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I was thinking the other day about algae and if it would be possible to get a 'double-whammy' using EQTEC technology. If the algae is grown and then used as a conventional biofuel, does that not release the carbon back into the atmosphere as it is burned? Using gasification, is it possible to extract energy from the algae, but retain the carbon content in the form of biochar, keeping it locked up as a solid rather than as CO2?
Hydrogen may well become the environmentally friendly shipping fuel of choice in the future, but that's a long way in the future and will require completely new ships. Quadrise have a solution to cut CO2 emissions from shipping extremely rapidly. I saw CLIA tweeting today about member cruise lines committing to cutting emissions by 40% by 2030, QFI can help with that right away, starting with MSC
Not directly related but still relevant to the hopes of SAE, I was reading today that EDF will be decommissioning their nuclear power station in Kent much earlier than intended because of faults that can't be fixed, that's another Gigawatt of power that's going to be needed that will have to come from another source
Article in the Guardian today about trials of various carbon capture methods starting in the UK. Only small scale stuff with £30m covering a range of techniques, but its interesting to see biochar and bioenergy crops (willow and miscanthus) playing a part.
While there is no suggestion that EQTEC are involved at all, we know that they their gasification technology is the best option for generating energy from biomass while creating biochar, so any success with these trials could create serious opportunities in the future
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/24/trials-to-suck-carbon-dioxide-from-the-air-to-start-across-the-uk
Excellent news, these small projects are ideal for quickly generating revenue and building momentum. It's not difficult to imagine small plants like this popping up all over Europe (and beyond) once the ball gets rolling, proving the technology for the bigger projects. Front page BBC article online today about UK household waste being sent to Turkey and dumped in fields and rivers, surely some of these shyster waste disposal operators should be savvy enough to work out that if they invest in a gasification plant they can make plenty of extra cash by generating and selling electricity
so at $1m of orders in the first 2 weeks of May, that's $24million of orders per year, just of chill products, just in the US, and at this absolute fledgling stage when we really only have a few early adopters. Now imagine what that order figure will be once more folk start using our products, as we move into more US stores, as we start sales in other countries, as w increase products range......
Do we have any idea what the margins are on the Chill products, i can't imagine they cost very much to make
$340,000 worth of orders in the month of April, followed by an additional $1m in the first 2 weeks of May, that's a phenomenal increase and shows that the stores really are wanting more of the products as they have customers that want the smokes and chews. If the products are in demand in existing stores, more stores are going to want them, leading to even more rapid growth. Looks like the Chill brand is gaining traction rapidly, already looking forward to the next trading update, it could be even more spectacular than this!
This has got to be the biggest news to come from DVRG in recent times. China is obviously a prize market for any business but come with the inherent risk of having technology copied, reproduced and sold cheaper by a chinese competitor. To enter a JV with a serious (seriously serious, China Resources are enormous!) local company covers that risk very well. DVRG must be very confident indeed that there is such huge demand for their products that they would not be able to fulfil supply themselves and need a major player to take in manufacturing. The scaling up of manufacture to meet China demand will have the added benefit of reducing costs for when the rest of the world decides to implement DVRG's water monitoring (and whatever other goodies Gerry and the team come up with in the future) gear as standard practice.
PI's will probably have a mixed reaction to this as usual, but this could be the news to grab the attention of bigger parties, I won't be selling into the 10% rise for sure
That's pretty cool to have a UV steriliser from the scanner rendering the waste product safe, another plus-point for what is looking like a phenomenal piece of kit.
I think it all comes down to accuracy really though. PCR has been gold standard while for a while, governments are now getting on board with LFT's, if the breath test can be proven to be just as good (or day I say better...) then approval will be forthcoming.
I guess accuracy is the big deal in our current negotiations with shoreside authorities to get cruise passengers tested before their day ashore. Maybe they will say they allow any tests with an x% accuracy rate, or maybe they'll just approve whichever is best
Very much looking forward to hearing the results of how good this thing is, but let's not forget the potential application for the BT beyond covid. One day the world may even look back on the current crisis with respect for the acceleration it provided for medical diagnosis technology
"The compromise will be for the venue to invest in the processing units if the punters pay for the consumer units."
