German firm ETW Energietechnik GmbH has developed technology that can blend two gas streams of different qualities to fuel CHPs. ETW said the equipment ’precisely blends the two gases to a homogeneous fuel mixture’. This makes the technology ideally suited for landfills that struggle with shrinking heating values and volumes
University of Bristol Engineers have developed a new shape-changing material using Kirigami – Origami’s big brother. As well as just folding paper, the ancient Japanese art involves cutting it; which usually would create a weakness, but in this case gives the material the ability to be formed into complex 3D
There are two main competitors to the new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point, according to two sustainable energy projects. The first is the Swansea Bay ‘tidal lagoons’ scheme, which is currently awaiting ministerial approval. The £1billion project involves building a walled lagoon in Swansea Bay that would generate electricity
German firm ETW Energietechnik GmbH has developed technology that can blend two gas streams of different qualities to fuel CHPs. ETW said the equipment ’precisely blends the two gases to a homogeneous fuel mixture’. This makes the technology ideally suited for landfills that struggle with shrinking heating values and volumes of biogas along their lifetime the firm said.. This shrinking heating value can be compensated by gradually enriching biogas with natural gas (NG). The blending is completely automated and designed to consume the lowest possible amounts of natural gas. Almost any CHP can easily be upgraded, ETW said. There are several advantages for the operator, ETW adds. At startups the CHP receives a perfectly balanced fuel mixture, preventing startup problems often caused by low CH4 concentration. “This enables the operation of CHPs even with CH4 concentration lower than 30%,increasing its lifetime and availability, and thus its economic feasibility. The CHP can be operated independently from the land-fill gas supply.”
University of Bristol Engineers have developed a new shape-changing material using Kirigami – Origami’s big brother. As well as just folding paper, the ancient Japanese art involves cutting it; which usually would create a weakness, but in this case gives the material the ability to be formed into complex 3D shapes with a broader choice of geometries than Origami allows. Metamaterials are a class of material which are engineered to produce properties which don’t occur naturally. They are currently used to make artificial electromagnetic and vibration absorbers, and high-performance sensors. The research, which has been developed within a PhD program run by the University’s EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Advanced Composites for Innovation and Science (ACCIS CDT), has been published in Scientific Reports. PhD student Robin Neville has developed the technique using Kirigami, and creates mechanical metamaterials which change shape seamlessly. These exhibit large variations in mechanical performance with small geometry changes, and it can be adapted to modify its configuration by using mainstream actuation mechanisms. These can also be produced using off-the-shelf thermoplastics or other thermoset composite materials, and can be upgraded by embedding different sensing and electronics systems, to obtin fully integrated smart shape-changing structures. The Professor of Smart Materials and Structures in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and ACCIS, Fabrizio Scarpa, said, “Mechanical metamaterials exhibit unusual properties through the shape and deformation of their engineered subunits. Our research presents a new investigation of the kinematics of a family of cellular metamaterials based on Kirigami design principles. This technique allows us to create cellular structures with engineered cuts and folds that produce large shape and volume changes, and with extremely directional, tuneable mechanical properties.” Robin Neville, PhD student, added: “By combining analytical models and numerical simulations we have demonstrated how these Kirigami cellular metamaterials can change their deformation characteristics. We have also shown the potential of using these classes of mechanical metamaterials for shape change applications like morphing structures.” In the future, these Kirigami-based metamaterials could be used in robotics, morphing structures for airframe and space applications, microwave and smart antennas.
There are two main competitors to the new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point, according to two sustainable energy projects. The first is the Swansea Bay ‘tidal lagoons’ scheme, which is currently awaiting ministerial approval. The £1billion project involves building a walled lagoon in Swansea Bay that would generate electricity on the ebb and flood of every tide through largely British-built turbines, across 14 hours a day for a predicted project lifetime of 120 years. The scheme could be in place and in operation within 5 years – although to make it happen, it would require subsidy at a level comparable to offshore wide or new nuclear generation. It would also need millions of tonnes of concrete and aggregates from quarries across the UK, and would of course radically alter the local environment, particularly affecting sea life and wading birds. The lagoon power is, clearly, not without ‘teething problems’, but the look pretty modest when compared to nuclear reactor designs which may or may not actually work, and of course storing all the toxic waster afterwards. Should the lagoons prove effective, the project could quickly be added to, with a second lagoon planned in Cardiff, as well as a string of sites along the English and Welsh coasts. The enterpeneur behind this scheme, mark Shorrock, claims that this lagoon power could provide 8% of UK energy needs, which is more than Hinkley Point, and would be the lowest long-term cost per megawatt of any energy source. The other big contender is offshore wind farms. Herik Poulsen, who is chief executive of the French company Dong Energy, says that wind turbines can be built on time and on budget, and give the UK a reliable source of power if they were combined with output from new biomass or gas-fired plants. “Could you build a national energy policy without nuclear? Yes you could … and if you needed to fill a (energy capacity) gap offshore, wind could be accelerated to fill such a gap,” he said. Poulsen claims that the Brexit vote has not caused him to rethink Dong’s £5.1billion investment programme in the UK, which involves constructing three more windfarms on top of the eight already operating. “We hope offshore wind will remain a key component in the future energy system and are optimistic about prospects under the new government,” he added. Britain has a total of more than 5GW of offshore wind capacity, as well as almost 9GW of onshore wind, and new projects are coming on stream all the time. The new proposed Hinkley reactors would provide just 3.2GW.
