At the beginning of the year, news readers were treated to images of German police forcefully removing climate activists from the village of Lützerath to make way for an open-air coal mine. Indeed, Germany may have averted a looming energy crisis this past winter by upping its coal consumption.
While prioritising energy independence may have caused a detour from the transition to renewables, the country’s goal is to reach climate neutrality by 2045: five years ahead of the EU target. A small step on the way but a step nonetheless is Europe’s first solar panel roof-covered cycling path which opened this week in the city of Freiburg, about a two-hour drive south of Stuttgart.
The photovoltaic (PV) pilot project consists of a 300-metre-long installation featuring over 900 translucent glass solar panels, and will generate around 280 MWh of solar power per year. Solarwatt, the producer of the panels covering the path, says they are particularly durable as the solar cells are enclosed on the front and back by robust glass panes.
Existing infrastructure has increasing role to play
The cleantech company now has three decades of experience creating solar panels and currently employs over 800 people across Europe. In 2022, it acquired Utrecht-based battery-storage specialist REConvert for an undisclosed amount, establishing a Dutch subsidiary.
Solarwatt’s CEO Detlef Neuhaus believes rethinking photovoltaics will be essential for Germany’s transition to clean energy, and sees an untapped potential in already existing infrastructure.
“Already sealed areas such as parking lots, paths and roads are playing an increasingly important role,” Neuhaus said. “We are proud that we could contribute our part to the success of this innovative pilot project.”
Credit: Badenova AG & CO
The modules used in the bike lane project have general technical approval from the German Institute for Building Technology (DIBt). This means that they can be used without any restriction for both private and public projects, without the need for case-by-case testing.
Solar-powered neighbour stadium
Meanwhile, the pilot bicycle lane is situated close to the SC Freiburg football stadium. The arena is already equipped with a 2.4MW solar panel roof, courtesy of around 6,000 heterojunction solar modules from Swiss manufacturer Meyer Burger.
This makes it the third-largest solar panel installation on any stadium in the world. (The largest belongs to Turkish Süper Lig football club Galatasaray’s home arena Nef Stadium, which comprises more than 10,000 panels.)
The potential for much longer PV-roofed paths
This may be Europe’s first solar panel roof-covered bicycle path (excluding several projects where the path itself has been covered with PV panels). However, since 2014, South Korea boasts a 9 kmbicycle lane covered by a roof made of solar panels.
This 4-metre wide lane runs in the middle of an eight-lane highway, and connects the cities of Daejeon and Sejong. Its 7,502 solar panels are capable of producing 2,200MWh per year – the equivalent of powering around 600 households, according to the country’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. Several other Korean cities have implemented the technology, but this remains the longest and most power-generating project to date.
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Barcelona’s food tech startup Heura has unveiled its new patent-pending technology aimed at producing meat substitutes without the lengthy and sometimes off-putting ingredients list. The company says it is the first scalable technology of its kind to add “superior” nutritional value to plant-based foods.
The data is abundantly clear – if we are to have any chance at halting global warming, we need to revolutionise our food systems. Approximately 14.5% of all anthropogenic greenhouse gases come from the raising of livestock.
Furthermore, research has shown processed red meats to be carcinogenic. This means that what we choose to put on our plates matters, for the health of both the collective and the individual.
However, the initial enthusiasm for vegan meat alternatives has waned somewhat, with shares in one of the most eponymous alternatives, Beyond Meat, losing over 60% of their value over the past year alone.
Often, companies behind the fake meat revolution are criticised for relying too heavily on artificial additives, with long lists of unpronounceable ingredients. Furthermore, the ultra-processed products are often devoid of essential nutrients.
“I think that the worst enemy of the category are bad products,” said Heura’s co-founder Marc Coloma. “We see that there has been kind of a gold rush in this category where a lot of products had been launched super fast to the market without meeting consumer expectations.”
Patent-pending thermomechanical technology
Most approaches to creating vegan meat substitutes are sort of trial and error. Producers experiment with different blends of binders and additives as well as vegetable proteins to see what works.
Enter Heura’s patent-pending technology. The thermomechanical technique uses heat and mechanical energy to shape or modify a material’s properties. This, Heura says, allows it to create plant-based meat substitutes with higher quality inputs and a shorter ingredients list.
Día histórico en Heura: hoy presentamos nuestra primera patente (de muchas que vendrán) y no podemos estar más felices. #Sucesorespic.twitter.com/1mwG7VbOK8
— Heura Foods #FoodActivists (@HeuraFoods) April 25, 2023
We haven’t been able to glean the exact details about the actual breakthrough. However, during the launch of the project platform, named Good Rebel Tech, last year, the company’s Science and Technology director Isabelle Férnandez, stated that,
“Instead of focusing on extracting and isolating proteins from legume seeds, we are researching ways to leverage the functionality of whole plants in their naturally occurring structures.”
For now, focus will be on products in the deli, cheese and whole meats. And as anyone who has ever dined in Spain can attest, these are far more popular categories than the most commonly substituted burger patty.
But, protein?
The company has already developed two products using the technology: a frankfurter-style sausage and ham-style slices, both made from soy protein. The frankfurters have a protein density of 72%, and the “ham” 70%. Heura is hoping to have both products hit store shelves by the end of Q4 2023.
List of ingredients for the frankfurter? Water, soy protein isolate, extra virgin olive oil, radish, carrot and paprika flavour concentrates, lemon juice from concentrate and vitamin B12.
