By Julian Singer Active Energy Group (AEG) is one of a few companies listed on AIM that have no operations in the UK. It has been involved in forestry management for many years, initially in Ukraine but now in North America, but for the last few years has focused on its CoalSwitchTM product: a method of [...]
By Julian Singer Two well-known facts about offshore wind turbines are that they are getting bigger and that the price of the electricity they produce is getting less. Some climate sceptics have doubted that the installers will be able to operate at the prices tendered and that the wind farms will never be built. On [...]
By Julian Singer In February Porvair, the specialist filtration and environmental technology group, presented a good set of results for its financial year to the end of November 2019. The revenue was a record high at £144.9 million, up thirteen per cent from 2018, while profit before tax was also a record at £14m, up [...]
By Julian Singer, 12 May 2020 Earlier this year the New York based financial and business news website Business Insider published a study listing twenty-one clean technology start-ups that it claimed would transform the industry. It was particularly interested to know if there were any unicorns (start-ups with a valuation of $1bn or more). Specifically excluded [...]
By Julian Singer On 28 April Professor Steve Sorrell of the University of Sussex gave a cogent and interesting presentation of his work on the limits of Energy Sufficiency[1] in an online session as part of the Oxford Energy series. Energy sufficiency can be thought of as a goal or a set of actions that [...]
By Oliver Nelson-Drummett Efficiency is often the most highly considered factor for a solar cell amongst the research community. It is defined as the electrical power that a solar cell module outputs compared to the solar influx of power that falls on that module, expressed as a percentage. Recently, perovskites have exploded onto the scene, [...]
By Julian Singer Heat pumps are expected to play a major role in decarbonising residential heating, which contributes 14 per cent of the UK’s CO2 emissions, about the same as transport. In fact they are nearly the only solution currently available and will remain so unless the gas grid is converted to hydrogen. But what [...]
By Julian Singer Suzlon, the Indian wind turbine manufacturer, reported a loss of Rs 1858Cr (£202 million) for the nine months ending 31 December 2019, more than the loss of £137m for the corresponding period the year before. This was primarily due to the low volume of wind turbines installed: only 49MW for the nine [...]
By Oliver Nelson-Dummett Nuclear fission is a controversial player in the push for low-carbon energy. It has historically been the largest contributor of such generation and is still a key factor: in 2018, nuclear power generated 28 per cent of global low-carbon energy, the second-highest source behind hydropower. A nuclear reactor house in the spherical containement sphere, [...]
Redflow, the Australian manufacturer of zinc-bromide flow batteries, announced its results for the half year to 31 December 2019 on 27 February. Revenue from sales increased dramatically to A$1,436,000 for the half-year, up from A$800,072 for the full financial year ending mid 2019. However the latter results were expected to be poor as the company [...]