The Role of Green Hydrogen in Global Decarbonization

Posted on December 13, 2018January 23, 2019 by Louis Brasington

There are over 60 million tons of hydrogen produced annually, worth almost $100 billion dollars. Today, 80% of the hydrogen we produce is for three main industries: refineries, ammonia production or metal processing. Hydrogen also has the potential to be used as fuel for power and transportation. It generates zero emissions at point of use and can be produced from low-carbon electricity or from carbon-abated fossil fuels. The annual demand for hydrogen could increase tenfold by 2050 – from 8 EJ... Read More »

Virtual Reality Meets Industrial Innovation: How Technology Can Aid Creativity

Posted on December 13, 2018December 19, 2018 by Louis Brasington

Entertainment has been one of the drivers of Virtual Reality (VR) systems with popular systems from Oculus, HTV Vive and Sony’s PlayStation VR system. Commercial applications are taking the next step, Mixed Reality (XR), overlaying graphics on top of the real world led by companies like Magic Leap and Microsoft’s HoloLens. As an enabling technology, VR/XR has the potential to touch many facets of the industries we cover, including Industrial Design, Data Modelling and Visualization. To date, problems with display... Read More »

Battery Technology Show Recap: Emerging Battery Technology

Posted on November 12, 2018November 27, 2018 by Louis Brasington

Contributions from: Pirmin Ulmann, co-founder and CEO at b-science.net Last month, I was fortunate enough moderate a session at the Battery Technology Show in London. Here are takeaways from that session as well as some additional insight from our own research. Delegates from across the battery industrial supply chain participated in discussions around the technologies and business model innovations that could disrupt their markets in the next few years. Speakers included topic experts like Billy Wu, a senior lecturer at... Read More »

Are We Overdue a Building Construction Revolution?

Posted on September 18, 2018September 19, 2018 by Louis Brasington

While global labor productivity has risen by 2.8% in the past 20 years, productivity in construction reportedly has only increased by 1%, and compared to the 3.6% increase for manufacturing, is actually in decline (see Figure 1). If the construction industry could close that gap to match the global economic average, the industry's value could increase by $1.6 trillion, boosting global GDP by 2%. However, the construction industry is extensively regulated, risk averse and hard to navigate for new players.... Read More »

Infinite Drivetime: Talking Solar Cars With Lightyear

Posted on September 5, 2018September 7, 2018 by Louis Brasington

Solar-powered cars have been mostly experimental vehicles trying to break records at competitions like the World Solar Challenge in Australia. On the commercial side, the efforts have tended toward Solar Assisted Electric Vehicles (SAEVs). These vehicles have proven impractical and expensive, providing nothing more than small incremental gains to mileage. Ford and Toyota have had shots at products and to date, no system has managed to gain traction. With the coming of low cost-efficient solar cells alongside the transformation of... Read More »

European Utilities Support UN Development Goals

Posted on August 17, 2018August 17, 2018 by Louis Brasington

Last month, the United National delegates came together in New York, assessing the progress for their Sustainable Development Goals. The focus this year was on how nations can provide access to affordable and reliable energy, water, and safe and resilient cities. The meeting marked three years since the UN committed to reaching universal access to affordable and clean energy by 2030. Large energy corporates have been actively involved in the push across the globe, deploying decentralized energy systems through partnering... Read More »

Power to the People: Remote Microgrids Across Southeast Asia

Posted on July 26, 2018July 27, 2018 by Louis Brasington

Across the world around 1.3 billion people still have no access to electricity, and 87% of these people live in rural areas where extension of the grid is impracticable. Microgrids can help to provide electrification, as well as stability and resiliency to these areas, ultimately helping to pull a large portion of society out of energy poverty. [caption id="attachment_18557" align="alignright" width="395"] Active partners of the REIDS microgrid project.[/caption] One of the regions that has transformed in the past years is... Read More »

Strength in Numbers: Long Term Solutions for CO2 Reuse

Posted on June 27, 2018June 27, 2018 by Louis Brasington

Industrial clusters are geographic concentrations of interconnected companies, benefiting from shared infrastructure. For CO2 reuse, this creates a wider set of opportunities to connect elements along the carbon, capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) value chain. Standalone projects have been challenged by having to finance all the related infrastructure costs. One example is the first commercial-scale CCUS project at Boundary Dam which captures 1 million tons per year of CO2 from SaskPower's coal-fired power for use in enhanced oil recovery (EOR).... Read More »

Between a Rock and Hard Place: Commercializing CO2 Through Mineralization

Posted on June 13, 2018June 13, 2018 by Louis Brasington

The geosphere refers to the solid materials found within the Earth that contain a vast number of different minerals. Just as a sponge can hold liquid, these minerals can hold huge volumes of carbon. An estimated 2000 times more carbon is stored within the geosphere than in the atmosphere, oceans and biosphere combined. This natural storage bank offers us a solution to permanently hold CO2 through a process known as CO2 mineralization. This process refers to a chemical reaction that occurs... Read More »

Disrupting the solar industry – Talking perovskite with Saule Technologies

Posted on May 24, 2018May 30, 2018 by Louis Brasington

Disruption was one of the key themes at this year’s Cleantech Forum Europe in Antwerp. We explored some of the industries that are poised for change, driven by advancements in next generation technologies. One of these technologies was perovskite solar, which is seen as a wonder material that has the potential to really shake up the solar industry. Consequently, we decided to speak with a company who is very active in the space to give our readers an up to... Read More »

Cleantech Group

Author: Louis Brasington