You may have noticed it does not, like so many fake meat products, contain coconut oil. This is due to another milestone reached by Heura’s R&D department last year, where it managed to replace the saturated fat alternative with a 100% olive-oil-based analogue.
Successful equity crowdfunding
Heura Foods was founded in 2017, in a co-working office in the centre of Barcelona. Its first customer was a small, local business in the Poble-sec neighbourhood. The startup has raised €36 million to date – including an equity crowdfunding campaign which landed it €4 million in just 12 hours. In 2022, the company secured a turnover of €31.4 million, and in 2023, it grew 44% in Q1 compared to the same quarter the year before.
Furthermore, Heura has tripled its market share in Spain over the past three years, and has agreements with retailer groups in Austria, Switzerland, Poland, the Netherlands, Portugal and the UK.
Could the possession of a patent in an otherwise quite wild west low barrier-to-entry plant-based meats industry lure more investors to Heura’s cause? We will enjoy a cruelty-free frankfurter (or two) while we wait to find out, thank you very much.
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SpaceX’s giant Starship rocket may have exploded during launch this week. However, that does not mean that Elon, or humanity for that matter, is not determined to enter a new era of space exploration.
To reach further out into the universe, we will need to not only figure out how to send people to Mars, but also how to upgrade our life-support systems and accommodations.
To that end, European aerospace manufacturer Airbus has dreamt up LOOP, a “multi-purpose orbital module” meant to replace the ageing International Space Station (ISS). According to Airbus, it has designed LOOP to “make long-term stays in space comfortable and enjoyable for its inhabitants.”
Sleek space accommodations
Compared to the iconic images of astronauts floating about in the tiny communal spaces on the ISS, the three-level deck of LOOP does indeed look a tad more agreeable. Looking at the images, it could almost be enough to make all your USS Enterprise fantasies come true. Although, as you would remain in orbit, you would not really get to “boldly go,” etc.
Living quarters complete with exercise bikes against the wall. Credit: Airbus
But don’t imagine swarms of futuristic uniformed space travellers beaming onto the platform. Airbus has designed the 8-metre diameter LOOP to comfortably house a four-person crew. Although, it could be adjusted to host eight astronauts at the same time.
The LOOP consists of three decks: Habitation, the Science Deck, and a Centrifuge that can create gravity conditions for the station’s inhabitants. The three-level structure also allows for “safe harbour” separation if necessary. Joining the decks together is the so-called Tunnel at the centre, surrounded by a greenhouse structure.
One of the intended modules is the Science Deck. Credit: Airbus
Meanwhile, the modular approach is intended to be precisely that – modular. This means that customers could choose to replace any of the decks to adapt the station to individual mission profiles and objectives. An option could also be, according to the developer, to connect several LOOP modules into a larger station. With all the space tourism hype, could we see a boutique space station hotel? Never say never.
No assembly required
LOOP is designed to fit with an upcoming generation of superheavy launchers, such as the aforementioned Starship, that will be able to launch the entire module in one piece (once their own launches are successful). This means that it will be fully operational almost immediately when reaching orbit.
Under the LOOP concept umbrella, Airbus is also offering a whole range of space exploration supporting technologies, such as thermal control solutions, power generation and management, environmental control and life support systems, etc.
Airbus LOOP coupled with Spartan Space’s Inflatable Module and a visiting spacecraft. Credit: Airbus
While Airbus has presented several concepts over the years that haven’t gotten anywhere close to reality, the company does have a rich heritage when it comes to contributing to international space missions. Most recently, it became the first ever non-US company to build a mission-critical element for an American Human Spaceflight Mission.
The Kevlar-covered European Service Module and its 15,000 solar cells propels and manoeuvres NASA’s new Orion spacecraft. Furthermore, it supplies the crew with water and oxygen, as well as regulates thermal controls.
Will customers go for it?
As with many aerospace concepts, for LOOP to truly make it from the design stage and into development, Airbus will need signals from customers who are willing to purchase the product. In this case, there needs to be someone willing to part with sums of near-astronomical (pun intended) proportions. Especially considering that the cost of the International Space Station, including development, assembly and running costs over a decade, lands at around €100 billion.
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Wherever you fall on the quantum sceptic spectrum, you cannot deny that the potential of the technology is fascinating. Don’t worry, we will admit to not understanding it fully yet either, but the founders of QuiX Quantum do.
Together with scientists from the Leibniz University Hannover, the team has demonstrated a fully-integrated quantum light source on a chip smaller than the size of a one-euro coin.
The study, called “Fully on-chip photonic turnkey quantum source for entangled qubit/qudit state generation,” just FYI, was published in Nature Photonics this week. Its results could reportedly prove a game-changer for technologies such as quantum computing.
Photonics offer temperature advantages
Quantum photonics is a field of research that explores the behaviour of light and its interactions with matter at the quantum level. Quantum light sources produce photons that can be used as quantum bits, or qubits. One of the main advantages of photonics compared to superconductor approaches is that it is compatible with room temperature operating conditions.
However, most sources are external laser systems, making them bulky and non-reproducible and thus unsuitable for out-of-lab use or production at larger scale. Integrated, or on-chip sources are becoming popular due to being more compact and stable.
A fully-integrated light source, such as the one demonstrated by QuiX and Leibniz University scientists, will allow all stages of the Quantum Information Processing (QIP) to be on a single chip, which will lead to greater stability and scalability of the technology.
