manager Steve Robertson told www.autosport.com.

A Red Bull announcement could come at this weekend's Belgian Grand Prix when the season resumes after a break.

Robertson said staying at Lotus was just one possibility for 2007 world champion Raikkonen who spent two years in rallying after being forced out of Ferrari in 2009. He has shone on his return to F1 with an unfashionable team.

"We are pretty confident Kimi will be in F1 next year," he said. "There are options - and that is plural - out there and I will continue to talk to teams. I am hopeful we will sort something out in the not too distant future."

Raikkonen, second in the current standings and third last year, has even been linked in the media with a return to Ferrari to replace the underperforming Felipe Massa but the Italian team have played down the speculation.

The F1 rumor mill even suggested Ferrari's number one driver Fernando Alonso could be heading to partner Vettel next season after his manager was seen entering the Red Bull motorhome at the Hungarian Grand Prix last month.

Ferrari issued a rare public rebuke to Alonso after he told reporters "The one the others have" when asked following Hungary what kind of car he wanted for his birthday.

(Writing by Mark Meadows; editing by Tony Jimenez)

The move will bring the U.S. Open into line with Wimbledon and the Australian Open which both have retractable roofs on their centre courts. The French Open has announced plans to cover its main court.

Two new stadiums will be also be added as part of a $550 million overhaul of the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, New York, a project which should be completed by 2018.

"In order to have spectacular facilities we want to make sure we have the excitement and the energy that New York deserves and the world comes to see," Dave Haggerty, the USTA's chairman of the board, said at a news conference.

"Our strategic mission, when completed, will have a couple of new stadiums, a better fan experience, we will have wider walkways so that people can get around and, yes, as you have heard, there will be a roof on Arthur Ashe Stadium.

"In addition Louis Armstrong (Stadium) will have a roof as well."

The Arthur Ashe Stadium roof, teflon-coated and translucent in appearance, will measure 200,000 square feet and organizers hope to have it installed "at the earliest for the 2016 U.S. Open and most likely by the 2017 U.S. Open".

A new 8,000-seat Grandstand Stadium court will be constructed in time for 2015 followed by a 15,000-seat Louis Armstrong Stadium court to be opened before the 2018 edition.

"We recognize there are many known, and certainly many unknown, hurdles we will have to confront to meet this schedule," said USTA executive director Gordon Smith. "We are ready for the challenge and hope we can achieve it."

MURRAY'S WELCOME

Andy Murray, the U.S. Open champion who is competing this week at the Western and Southern Open in Cincinnati, welcomed the news.

"For TV and stuff it's fantastic," he told reporters. "Always good that you know matches are going to get finished ... rain delays and stuff, it used to be part of it, whereas now that's kind of going away gradually.

"I don't particularly like going from indoors to outdoors to indoors but it's good for TV."

Bad weather has wrought havoc with the U.S. Open schedule in recent years with the men's final, including last year's epic between Murray and Novak Djokovic, being pushed back from Sunday to Monday for the past five years.

Despite frequent calls for a roof, the USTA last year ruled out including one as part of the redevelopment, citing logistical issues.

Opened in 1997, Arthur Ashe Stadium has a 22,500 capacity, making it by far the largest tennis arena in the world but some, such as four-times U.S. Open champion John McEnroe, argued a smaller venue with a roof would have made more sense.

The scale of the arena has been one of the main logistical challenges that has emerged from feasibility studies with the USTA previously saying a roof would be "technically complex and financially challenging".

This year's U.S. Open, which starts on August 26, has a Monday finish included as the official final day for the first time.

The switch to a scheduled Monday finish, unique among the four grand slam events, has been criticized by the men's governing body, the ATP.

(Reporting by Mark Lamport-Stokes in Los Angeles; Editing by Tony Jimenez)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Veteran actor Dick Van Dyke, best known for his hit television comedy of the 1960s, survived a car fire unscathed on Monday when a passerby pulled him from the smoldering vehicle before it burst into flames on the side of a Los Angeles-area freeway.

