Discover Cleantech Magazine

In the wake of the US’ Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), 2023 has begun with what has been named a ’cleantech arms race’. And while this might be the best arms race possible, it’s not unequivocally positive. As cleantech giants begin to show signs of moving business towards the tax credits offered by the IRA, the EU is planning to match the act with an incentive of its own, a Net-Zero Industry Act. While this will undoubtedly mean more incentives for cleantech organisations, some fear the cleantech race will escalate into a full-on cleantech trade war. At Discover Cleantech, we believe market competition and innovation incentivised and directed by legislation and economic stimulus are key to solving the climate challenge, but not at the cost of collaboration. To reach the goal…

Only modern humans can split atoms, but geothermal energy has been used by humans and non-humans for millennia. For some reason, geothermal energy is not amongst the trendiest of topics in the climate debate. Maybe that’s because it is, in comparison to some of the usual front-page technologies, almost ancient. Geothermal energy from natural hot pools and springs has, as a matter of fact, been used for cooking, bathing and warmth for millennia. When it comes to electricity, the first commercial electricity plant to generate electricity from hydrothermal reservoirs opened in Larderello, Italy, in 1913, generating 250 kW. However, while it has had a long time underway, it is widely agreed that the full potential of the Earth’s geothermal resources is far from exploited. The reason? Much like it has…

Kevin Chin is the founder of Arowana, the global B Corporation investment group. He has been investing in and building businesses in the clean technology space since 2014, including utilities, commercial and industrial solar, electric vehicles, energy storage and plastic recycling. Chin believes there are two clean technologies to watch out for in the year ahead. Given his significant expertise in batteries and electric vehicles, it is perhaps no surprise that one should be in that space - a revolution he sees coming in EV fleet charging. On top of this, Chin thinks that valorisation will transform the handling of plastic waste, a major challenge using current technology, and he has made an investment in GreenAntz. A REVOLUTION IN PLASTIC WASTE Looking forward to what might happen in 2023, a…

PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a group of more than 4,700 manmade chemicals, including fluorine-containing compounds, such as PFOS, PFOSA, and PFOA. As the total number of PFAS substances released into the environment has been rising since the early 2000s, addressing the issue is becoming increasingly urgent. In 2018 alone, about 25,000 tonnes of PFAS were released into the atmosphere, soil and water. Even rainwater in the Himalayas and Antarctic contain unsafe levels of PFAS, according to recent studies published from Stockholm University and ETH Zurich. With concerns about the potential health risks associated with PFAS continuing to increase, new legislations addressing the issue are being proposed all over the world, and scientists are researching and developing new technologies to help reduce human exposure to the chemicals. “The…

One group of PFAS, namely the PFOS, has already been restricted in Europe for more than ten years, under the Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) regulation. Furthermore, the European Union is considering a ban on thousands of PFAS chemicals, except when their use is deemed essential. If successful, a final agreement could come by 2025. The recast of the Drinking Water Directive, which is EU’s main law on drinking water, took effect on 12 January 2021 setting a limit of 0.5 μg/l for all PFAS in drinking water. The Nordic countries are moving faster. In Sweden for example, a drinking water limit of 4 ng/l is set to take effect next year, while Denmark has already moved ahead with a threshold value of 2 ng/l for four PFAS groups. In the…

Back in 2010, UK architecture firm Grimshaw and engineers Arup unveiled what they thought would be the wind turbine design of the future. The biggest wind turbines then on the market had a capacity of seven MW per machine, and there were doubts over how much larger they could get. Grimshaw and Arup envisaged an offshore wind turbine that was more than twice as powerful, delivering 15 MW per unit, and looked very different to the ones on the market thus far. Instead of three rotors on top of a tower, the Aerogenerator X – designed for a now-defunct company called Wind Power Limited – had two blades arranged more like those of a blender, spinning on a vertical axis at the base of the machine. The design was the…