When all else in the world is failing, it is comforting to know that we now have fully recyclable crisp packets.
UK NEWS
Church of England Installs 438 Solar Panels on Kings College Chapel
In the BBC’s annual Christmas Carol TV broadcast, which has run regularly since 1963, the opening shot is an external view of the chapel, surrounded by the roofs and spires of Cambridge. That view has barely changed in 60 years — until now. Last year, the college began installing 438 solar panels on its roof, a highly visible and somewhat controversial symbol of change.
The Church of England, with its 16,000 places of worship in the UK, has set a target for reaching net zero emissions by 2030. Starting small — LEDs, putting lights on timers and installing draught excluders — is often the way to go, says Graham Usher, the Bishop of Norwich and the Church of England’s lead bishop on the environment.
Usher’s office has released “practical path” guidance for churches, which takes them through these steps. For instance, solar PV and heat pumps could be appropriate, but only in cases where churches are busy and well-used. (Bloomberg)
photo: Kings College
UK geothermal heat pump project underway
A geothermal heat pump project has started at the British Geological Survey‘s headquarters in Nottinghamshire.
The ambitious project, the largest of its kind in the area, entails the installation of 28 boreholes drilled to a depth of 225 metres, aimed at decarbonising operations and reducing heating expenses at the Rushcliffe base.
Funded primarily by the Natural Environmental Research Council (NERC) and supported by the UK Government’s Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme, the initiative underscores a collaborative effort to transition towards renewable energy sources.
The project is in partnership with consultancy firm Pick Everard and contractor Cenergist. (energylivenews)
photo: British Geological Survey
Viridor agrees £500m carbon capture plan
Viridor has reached agreement with the Government on how it will deliver a carbon capture and storage project at its Runcorn energy-from-waste (EfW) facility.
It said that, with Government support, it would invest more than £500m to capture the carbon produced from the plant (pictured).
Viridor said the agreement marked “a significant milestone in the UK’s efforts to become a world leader in carbon capture, currently being delivered through the Government’s cluster sequencing programme”.
HyNet one of the first such clusters – with sites in north-west England and north Wales – bringing together industrial operations where it is difficult to reduce carbon, with plans to decarbonise through carbon capture and hydrogen. (mrw)
photo: Viridor
Bradford clears way to big green hydrogen plant
One of Britain’s biggest planned clean hydrogen plants has been approved for Bradford, west Yorkshire.
Development partners Hygen and N-Gen have secured planning consent for their low carbon production unit. Sited on a former gas holder site, the plant’s electrolyser will when built make 12.5 tonnes of green hydrogen daily. Clean solar power secured by developer Renewables Connections will be used.
Last year, the lead partners’ Bradford Low Carbon Hydrogen facility became the biggest scheme to be receive funding through the government’s Hydrogen Production Business Model.
With refuelling facilities on-site, other intended uses include industrial heating & use of the gas as a process feedstock. Distribution firm Ryze will co-ordinate delivery of the low carbon gas to the region’s commercial users across. (theenergyst)
British Crisp Co launches ‘world’s first’ 100% recyclable paper crisp packet
The “world’s first” fully recyclable paper crisp packet has been launched by the British Crisp Co, with the new eco packaging expected to launch in UK in the coming weeks.
Founder Tom Lock said consumers had been demanding a fully recyclable paper packet “for some time”.
The innovation has been launched in partnership with paper-based packaging manufacturer EvoPak, and is the fruits of three years of R&D work at the independent snack company.
A combination of paper and a green-friendly material called HydropolTM, the packets feature a thin layer of vacuum-deposited aluminium ensuring the crisps maintain their freshness. (sustainability-beat)
photo: British Crisp Company
EV OF THE WEEK
Two tiny EV’s this week. This is a niche that needs to expand rapidly for many reasons: First, small city cars suit EV tech particularly well. Secondly, if people switch to using them, it will contribute to reduced congestion and improved inner-city air quality. Thirdly, if, like me, it is your first experience of EV driving, and that experience is fun, rewarding and stress free, it wil encourage people to go fully electric. Finally, and probably most importantly it will bring EV motoring within the budget of many for whome they are deemed too expensive.
1. Changan Lumin
Changan is yet another Chinese auto company looking to expand internationally. The international debut for this city EV is at the Thai Auto Show, where it is going on sale now. Unlike many cheap Chinese cars it genuinely does look cute, it packs a 28kWh battery which should be good for a range of around 170 miles and is going on sale for about £10k. Needless to say it is well equipped in terms of Infotech etc.
photo: Changan Automobile Company
2. Leapmotor T03
Leapmotor are another one, although their new opffering will be coming to Europe under a deal where semi-knocked down kits from China will be assembled at Stellantis’ appropriately named Tychy plant in Poland. The T03 is slightly larger than the Lumin, about the size of a Fiat 500, (also made at Tychy). There are no details of performance except that it will have a range of about 175 miles and likely cost around £20,000. These sort of city EV’s can’t come quick enough.
Photo: Leapmotor
EUROPEAN STORIES
Macron and Lula launch green investment plan for Amazon
French President Emmanuel Macron kicked off a visit to Brazil on Tuesday, March 26, with the launch of a billion-euro Amazonian green investment plan alongside his counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Their trip to the city of Belem, the host of 2025 UN climate talks, makes Macron the first French president to visit Brazil in 11 years, seeking a fresh start after spats with former president Jair Bolsonaro over environmental destruction and insults directed at his wife, Brigitte Macron.
The investment plan aims to raise “1 billion euros [$1.08 billion] of public and private investment over the next four years,” according to a roadmap published by the French presidency ahead of next year’s COP30 summit.