A spokesman for the California Highway Patrol confirmed that the 87-year-old performer was the driver seen slumped over the steering wheel of a Jaguar that was reported to be on fire on the shoulder of the Ventura Freeway.

Van Dyke said a group of motorists who stopped to render assistance, one of them apparently an off-duty firefighter, saw him huddled in the driver's seat while he was trying to place a call for help and pulled him out of the car to safety.

"They thought I had passed out so they yanked me out of the car," Van Dyke recounted in an interview with the celebrity news website TMZ.com, saying he had not initially realized that his car was burning.

"It just started making a noise, and I thought I had a flat at first, then it started to smoke, then it burned to a crisp," he said smiling. He added that he was unhurt and got out of the vehicle "long before" it went up in flames.

Still, he counted himself lucky to be alive.

"Not only that, there was a fireman, a nurse and a cop just happened to be passing by. Somebody's looking after me."

The actor's publicist, Bob Palmer, said the car, a "brand new" Jaguar, inexplicably caught fire after Van Dyke heard an unusual noise while driving and pulled over to the shoulder of the freeway.

He quoted Van Dyke, who had been on his way to a dental appointment, saying afterward, "The only thing I'm embarrassed about is that I could never figure out that damned car."

'HE'S FINE, THANK GOD'

Firefighters were "quickly able to extinguish the flames and evaluate the driver's medical condition. He did not require transport to a medical facility," Los Angeles city fire department spokesman Erik Scott said.

Palmer said the actor was back at his home and was fine.

A six-second video clip posted on Twitter by Van Dyke's wife, Arlene, showed the performer's charred vehicle on the freeway and a brief glimpse of the actor talking to officials at the scene. Van Dyke appeared unharmed in the video clip.

A caption accompanying the clip said: "Van Dyke's melted car ... He's fine thank God!!"

The tall, lanky actor, whose air of affability and gift for physical comedy helped make "The Dick Van Dyke Show" one of the most beloved sitcoms in U.S. television history, received a lifetime achievement award from the Screen Actors Guild in January.

The sitcom, co-starring Mary Tyler Moore as his wife, ran on CBS from the fall of 1961 to the fall of 1966 and continued on in syndicated reruns for decades. His role as the comedy writer and family man Rob Petrie, earned him three Emmy awards.

Van Dyke also starred in the family musical movies "Mary Poppins" and "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang," and the original Broadway cast of the Tony-winning musical "Bye Bye Birdie." He reprised his stage role for a 1963 film version of that show.

He scored another prime-time hit with the crime drama "Diagnosis Murder" in the 1990s and early 2000s.

(Additional reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Eric Walsh)

Judge Joseph Laplante asked David Kwiatkowski, 34, why he wasn't going to trial.

"Because I'm guilty," Kwiatkowski responded.

Kwiatkowski pleaded guilty to 14 charges of drug theft and tampering in New Hampshire, along with two similar counts in Kansas, although he was never formally charged there. Sentencing was set for Dec. 3, at which time the judge could impose a different sentence.

Before he was hired by New Hampshire's Exeter Hospital in 2011, Kwiatkowski worked as a cardiac technologist in 18 hospitals in seven states, moving from job to job despite being fired at least four times over allegations of drug use and theft.

Forty-six people in four states have been diagnosed with the same strain of hepatitis C Kwiatkowski carries and is accused of spreading by replacing stolen painkiller syringes with saline-filled syringes tainted with his blood. Thirty-two patients were infected in New Hampshire, seven in Maryland, six in Kansas and one in Pennsylvania. Kwiatkowski also worked in Michigan, New York, Arizona and Georgia.

One of the Kansas patients died, and authorities say hepatitis C, a blood-borne virus that can cause liver disease and chronic health problems, played a contributing role. The charges Kwiatkowski admitted to in Kansas stem from the patient who died, and many of the other patients have experienced serious medical problems, U.S. Attorney John Kacavas said.