Plug-and-play photonics solutions
QuiX Quantum was founded in January 2019. Since then, the company has raised over €5.5 million in funding and already become the European market leader for quantum computing hardware based on photonics. They sold their first quantum processors in 2021, and are building 8- and 64-qubit Universal Quantum Computers worth €14 million for the German Aerospace Center.
The company says its goal is “the continued disruption of quantum computing with our high-tech, scalable, future-proof, plug-and-play integrated photonic solutions.” Its recent breakthrough could not come at a better time. The EU has just launched a €19 million project to help quantum startups transition from lab to market.
Earlier this year, QuiX Quantum took home the prestigious Prism Award for its 20-mode Quantum Photonic Processor. This award is known as the “Oscars of Photonics,” presented during the Photonics West conference in San Francisco.
“In four years, we went from an idea to delivering award-winning, market-leading hardware for photonic quantum computing,” Stefan Hengesbach, CEO of Quix, stated. “This awarded processor is the core element of our current generation quantum computers, which has already created a huge impact in the quantum ecosystem as an excellent tool to perform fundamental quantum mechanical experiments on-chip.
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The popularity of motorsports shows no sign of waning. With its reach amplified by the Netflix hit show Drive to Survive, Formula One in particular has gained an entirely new audience platform. What its electric car Formula E sister league may lack in characteristic sound profile (and on-screen drama), it makes up for in environmentally friendlier engineering.
With new battery technology, Formula E cars might soon beat those of F1 for speed. Furthermore, the experience gleaned from the tracks could also be applied to enhance commercial EV batterylife and performance.
Ultra-high performance platform on display in Bologna
This week, WAE (formerly known as Williams Advanced Engineering, a branch of Williams Grand Prix Engineering, the company behind the Williams F1 racing team), displayed its latest ultra-high performance electric vehicle platform EVR at the E-TECH Europe conference in Bologna.
The EVR is currently being displayed outside of the UK for the first time. Credit: WAE
With its state-of-the-art 85kWh battery and peak power of 1650kW, EVR enables sub-2.0-sec 0–100km/h acceleration and a top speed of more than 400km/h. For reference, the top speed ever registered by an F1 car was just over 397km/h, when the Honda F1 team drove a modified version of their Formula One car across the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah.
The third generation Formula E cars currently racing reach speeds of around 320 km/h. Meanwhile, Croatia’s Rimac Nivera set the top speed for an electric hypercar last year when it it hit 415 km/hat the Automotive Testing Papenburn track in Germany.
Offering EV developers a modular approach
The company says that EVR has an inherent flexibility and modularity which allows it to offer startups a complete turnkey solution with the entire vehicle, as well as exterior design support.
“We wanted to put something out there on our own platform because, whether it’s a new starter, a brand re-entrance, or even an established OEM looking for a halo car, it’s a step up on the development of vehicles that might take three to four years. We can give them something which is already 12 months into that process,” Chris McCaw, lead engineer at WAE, stated.
In addition to the EVR platform, WAE’s stand at E-TECH also featured its Scalable Battery Module (SBM) system and the prototype TE-1 e-motorbike, Triumph’s first zero-emission prototype demonstrator.
The TE-1 is part of Triumph’s electric motorcycle strategy. Credit: WAE
WAE provides the electrical systems for almost all the electric race series including Gen 3 Formula E, Extreme E, ETCR and electric Skootr racing. Since 2013, clients of the company’s products have won nine driver’s championships and eight constructor’s championships, putting it on a far better footing recently than its petrol-powered cousin.
Today, WAE also launched Elysia – its new battery intelligence branch sprung from over a decade of experience in the electric high-performance car business. The company says it brings together electrochemistry, modelling, AI and data science to increase the performance of any battery system.
Battery intelligence software to increase battery health and lifespan
Elysia’s software package is divided into two branches. The first consists of embedded algorithms designed to run on standard automotive-grade hardware platforms. The second is a cloud platform that features prognostics designed to detect real-world failure mechanisms. According to the company, this will benefit everything from e-scooters to road cars and electrified mining trucks.
Tim Engström, technology lead at Elysia by WAE, says that the modern lithium-ion battery is currently going through a “second advent,” much due to the utilisation of data availability.
“The arrival of mainstream, low-cost telematics has afforded manufacturers and fleet owners the ability to understand more about their vehicles than ever before,” Engström states.
Elysia’s battery management algorithms can be applied to a range of use cases. Credit: Elysia by WAE
However, he believes that the transformative opportunities of this data has been, up until now, underutilised. Following a major push on connectivity, now the time has come to harness the battery data and “transform electric mobility on a larger scale.”
“Battery intelligence is a new discipline that connects battery data seamlessly with electrochemists, battery systems engineers, and data scientists with the sole goal of delivering actionable insights to enhance and protect value across the battery lifecycle,” Engström continued.
The presentation of EVR and the launch of Elysia took place during the second edition of the E-TECH Europe conference in Bologna. The city sits at the centre of Italy’s “motor valley,” which has given birth to iconic brands such as Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, Ducati and Bugatti.
Hundreds of companies exhibited their products in areas such as EV technology, fuel cell solutions, polymers, satnavs, driver identification systems, autonomous driving and connectivity.
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ChatGPT has had anything but a triumphant welcome tour around Europe. Following grumbling regulators in Italy and the European Parliament, the turn has come for German trade unions to express their concerns over potential copyright infringement.
