Page 7 - Survival Plan: Climate Emergency

Wednesday,September18,2019 www.thestar.co.uk
THESTAR 7
PICTURE: CHRIS ETCHELLS
Charging towards giant batteries
Giant batteries are the missing link between intermittent power from renewables and relentless demand.
Cumulus Energy Storage believes it is the answer when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow – or there’s too much of both.
It makes batteries the size of a shipping container that can store and deliver electricity on a ‘grid scale’.
Linked together they can balance demand to the National Grid, which spent £1.3bn on the problem last year, including £125m to turn off wind farms.
Fundamentally, super- storage paves the way to 100 per cent renewable energy, according to Nick Kitchin, chief executive of Cumulus, based in Rotherham.
He added: “We are part of the solution. Batteries are absolutely fundamental to a low carbon future driven by climate change.”
CES batteries could deliver consistent power to an off-grid African village with a wind turbine or solar panels. They could also be used by remote Australian mines currently powered by diesel generators.
He also says there
are other advantages.
In a world desperate
for lithium for mobile batteries, CES uses readily- available copper and
zinc and its products are 99.5 per cent recyclable. The company has raised
PICTURE: MARIE CALEY
Xeros research scientist Dan Lewis with the XFiltra
Cleaning up the laundry process
Xeros is a ‘laundry-tech’ company for a warming, water-stressed, polluted planet.
Its three big inventions combine to create a cleaning system which dramatically reduces the environmental impact of washing clothes.
XOrbs are plastic
beads which knock dirt
off garments in a ‘humid’ environment in the machine, using up to 80 per cent less water, half the energy and half the detergent.
XDrum allows them to be used in domestic machines and can be fitted quickly with no fundamental changes to washing machine design.
XFiltra catches 99 per cent of synthetic fibres from a wash, preventing them entering the sea and being eaten by fish. It can be emptied into a household bin.
Globally, synthetic fibres from clothes contribute 35 per cent of
all microplastic pollution going into the sea. Bosses believe the government will soon legislate to halt this pollution.
But it doesn’t end there, for XOrbs can also be used to apply colour and could have a big impact on the water- intensive tanning and dyeing sectors.
Rather than develop
its own machines, the Rotherham company is licensing its technology to manufacturers, seen as the quickest way for it to have an impact. Some 119m washing machines are sold globally each year.
Xeros has just signed a deal with the largest supplier of garment finishing equipment in South Asia.
It will licence its products to Ramsons which will build them into denim processing machines, with drum sizes up to 5,000 litres. Jeans need up to 70 litres of water in the finishing stages of production.
Nick Kitchin, CEO of Cumulus Energy Storage
Driving on with electric bin lorry
£4.7m, including £1.8m from the government.
It aims to make its first sales next year and go into
full production with 200 people in 2021.
Equity finance is welcome.
PICTURE: MARIE CALEY.
Diesel-powered bin lorries typically operate for 14 hours a day, chugging around slowly, pumping out harmful emissions.
But that could change after an electric model hit the streets of Sheffield powered by Magtec technology.
The Sheffield company built the £100,000 system which replaced a diesel engine in the test model.
It is quieter, a third of the cost to run, and, in terms of emissions, the equivalent of removing 30 cars from the road. It could pave the way for the city’s 80 refuse lorries to all go green.
It comes as Sheffield City
Magtec founder Marcus Jenkins.
Council is set to introduce a pollution charge as part of a worldwide drive to improve air quality.
For Magtec, it is another step on the road to going global. Set up by Marcus Jenkins in 1992, today it makes electric and hybrid drive systems for vehicles
including cars, bin lorries, buses and trams.
About half of business is retro-fitting old vehicles and half is supplying some of the world’s best-known automotive manufacturers and converters.
Mr Jenkins said: “Limiting harmful emissions in cities like Sheffield will encourage the growth of Magtec and create more high quality engineering jobs
and opportunities for young people.
Other Magtec projects include an electric drive system for a 7.5 tonne lorry for the urban daily deliveries market. The vehicle is on trial in UK cities.
Tim Fenwick, Magtec software engineer with the converted bin lorry