"Tragically, the defendant's admissions of guilt today are too little, too late for those victims," he said. "There were many warning signs, there were many stop signs, there were many red lights along that road that were simply ignored by the defendant himself, a health care worker, by other individuals and entities in the health care industry."

Kwiatkowski grew up in Michigan and started his career there before becoming a traveling hospital technician who was assigned by staffing agencies to fill temporary openings around the country. According to the plea agreement filed Monday, Kwiatkowski told investigators he had been stealing drugs since 2002 the year before he finished his medical training and that his actions were "killing a lot of people." His lawyers have declined numerous interview requests.

Kwiatkowski told the judge Wednesday he was addicted to drugs and alcohol and was recently diagnosed with depression, for which he is taking several medications. Asked how he was feeling Wednesday, he answered, "good."

Kacavas said most of Kwiatkowski's victims support the plea agreement, though some were disappointed that the proposed sentence wasn't longer.

"I understand victims who want nothing less than a life sentence or the death penalty I get that. But our system doesn't allow for that," he said. "The victims support this disposition for the most part but are frustrated that they will carry this infection for the rest of their lives and feel that the defendant should spend the rest of his life beyond bars, which ... if this 40-year sentence is imposed he may well do."

At least two dozen civil lawsuits related to his case are pending, most of them against Exeter Hospital, and while Wednesday's plea rules out further criminal charges against Kwiatkowski, charges against hospitals or staffing agencies are possible, Kacavas said.

"Our investigation is not done," he said. "As we approach finality in his case, we are also looking elsewhere."

SAN FRANCISCO/LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - California, whose green ambitions helped the solar and wind industries take root, is taking an essential next step by proposing a sharp rise in energy storage to better integrate renewable power with the rest of the grid.

Power from sun and wind fluctuates dramatically, so capturing it for later use makes the supply more predictable.

"We can't just rely on sunlight," Governor Jerry Brown told the Intersolar conference in San Francisco last month. "We've got to bottle the sunlight."

California's storage push comes as renewables move toward a mandated one-third of the state's electricity supply by 2020. The proposal has fired up a technology race that has already attracted venture capitalists Peter Thiel and Vinod Khosla, large-scale battery makers such as LG Chem, and establishment forces like General Electric Co and Microsoft Corp founder Bill Gates.

It isn't just about California. Germany is a storage pioneer, and in the United States, stimulus funds have backed projects in states such as New York and Texas.

But the Golden State's aggressive renewables target is forcing the issue here: it wants storage of up to 1.3 gigawatts by 2020. That capacity is enough for traditional plants to power more than a million homes.

Lux Research analyst Steven Minnihan said California's proposal is the first legislation that will have an immediate and lasting impact on the grid storage market, which he estimates will soar to installations worth $10.4 billion in 2017 from just $200 million last year.

But storage is costly when compared to building new gas plants, and many storage projects were set up with the help of stimulus funds that have since run dry, meaning utility customers will end up with much of the tab. There are also risks that unproven storage technologies will not deliver on their promise.

"The ratepayers would be on the hook," said Farzad Ghazzagh, who is analyzing the proposal for the Division of Ratepayer Advocates, an arm of the California Public Utilities Commission. His analysis is not complete, but Ghazzagh has seen estimates of $1 billion to $3 billion to install so much storage.

Proponents argue ratepayers will benefit because storage enables utilities to avoid building power plants or transmission to meet peak demand, simply by providing extra power for a few hours a day. The Electric Power Research Institute found in a report for California's grid regulator this summer that storage's cost is worth it if all benefits are considered.

As in solar manufacturing, the storage business has had its share of difficulties as it struggled to bring costs down and prove technologies. Battery maker A123 Systems and flywheel maker Beacon Power LLC were among the most high profile, both filing for bankruptcy after receiving generous support from the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE).

Both have reinvented themselves under new ownership. A123 was bought for $257 million by the U.S. unit of Chinese auto parts maker Wanxiang, and still makes grid-scale batteries, selling one to Hawaii's Maui Electric Company in June.