No less than 42 trade organisations representing over 140,000 of the country’s authors and performers have signed a letter urging the EU to impose strict rules for the AI’s use of copyrighted material.
As reported first by Reuters, the letter, which underlined increasing concerns about copyright and privacy issues stemming from the material used to train the large language model (LLM), stated,
“The unauthorised usage of protected training material, its non-transparent processing, and the foreseeable substitution of the sources by the output of generative AI raise fundamental questions of accountability, liability and remuneration, which need to be addressed before irreversible harm occurs.”
Signatories include major German trade unions Verdi and DGB, as well as other associations for photographers, designers, journalists and illustrators. The letter’s authors further added that,
“Generative AI needs to be at the centre of any meaningful AI market regulation.”
ChatGPT is not the only target of copyright contention. In January, visual media company Getty Images filed a copyright claim against Stability AI. According to the lawsuit, the image making tool developer allegedly copied over 12 million photos, captions, and metadata without permission.
LLM training offers diminishing returns
The arrival of OpenAI’s ChatGPT has sparked a flurry of concerns. Thus far, these have covered everything from aggressive development due to a commercially motivated AI “arms race,” to matters of privacy, data protection and copyright. The latest model, GPT-4, was trained using over a trillion words.
Meanwhile, one of the originators of the controversy, the company’s CEO Sam Altman, stated last week that the amplified machine learning strategy behind ChatGPT has run its course. Indeed, OpenAI forecasts diminishing returns on scaling up model size. The company trained its latest model, GPT-4, using over a trillion words at the cost of about $100 million.
At the same time, the EU’s Artificial Intelligence Act is nearing its home stretch. While it may well set a global regulatory standard, the question is how well it will be able to adapt as developers find other new and innovative ways of making algorithms more efficient.
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Not too far in the future, camper lovers could be going on holidays that are much kinder to the very nature they are looking to enjoy. At the beginning of this week, London and Vancouver-based startup First Hydrogen revealed the design for its next-generation zero-emission Recreational Vehicle (RV).
The concept has been developed in collaboration with Switzerland-headquartered EDAG Group. Its introduction follows the presentation of First Hydrogen’s next-generation light commercial vehicle (LCV), also a result of a partnership with the global mobility expert.
The company states that the first generation of its fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV) have already entered road trials with members of the UK Aggregated Hydrogen Freight Consortium (AHFC), starting with fleet management company Rivus.
They will be tested for several different use cases, including delivery of groceries and parcels, health care and roadside assistance. First Hydrogen will then use data and feedback from the road trials to inform the development of its Generation II vehicle.
Hydrogen fuel cells superior to battery EVs?
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First Hydrogen’s vehicles are powered by high performance Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) fuel cell stacks supplied by Ballard Power. This generates electricity by converting chemical energy stored in hydrogen fuel into electrical energy, using a proton-conducting polymer membrane as the electrolyte. They operate at relatively low temperatures (50 to 100 °C) and can quickly vary output to meet shifting demand, which makes them a good fuel cell choice for the automotive industry.
The company says this gives it a leg up on regular EVs as the hydrogen FCEV can carry heavier payloads. Furthermore, it takes much less time to refuel the hydrogen than it takes to recharge an electrical battery. The next-generation LCV range is projected at 500+ km.
“These concept vehicles provide a glimpse of our company’s future and give a clear indication of our brand direction within the LCV space,” said Steve Gill, CEO of Automotive for First Hydrogen.
First Hydrogen’s next-generation fuel cell LCV will be informed by data from Generation I vehicles currently in road trials. Credit: First Hydrogen
While the quest to decarbonise road transport is admirable in and of itself, there is also a solid financial foundation for the product: the global LCV market is projected to reach €686 billion by 2030. For the RV market, the corresponding prediction for the end of the decade is just under €107 billion.
In Europe, RV sales hit an all-time high in 2021 with 260,000 new vehicles sold, very likely spurred by restrictions following the global health crisis. Here, First Hydrogen identifies particular opportunities with an often eco-conscious campervan crowd.
“The First Hydrogen campervan is an example of how we see hydrogen fuel cell and other electric vehicle technologies having wider applications,” Gill added.
Looking to increase green hydrogen production
As with most startups working with hydrogen, First Hydrogen has to ensure that there will be enough to supply its products. No one will purchase a vehicle that cannot be powered after all, no matter how zero-emission it may be.
Furthermore, the hydrogen needs to be green, meaning produced using renewable energy, otherwise the eco-friendly concept goes out the window. In summer last year, First Hydrogen applied for funding from the UK Government’s £240 million (€272 million) Net-Zero Hydrogen Fund (NZHF).
The company’s two green hydrogen production projects will have an initial capacity of 40MW each and be situated in the Greater Manchester area and the Thames Estuary. The second round of NZHF competition is currently underway for both development and capital expenditure.
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When Russia invaded Ukraine in February last year, work stopped at thousands of Ukrainian businesses – including carbon capture-focused startup Carbominer.
As tanks approached the capital Kyiv, inhabitants of the city, including employees of the company, were forced to flee for their own safety.
Among them was Viktoria Oseyko, chief marketing officer, and her father Nick, founder and chief executive officer of Carbominer. But Ukraine soon retook control of the area.
“When the Russian forces were kicked out of the Kyiv region, it was like three or four weeks and the managing team decided to get back,” explains Oseyko.