The leaders are seeking to promote “a great public and private global investment plan into the bioeconomy” in the Brazilin and Guyanese Amazon, the announcement said, especially as Brazil presides over the G20 for 2024. (lemonde)
FOCUS ON:
SMS begins testing Interoperable Demand Side Response solutions
Smart energy solutions company SMS has started testing Interoperable Demand Side Response (IDSR) solutions as part of the UK government’s Flexibility Innovation Programme.
With the laboratory testing being aided via finance from the government’s £1 billion Net Zero Innovation Portfolio, the Flexibility Innovation Programme aims to establish new ways of achieving domestic flexibility through developing new IDSR applications.
This will cover how Energy Smart Appliances (ESAs), such as electric vehicle (EV) chargers, batteries, heat pumps and whitegoods can achieve interoperability through the PAS 1878/79 Standard to optimise the demand flexibility potential of UK homes.
Domestic flexibility continues to grow in popularity across the UK and with this in mind, National Grid National Grid Electricity Distribution (NGED) revealed in early January it had expanded its flexibility offer for winter 2024/25 across 1,426 new locations on its low voltage (LV) distribution network. (current-news)
Flex partners bring EV charging into grid’s STOR reserve for first time
Power storage aggregators Flexitricity say they’ve teamed up with a leading EV charging operator to bring vehicle-to-grid (V2G) flexibility into the National Grid’s reserve for the first time.
A total of 500 charge points operated by EV.Energy are now linked up to make a virtual power plant (VPP) overseen by the pair.
Contributing to NG-ESO’s Short Term Operating Reserve (STOR) service for the first time, the duo’s venture advances pioneering work in opening up Britain’s power markets to aggregated resources of distributed electricity. (theenergyst)
GLOBAL STUFF
Oil Giants Plan to Bury Massive Amounts of CO2 in Southeast Asia
Just as they first ventured to do over a century ago, the world’s largest oil companies are staking claims far from home — this time to swallow, rather than spew, planet-warming industrial emissions.
Carbon dioxide storage is emerging as a potential multi-billion-dollar revenue stream for firms like Exxon Mobil Corp., Shell Plc and Chevron Corp., which are under global pressure to rein in the unfettered burning of fossil fuels.
In Asia, which will generate the majority of this century’s carbon emissions, Indonesia and Malaysia are among the few places where CO2, once captured, can be viably stored underground. With the cash, decades of experience injecting carbon for the purposes of pumping extra oil, and an increasing number of depleted wells that can be refilled, oil companies are already jockeying for position.
Exxon Mobil Chief Executive Officer Darren Woods said the company has “secured exclusive rights to CO2 storage” in Indonesia and Malaysia.
Shell has signed an agreement to scope out possible sites with Malaysia’s national oil company, Petronas. Chevron is studying a project in Indonesia. And France’s TotalEnergies SE is actively exploring storage potential in the region.
Meanwhile, Indonesia’s government last month rushed through a presidential decree on possible incentives for CO2 storage operators. (bloomberg)
photo of Surulaya coal power plant, Indonesia: Creative Commons
South Korean ‘artificial sun’ reaches 7 times the Sun’s core temperature
For the first time, the Korea Institute of Fusion Energy’s (KFE) Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) fusion reactor has reached temperatures seven times that of the Sun’s core.
Achieved during testing between December 2023 and February 2024, this sets a new record for the fusion reactor project.
KSTAR, the researchers behind the reactor report, managed to maintain temperatures of 100 million degrees Celsius for 48 seconds. For reference, the temperature of the core of our Sun is 15 million degrees Celsius.
Furthermore, it maintained the high confinement mode (H-mode) for over 100 seconds. H-mode is a stable plasma state that is better confined than low confinement mode.
This is the latest in many successes for KSTAR, too. For example, in 2021, KSTAR set a new record by running at one million degrees and maintaining super-hot plasma for 30 seconds.
According to Korea’s National Research Council of Science & Technology (NST), creating technology that can maintain high-temperature and high-density plasmas where the fusion reactions occur most effectively for extended periods is crucial. They say that the secret behind these major achievements is tungsten divertors. These are vital components located at the bottom of the vacuum vessel in a magnetic fusion device. (interestingengineering)
photo: Korean Institute for Fusion Energy
Japan Plans $26 Billion New Hydrogen-Powered Passenger Jet Program
Airbus and BoeingBA could face fresh competition from Japan. The Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry announced it plans to invest 4 trillion yen ($26.46 billion) in a public-private partnership to develop a next-generation hydrogen-powered passenger jet.
As reported by AFP, the ministry said in a statement, “It is important for us to build next-generation aircraft based on technologies where Japan is competitive while also contributing to the decarbonization of air transport.”
Japan expects the new sustainable aircraft development to be completed after 2035. (forbes)
TECHIE CORNER
Iron flow battery promises to take charge
A new battery which is safe, economical and water-based, has been designed to be used for large-scale energy storage.
It promises to be able to support intermittent green energy sources like wind and solar into energy grids.
In a proof-of-concept experiment, researchers at the US Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory showed their iron-based battery has remarkable cycling stability. The newly designed battery maintained 98.7% of its maximum capacity even after more than 1,000 charging cycles.
The research is published in the journal Nature Communications.
Flow batteries consist of two chambers filled with different liquids. Unlike conventional batteries, flow battery chambers supply liquid constantly circulating through the battery to supply the electrolyte, or energy carrier.
Iron-based flow batteries have been around since the 1980s. The new battery is different because it stores energy in a unique chemical formula which combines charged iron with a neutral-pH liquid electrolyte. This nitrilotri-methylphosphonic acid (NTMPA) is commercially available in industrial quantities. It is often used to stop corrosion in water treatment facilities. (cosmosmagazine)
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