Beacon was snapped up by energy-focused private equity firm Rockland Capital for $30.5 million and is working on a new project in Pennsylvania with government backing. A third project will not need government support, according to Scott Harlan, Rockland's managing partner.

Beyond batteries, Gates, Thiel and Khosla all invested this year in compressed air startup LightSail Energy, which in May was awarded $1.7 million from the California Energy Commission to demonstrate its technology at a Ventura County naval base. Gates and Khosla also invested together in another storage startup - battery company Ambri.

"Grid scale storage has always been one of the areas that we knew and know will happen. It's a matter of timing," said Andrew Chung, a partner with Khosla Ventures.

California's push "really cracks open the door" for startups that until now have had difficulty expanding small pilot projects into big purchases, Chung added.

The true impact of California's initiative will be felt between 2020 and 2030, Lux's Minnihan said, and he expects the move to inspire efforts by other states.

"HOLY GRAIL"

Storage is seen as energy's "holy grail" because of the efficiency it brings to any grid. For example, California has 51 gigawatts of peak capacity to handle heat that boosts air-conditioning demand, even if only two-thirds of that is needed for most of the year.

Still, without more government money, utilities like PG&E, Southern California Edison and San Diego's Sempra Energy will shoulder much of the upfront costs.

A natural gas-fired plant costs about $1,000 per kilowatt to build, whereas EPRI's base case for a battery substitute has a breakeven capital cost of $1,684 per kilowatt.

"We all agree, as we sit here today, storage is uneconomic," SunPower Corp Chief Executive Tom Werner told a meeting of utility executives in San Francisco. "But if you go out five years, I wouldn't bet against it."

The market potential means many are willing to play the odds.

Entrepreneur Elon Musk, who founded Tesla Motors, is deploying the car maker's battery technology in solar systems installed by another company he backs: SolarCity.

"I am increasingly confident that there will be major breakthroughs in electricity storage tech," Musk told the Reuters Global Markets Forum chat room.

Germany, having subsidized a massive roll-out of rooftop solar, is aggressively funding storage to balance its grid, driving a domestic market predicted to be worth $19 billion by 2017.

Germany's Gildemeister is providing vanadium energy storage batteries for miner American Vanadium to market and sell in the United States. The batteries can recharge electric vehicles, store wind and solar power for electric power grids, and set up micro grids when main power sources are not available. In Nevada, American Vanadium is developing the only U.S. mine that will produce the little-known metal.

American Vanadium CEO Bill Radvak sees particular interest among building owners and public service providers on the U.S. East Coast after the power disruptions of Hurricane Sandy.

Among power companies, AES has 1 GW of storage planned, mostly using lithium-ion batteries, and says its projects require no government incentives to pay off.

Most projects are still government backed. PG&E has unveiled in San Jose a 4-megawatt sodium-sulfur battery from Japan's NGK Insulators, while LG Chem is supplying a 32 MW-hour lithium-ion system to an Edison wind farm in Tehachapi - California's wind power hub. PG&E's project was aided by a $3.3 million state grant and Edison's got $25 million in DoE funds.

Meanwhile, however, GE says a new sodium nickel chloride battery system integrated into its own Tehachapi turbines is cheaper than grid-scale batteries at wind farms because it requires less investment in certain hardware.

The technology makes a turbine's power steady over periods of 15 to 30 minutes thanks to a battery roughly equivalent to one in GM's Volt electric car. Project developer Invenergy will install three at a Texas wind farm this year.

Venture capitalists poured $2.2 billion into storage in the last five years, according to the Cleantech Group, or well over double that of the previous five years. Werner, of San Jose-based SunPower, noted that the same minds behind smartphones are moving into smart meters and storage in Silicon Valley.

"These are capitalists. They're not doing this as a science experiment."

(Reporting by Braden Reddall in San Francisco and Nichola Groom in Los Angeles; Editing by Patricia Kranz, Martin Howell and Richard Chang)