Nick and Victoria Oseyko. Credit: Carbominer
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She and her colleagues have since completed a pilot trial of their machine that can capture CO₂ from the air so that it can be piped into greenhouses. This heightens plant photosynthesis, which helps farmers grow crops.
Carbon capture could prove essential component to halt pipeline warming
Carbominer is just one among many eclectic startups in Europe racing to develop technology that can capture carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that accounts for66% of global warming.
Although reducing emissions is generally viewed as the key to tackling climate change, the UN, in a report published last month, highlighted that CO₂ removal might be necessary if the world is to achieve net zero emissions and limit warming to 1.5˚C above pre-industrial levels. This is due to what is called committed warming – the future warming in the pipeline as a result of the greenhouse gases we have already emitted.
It takes time for a shift in energy balance to show up. This means that even if we were to stop emitting CO₂ and methane – the leading contributors to climate change – tomorrow, global temperatures would still keep rising as the gases linger in the atmosphere.
New EU location to circumvent geopolitical challenges
The machines designed by the 10-strong team at Carbominer are still in development but Oseyko says that, by the end of the year, they hope to have a device that can capture 46 tonnes of CO₂ annually.
This is fairly small-scale but the firm, which has raised $900,000 (€822,000) in funding to date, hopes that it will be able to provide captured CO₂ to agricultural customers at a relatively low cost.
“We are going to place the machine on site and then bill per usage of CO₂,” explains Oseyko.
The team at Carbominer aims for their machine to capture 46 tonnes of CO₂ per year. Credit: Carbominer
She adds that among the challenges faced by Carbominer, and many other Ukrainian companies, is the difficulty of importing materials into the country at present. And the fact that, under martial law, male members of staffcannot currently leave Ukraine, which makes engaging with the industry and visiting potential clients difficult. To mitigate this, the firm plans to open an office in neighbouring Poland this year, where Oseyko will be based.
Carbominer’s device consists of two linked machines. One has a large fan that draws air towards a sorbent, which captures the CO₂, and the other machine uses electrochemistry to release the CO₂ again when needed.
But one of the key difficulties with direct air capture systems is the need to move air around in order to get at the CO₂ within it – this requires energy. Oseyko says that, when fossil fuel-based electricity is used to power Carbominer’s system, it stops being carbon negative — but the firm intends to use renewable energy only.
Hitching a ride on existing air flow
In Finland, the team at Soletair Power has been thinking about how to get around the energy consumption issue.
“You need to move quite a lot of air in order to capture the CO₂. In buildings, that air is already moving,” says chief executive officer Petri Laakso.
Soletair Power’s carbon capture tech essentially piggybacks on existing ventilation systems in buildings, which transport indoor air – rich in CO₂ breathed out by occupants. The firm has 10 employees and has received €1.5 million in funding to date, besides an undisclosed amount in grants.
The amount of CO₂ captured depends on various factors including the volume of air moved in each case but Laakso says systems already installed by the firm capture on the order of tens of kilos of CO₂ per day.
Will net-zero plans drive deployment?
Again, industry values the captured CO₂. Soletair Powerhas installed its technology in an office in the city of Vaasa, Finland, where the trapped CO₂ is eventually used in the manufacture of concrete so that it can be embedded permanently in building blocks.
“This is a valid technology,” says Dawid Hanak at Cranfield University. “It’s just how much you can capture and how scalable that is.”
Credit: Soletair Power
Laakso says his firm has already installed systems in Finland and Germany and will install another this summer. While individual deployments will not capture enormous amounts of CO₂, he adds, hundreds or thousands of buildings might eventually use the tech, vastly increasing its impact.
“There are many real estate companies promising that they will be carbon net zero by 2028 and they are turning to us,” says Laakso.
The cost? It varies depending on the installation but currently a large system can remove CO₂ for about €500 to €1,000 per tonne. Many firms are hoping to slash the cost of removal to $100 (€91) per tonne or below, eventually, so that CO₂ capture becomes affordable at the scales required to reach net zero.
Competitive advantage despite efficiency concerns
Carbon capture tech has its pros and cons. Stuart Haszeldine at the University of Edinburgh notes that there are easier methods of reducing humanity’s climate impact.
“The simplest way of addressing the climate issue is actually to become more efficient and get more value out of the same energy,” he says. Insulate buildings, for instance, so they require less energy to heat.
However, reducing one’s carbon footprint will become increasingly attractive commercially, argues Haszeldine as he suggests that firms able to lower their overall CO₂ output will have an advantage in terms of revenue and perception.
Plus, direct air capture helps to address CO₂ emitters that are spread over large areas and therefore hard to control, such as farming. If you can’t catch the CO₂ reliably at source, at least you can pull it out of the atmosphere later.
Using existing farming techniques to store carbon for millenia
Even some difficult-to-decarbonise industries could soon play a bigger role in seizing CO₂. In Ireland, a startup called Silicate has come up with a way of treating agricultural land so that it draws carbon out of the air and into the ground where a chemical reaction takes place, locking it down.
Silicate currently employs ten people and has not yet raised funding other than via grants, including $100,000 (€91,000) as a winner of the Thrive / Shell Climate-Smart Agriculture Challenge.
Surplus concrete is ground to dust before applying it to farmland. Credit: Silicate Carbon
Maurice Bryson, founder, explains that the process relies on unwanted or waste concrete, which can be crushed into a powdery material – “like a fine snowdust”, he says. By spreading this over a field, say every four years, farmers can maintain a high (more alkaline) soil pH, which is better for growing crops.