Remember that the plan (at least originally, I assume it still is) is that your personal BT is connected to your phone. You can scan your chip at a processing unit anywhere and it gives you an 'all clear' QR code to your phone valid for 24 hours, so the processing units can be more centralised (not clear who will pay for that) rather than individual venues needing one each. Of course, for the cruise ship scenario the units will need to be on board the ships/
I work on cruise ships (or did, until about a year ago.... we're scheduled for restart for the European season in May). Most of our guests are senile and or drunk, the current generation LFT's are totally unsuitable; self-administered nasal swab, mix with some sort of re-agent, apply to the test and wait 20 minutes. Good luck getting 5000 people of 20 different first languages to do that each morning before going ashore. From what I can see, DeepVerge have the most simple, and fastest test. If the trials can confirm its accuracy, it is the best solution out there for the cruise industry, and from what Gerry said there, it sounds like the cruise lines know it. It just needs to become an 'approved test' for the shoreside authorities, and hopefully the trial results will lead to that.
A recent video from small cruise line Quark for their upcoming Arctic season showed that they will use 'gold-standard rapid testing' (no hint as to what style of test unfortunately) on guests while boarding, and again 4 days later, and this will be for cruises where excursions are totally in-house, in remote locations with the ships small boats, not visiting settlements. I don't know what the destinations in the more mainstream locations; Norway, Baltic, Med, UK, etc.are going to require
As for its usage in other scenarios, there's plenty of governmental talk right now about rapid-testing opening up the 'venue economy'. Again, even mildly complex tests with a 20 minute wait are no good, even 5 minutes, can you imagine a queue outside a nightclub being asked to do the LFT procedure!
Very nice, positive update. Impressive that the turbine was built and tested in just 9 weeks, that seems like a pretty rapid turnaround to me, and only 5 days installation too.
Great to see a comment from Scotland's energy minister Paul Wheelhouse as well, its not often that you get senior government officials quoted on an RNS! COP 26 at Glasgow in November really is a great opportunity to showcase this technology to the world. I get a bit miffed (and annoyed) when I see UK officials referring to the UK as world-leader in offshore wind, we really aren't, we're the industry's biggest customer, its the Norwegian and Danish companies selling us the turbines who are the world leaders (and the ones making all the money!). If government can get behind tidal stream power, we can be genuine world leaders in the industry, both the UK and Simmer Atlantis
Mike, Simec Atlantis designed a turbine for the Chinese, it was installed last April. This article states an 18 month time-frame, which I guess covers design, manufacture and installation but I don't know about other aspects. Certainly in Europe I would expect community consultation, environmental impact assessments etc to take longer. Given that this was the first for China, it would be reasonable to expect that further orders would be delivered rather faster, especially with their serious heavyweight manufacturing abilities. https://www.rechargenews.com/transition/china-launches-industrial-tidal-power-push-with-wuhan-built-flagship/2-1-797736
As mcco says below, the installation of the turbine in Japan was very rapid, and I think this in one of the beauties of the sae turbine design, reducing the need for expensive ship work, something that adds a hugely to the cost of offshore wind.
good to hear tidal range at Wyre being mentioned a few times. Simec Atlantis are the preferred developer for this project but it has been very quiet for the last few years, would be nice to get some movement there
Regardless of covid testing, there are some very strict regulations regarding the quality of wastewater that can be dumped at sea after treatment. The entire Carnival fleet including subsidiaries (Princess, Seabourn etc.) are under special measures/monitoring at the moment following a serious breach by Princess a few years ago. I don't know how waste water is currently tested on-board, but any technology that can monitor the quality of water being discharged and send an alert/immediately stop the discharge if it doesn't meet requirements, really should be used on all cruise ships to prevent future breaches.
New article posted today on the biome website https://biomebioplastics.com/using-trees-to-protect-trees/
Sounds like the development is going well and is moving from lab testing to the field, partnering with Scottish Woodlands, Woodland Trust and Tilhill Forestry, who would be presumable be big customers of the finished product.
I think success in this project could have really interesting implications for other products, a plastic that is broken down by soil bacteria after a few years could be used in many different applications
haha grumpy, being a raging environmentalist I hadn't really even considered that side of things. Of course you're right, any freight or cruise company able to lower their prices to customers because of their reduced fuel costs is going to win a lot of the market, everyone else will want to make the same savings.
interesting report/research note here: https://www.edisongroup.com/publication/the-clean-solution-to-a-global-problem/28303/
The EBITDA scenarios in exhibit 9 towards the bottom are particularly mouthwatering for a company with a current market cap of £35m
pretty much the perfect RNS! If MSC make the decision to start using our products across their freight and cruise fleets, operating with hugely reduced emissions compared to conventional fuels, there will be serious pressure for other lines to follow suit. This could be huge!
I feel very lucky to have bought in here a few weeks ago, great timing for once
Good to see the 'Partnership Funding Manager at SSE' commenting positively
very interesting that it is the cosmetic companies themselves calling for a ban, they wouldn't do that unless they knew there was an alternative...