Energy

This move into the oil and gas hydraulic fracturing market is something that’s new and exciting for our company,” enthuses Bruce Coulthard, President of PZS Stabilization LLC. The move in question has come as a result of forming a manufacturing company, SNCA Products LLC, and including exclusive rights to distribute a revolutionary new line of products globally. One of those products, SGA-1, is formulated specifically for the hydraulic fracturing process of oil and gas extraction -also called “fracing”.

Power-One specialises in making “inverters”, which convert the direct current generated by solar cells into the alternating current needed by electricity grids.

ABB believes that demand for inverters will rise by 10 percent a year until 2021, due to rising energy demand, electricity prices and falling production costs.

The prototype tube lighting LED is said to be twice as efficient as those currently used in offices and industry across the globe, while offering the same amount of light.

Lighting is believed to account for almost 20 percent of global electricity consumption, therefore being able to halve the amount of energy used could potential bring huge cost and energy savings. The prototype tube lighting produces 200 lumens per watt (200lm/W) compared with 100lm/W for equivalent strip lighting and 15lm/W for traditional light bulbs.

The company is currently working on the development of a hydrokinetic energy generation device and will be supported by a £100,000 award from Scottish Enterprise.

Samuel Lewinter, chief executive of ResHydro, said: "We are pleased to have the opportunity to open our Scottish subsidiary where we will have access to significant technical expertise and where market conditions will contribute to the most expeditious commercialisation of our technology."

Measuring approximately 0.3 miles in length the vessel will be almost as long as five football fields and take the crown of being the largest floating facility in the world.

Plans for the vessel represent the next stage in the two company’s plans to develop the Scarborough field using floating LNG. Analysts also see the move as the latest vote of confidence for what is still very much an untried technology. Nevertheless, energy companies remain hopefully that it will help bring down the rising cost of developing gas.

Solar power is a great idea, but it is no good at night or when the sun does not shine – right? Wrong! In southern Spain there's now a solar power plant that can run constantly. We are used to seeing solar panels on houses and in solar arrays. These work by converting sunlight directly into electricity using photoelectric cells, but Torresol Energy was formed to introduce and test new technologies that make concentrated solar energy an economically competitive option and a real, viable, ecological and sustainable alternative to traditional energy sources.

The reserve quantities of fossil fuel are well understood by the energy industry, which uses tested indicated and proven reserve assessment to aggregate the resources that will be available in years to come. Renewable energy is usually expressed in terms of annual capacity, often ignoring the lifetime potential of wind and biomass projects.

In what is the latest in a series of announcements aimed at transforming the Atlantic’s role as an oil-producing region, the consortium, which also includes Shell, ConocoPhillips and Chevron, has said that drilling has already begun on the first of five wells planned over the next two years. Up to 12 wells could be drilled, depending on initial results.

Clair, located to the west of Shetland, is already known as a "monster" field, holding eight billion barrels of oil. However, up until now it has been technically difficult to bring this ashore.

The proposed £14 billion power plant, to be built at Hinkley Point in Somerset, would eventually be capable of powering some five million homes.

It is believed that EDF hopes to build two new reactors at Hinkley that would provide approximately seven percent of the UK’s electricity needs, while employing 25,000 people on the construction of the project alone. The energy giant says the project would generate taxes equivalent to a few percentage points of what the entire financial sector yields for the exchequer.