Farmers already de-acidify their soil usinga technique called liming but the difference with Silicate’s approach is that the concrete reacts withcarbonic acid in the soil, removing CO₂ from the air. The substances formed by this process, bicarbonate and calcite, ought to store carbon for many thousands of years.
Reduced costs with increased investment?
The firm aims to achieve removal rates of two tonnes of CO₂ per hectare, per 10 tonnes of crushed concrete applied to such an area – during the course of one year.
“The process is very passive, once you apply it to the field it gets to work itself,” says Bryson. “A key win, we think, for us is there is a possibility for the cost to fall below that $100 per tonne [of CO₂] price point.”
While direct air carbon capture technology is still in its infancy, investment in carbon capture and storage more than doubled over the past year, reaching an all time high of nearly €6 billion in 2022. With so many startups ploughing this field, and rising urgency over reaching net zero globally, these technologies will likely have a noticeably bigger role to play in the coming years.
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Anyone who has ever experienced phantom ringing in their ears knows that it is a nuisance to say the least. Those who have tinnitus – hearing continuous ringing, buzzing, humming or even roaring sounds – often experience anxiety and depression as a result.
The condition affects approximately 15% of the global adult population. However, treatment has remained elusive, with those afflicted left to find their own ad hoc mitigation solutions.
Neuromod, a medtech startup from Ireland, is looking to change that. The company has just received €30 million in funding to further commercialise its tinnitus treatment device, Lenire.
A different kind of electrotherapy
With its patented bimodal neuromodulation technology, Lenire works by sending mild electrical signals to the tongue, while patients listen to auditory stimulation through headphones.
Thus far, over 700 patients have participated in clinical trials with the device, which consists of three parts. A handheld, lightweight controller allows the user to control timing, intensity and synchronisation of the stimuli, while Neuromod’s proprietary Tonguetip module sits in the user’s mouth, administering electrical pulses to the top of the tongue. Simultaneously, Bluetooth headphones deliver customised sound stimuli to the auditory nerve.
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The device catches the powerful streams of water with underwater rotors attached to adjustable legs. Engineering and maintenance can then raise the legs above the surface for easier access. Furthermore, the rotor design can be reversed to adapt to different tide cycles.
Part of broader UK net zero strategy
Orbital will situate the new part of its Orkney project adjacent to the EMEC. The Option Agreement is for 30MW, which the company says would equate to approximately 12 new O2 tidal turbine devices across the site. Orbital has also confirmed it has the necessary grid connection in place to service the project.
Andrew Scott, CEO of Orbital Marine Power, commented on securing the Crown Agreement, stating,
“As the UK looks to accelerate the decarbonisation of its energy system, we firmly believe tidal projects can bring unique benefits while harnessing a perfectly predictable and secure source of renewable energy. We’re proud to be building that vision in Orkney with this investment in our Westray Project.”
Andrew Scott, CEO of Orbital Marine Energy
Last year, Orbital also received strategic investment from Franco-American offshore oil contractor TechnipFMC to “accelerate market scale-up and deployment,” with TechnipFMC becoming a shareholder of the company.
Ocean energy could play a big part in energy transition, but needs to scale fast
The oceans do indeed have a great deal to offer when it comes to renewable energy. Tidal energy projects have long held significant potential, but is still an as-yet-underdeveloped energy source. In a 2018 report, the IEA named off-shore renewable electricity generation a “rising force in global energy.”
However, it needs to be deployed much more rapidly, hitting a target output of 27.0TWh by 2030 for a net-zero by 2050 scenario. This means it needs to grow at a rate of above 33% per year from now until the end of the decade, which would take several fleets of Orbital’s O2s.
But things are picking up. As reported by Power Technology, in the UK in 2022, four projects were awarded contracts for a total of 4.08MW.
Encouraging to see positive signals from @energygovuk in their announcement today of a ringfence allowance to support #tidalenergy in AR5 of this year’s Contracts for Difference scheme. 🙌https://t.co/1YbxIWIrkN
Alistair Carmichael, MP for Orkney and Shetland, commented on the new project with Orbital,
“These are exciting times for tidal stream energy. Progress with Orbital’s Westray project is a vote of confidence in the potential here in the isles and demonstrates exactly why expanding grid capacity for Orkney has been so important.
“This good news is also evidence of the need for a more robust strategy from the government on tidal stream deployment, including continued and expanded backing in the next round of Contracts for Difference funding. We need to continue to ramp up development in the years to come.”
With a slew of tidal and ocean energy startups vying for the shores around the UK, perhaps this technology could be one of the keys to non-invasive and unobtrusive reliable renewable energy generation. Let’s wave and see.
On Christmas morning last year, dozens of households in the Republic of Ireland woke up to a hot water tank that had been heated overnight – for free.
These households were part of a pilot run by the pioneering social enterprise EnergyCloud, which has found a way of using surplus wind energy on blustery nights to help people who are experiencing fuel poverty.
All it takes is the installation of a special switch that allows EnergyCloud to activate water heating when there is bountiful energy on the grid. People can still heat their hot water tank via a manual switch whenever they choose and they can also switch the whole system off if they are away from their home for a time.
“We can remotely send a message that clicks on your hot water and heats up your immersion at night-time,” explains Derek Roddy, co-founder of EnergyCloud. He adds that free water heating was delivered multiple times last year, not just on Christmas morning.
Energy prices in Europe have soared in the last couple of years, due to shifts in demand during the pandemic and, more recently, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This has triggered a worrying rise in fuel poverty but efforts to help are afoot. Renewables, in particular, could be coming to the rescue.
EnergyCloud is a non-profit social enterprise with a voluntary board of 11 people. Funds and technologies are donated by EnergyCloud partners, including Roddy’s firm Climote, energy provider SSE Airtricity and Amazon Web Services.
People who receive free hot water get text message alerts so that they know when it is available. “It is making a difference in people’s lives,” adds Roddy.
Hot water tanks, he says, can be reimagined as batteries: “A typical hot water tank would store 6 kWh of energy in hot water, which is a staggering amount of energy.” If you added up all the hot water tanks in Ireland, you would get a total of around 6 GWh.
Costing the surplus
Surplus energy from wind farms is an increasingly expensive problem. In 2022, the UK’s National Grid paid £215 million to shut off wind generation when the electricity wasn’t needed – a cost that gets passed on to consumers, further raising prices. EnergyCloud has found a way of using surplus energy while also helping people who might be struggling to pay their energy bills.
Everyone, in theory, benefits from this – not least because a lack of heating and hot water can cause or aggravate health problems. The UK’s Building Research Establishment estimates that cold homes, in England alone, cost the National Health Service more than half a billion pounds each year.
Other initiatives to help households experiencing fuel poverty in the past have included a programme in Scotland that installed Tesla Powerwall batteries in more than 100 homes, though Roddy notes that the costs are minimal when you are able to divert energy to existing hot water tanks instead.
EnergyCloud says it aims to install its remote-controlled hot water tank switches in at least 10,000 homes by the end of the year and the enterprise is already planning to expand into Northern Ireland and Scotland.
“It’s a really interesting concept,” says Marilyn Smith at the non-profit EnAct, which researches social issues around energy consumption. However, she notes that some people might hesitate to allow the installation of remotely controlled equipment in their homes. So far, that hasn’t been a barrier for EnergyCloud. All participants have been voluntary and Roddy says 65,000 additional homes have already expressed an interest in joining.
A ‘public good’
Smith argues that emerging energy companies are increasingly presenting renewables (and surplus electricity) as a potential “public good”. Other European ventures have sought to help low-income households around the world access renewable energy directly. Take Trine, a 16 person-strong firm based in Sweden that allows people to invest in solar energy projects in Africa, Asia and Central America. More than €80 million have been raised via the platform so far.
“There’s plenty of technology out there – batteries, panels, converters,” says Trine founder Christoffer Falsen. “It’s really about being able to accelerate that with the injection of capital.”
He explains that Trine-funded schemes can, for example, allow a household in Kenya to purchase a solar panel in instalments, enabling them to access cheaper electricity and move away from fossil fuel generators, which are extremely common in much of Africa. To date, nearly 3 million people worldwide have accessed electricity from renewables funded by Trine’s investors.
Although it was “unthinkable” before, Falsen says Trine may soon allow investors to support renewables projects in Europe as well: the rise of energy prices on the continent means increased profitability from energy projects, so the potential returns have risen, too. Previously, European ventures were not attractive enough in this regard.
“I think there will be a bigger push for energy independence and that, I think, will be very good for this entire sector,” says Falsen. He notes, however, that there are questions over whether high energy tariffs in Europe will continue, adding to uncertainty for investors.
Electricity at cost
Europe’s growing cadre of “energy communities” – groups of households that buy into generation projects such as small-scale wind farms – already understand that energy independence can shield people from the highest bills.
A long-running example is the community in Eeklo, Belgium that benefits from wind energy harnessed by EcoPower. It provides electricity to customers more or less at cost.
“We have a lot of wind in our region,” says Jan de Pauw, project engineer at EcoPower. There are 65,000 EcoPower members in Flanders, of which a few thousand live in Eeklo. The company has a headcount of around 50 people, operates a total of 20 windfarms in Flanders, and has raised €60 million of citizen-invested capital to date.
“People become members of EcoPower not because they want to earn a lot of money and have a high dividend but they want to have access to locally produced energy at a fair price,” says de Pauw.
The advantages have become clear during the last 12 months, as energy bills rocketed in Europe. EcoPower estimates that its members saved around €700 on their total bill for 2022. To become a member, households must buy a single share for €250 but people experiencing fuel poverty can pay this off in tiny instalments of just €3.50 a month for six years.
With more and more renewable generation on the continent, expect to see increasing opportunities for sharing or cheaply distributing energy in the forms described above.
There could be other impacts of all this, too, as well as helping people in low income or fuel-poor households. Roddy says that, once participants in the EnergyCloud pilot heard that their free hot water would come from local wind farms, they expressed glowing acceptance of renewables. (TNW asked to speak to a participant but were told none was forthcoming.)
Big, white and pointy onshore turbines have occasionally been described as eyesores by some. But schemes such as EnergyCloud, which make clear the potential financial benefits of renewables, could change attitudes, argues Roddy.
“People got this straight away. This was not a hard sell,” he says. “I think we’ll have people literally approaching their elected representatives insisting that there’s wind farms and solar farms built in their area.”
With a global recession impending, Europe’s startups are feeling the pressure. Investment opportunities are dwindling and customer acquisition is getting harder. So what can startups do to survive during this time?
From hiring freezes to spending cuts, founders are making preparations to get through the recession unscathed. There are many ways to cut spending during this time that don’t involve layoffs, it’s just about being a little savvy and thrifty, and looking out for programs that are designed to give startups a boost.
Here’s your go-to checklist for smart ways startups can cut spending and save during the recession:
1. Scrap the office and go fully remote
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Thanks to the pandemic, most people are now accustomed to working remotely and interacting with their teams virtually. Although many businesses have been navigating back towards being in-office at least a few days a week, it costs a lot to hold a space that’s not being used all the time.
Either ditching the office altogether or moving to a co-working space can save a lot of money. Kate Lister, President of Global Workplace Analytics estimates, “a typical employer can save about $11,000/year for every person who works remotely half of the time.” For those that go fully remote, asynchronous working will help employees maintain flexibility during the day, and create a work-life balance that suits them and allows them to be most productive.
If you’re worried about maintaining your company culture, gaining some tips and inspiration from businesses who were operating remote models before the pandemic can be useful. Buffer and Zapier, for example, are both remote-first businesses, with global teams collaborating together from all over the world. Both businesses find that maintaining frequent, open communication is essential for the success of their remote teams.
One important thing to remember is that fully remote companies should always factor in some budget for in person team-building events throughout the year to foster team spirit and connection.
2. Choose your cloud provider wisely
Cloud services are used by many startups for everything from basic tasks like data storage, to the more advanced functions like AI and machine learning. But many also end up in a situation where they accept free cloud credits and end up taking on products and services they don’t necessarily need.
Choosing the right cloud provider can be tricky, especially as the business develops and your needs change. Ideally, you’d want the flexibility to be able to reconfigure your cloud architecture or even switch providers as these needs change, however, many startups get locked into contracts with high egress fees.
Adopting a multi-cloud strategy could be a good solution allowing you to select the services most suited to each of your team’s needs and take advantage of reserved instances and other discounts. There are also some new cost-saving cloud technologies on the market now, such as Serverless technology and Kubernetes autoscaling.
Also be sure to check out Scaleway’s Next 100 Startups Shaping Europe’s Future Program designed to support up and coming startups during the recession. If selected, Scaleway will cover up to 80% of your cloud infrastructure costs over a period of 24 months.
3. Optimize organic reach, rather than paying for a boost
Did you know, around $70 billion was spent on paid search ads in the US in 2021?
Instead of throwing money at ads, focus on organic marketing strategies that will reap the same benefits at no cost.
Best SEO practices to help with organic traffic include staying on top of keyword targeting: monitoring analytics of keyword performance will help you to continuously have oversight of what’s working and what can be improved, so you can keep optimizing your approach and improving your reach.
Another strategy is to optimize the landing page itself: making sure it has a load-friendly design and user experience (UX), that the content provides value to the audience, and that you have backlinks to help the user move across different pages of your site.
All of these factors will improve your search engine ranking. In addition to being a cheaper option, organic marketing has a lot of business benefits over paid ads too. When your content is optimized more strategically, it’s likely to last longer and see a prolonged flow of traffic, unlike paid ads that are only profitable when they’re live. It also helps to build a more loyal following as you’re engaging the audience at every step of the funnel.
4. Cast your net in the freelance talent pool
Most companies are introducing hiring freezes, but what if you have some talent gaps in your team that need to be filled for the business to continue developing?
Instead of hiring full-time, consider contracting freelancers or agencies to take on jobs on a project basis. Consider which positions you need on an ongoing basis and which you only need on an occasional or seasonal basis. Hiring freelancers instead of full-timers can save employers around $11.6 an hour per employee.
In addition to monetary benefits, outsourcing is a great way to access different skill sets, expertise, and strengths tailored to specific projects in a way that’s not possible otherwise.
There’s a wide pool of options to choose from all over the world and, of course, when you find a good and reliable freelancer, there’s no reason why you can’t hire them for additional projects and build up a good relationship as you would with a full-time worker.
5. Declutter your box of tools and subscriptions
In the digital age, companies are using multiple tools and apps for their business operations. Sometimes we have so many tools and subscriptions that we don’t even remember what they all are or what they’re for. Having a good clear out and canceling subscriptions for anything that’s not being used will reduce unnecessary spending.
There are a lot of tools that have similar functions, so having a browse to compare the offerings might mean that you’re able to find a better deal that suits you and saves a bit of money. Some multi-use platforms and tools additionally consolidate and integrate functions, so you get more bang for your buck rather than having a separate tool for every task/team.
6. Take advantage of funding opportunities
You might be taking all the measures you can to save money, but sometimes an extra helping hand can provide a bit more security. There are several open programs, both EU-funded and privately sponsored, to support startups during the recession and enable them to continue growing and scaling:
The European Innovation Council (EIC) for example, has a range of funding opportunities to back everything from research and mentoring to building business plans to scale and develop for market.
As mentioned earlier, Scaleway’s 100 Startups program is providing cloud funding support for 24 months.
Climate-KIC has a number of grants available specifically for startups that are accelerating the transition to zero-carbon and climate resiliency.
For low-tech SMEs wanting to develop AI techniques, StairwAI is a good option.
Eurosearch is a great place to find a range of funding opportunities, specifically tailored to different types of startups.
There’s no need to panic as the recession approaches. Instead, it’s time to get smart about spending, find the best options and discounts available, and always be on the lookout for the many funding programs and opportunities out there!
