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Pentadyne’s flywheel technology is primarily used for uninterruptible power supply (UPS) at places where even momentary power outages can be disastrous, such as hospitals and data centers. As a backup power source, the flywheel can provide about 15 seconds of power, giving enough time for the backup diesel generator to begin running.

Engineers at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory at the Florida State University are closer than ever to launching a new generation of high-field magnet, being 3,000 times stronger than an ordinary refrigerator magnet and will be able to generate a field about 45% more powerful than the strongest superconducting magnet currently available. The new high tech magnet will be made of a high-temperature superconductor that is far less expensive to operate than its conventional counterparts and more energy efficient. According to the researchers, it could mark the beginning of a new generation of super powerful magnets that help lower both the carbon footprint and cost of scientific research.

The world needs to find ways of cleaning, desalinating and distributing water to its citizens. And it is an area for which the use of renewable energy seems particularly apt. However, to talk of renewable generation as a single entity is misleading. Wind and solar power — the most likely candidates for water treatment in non-coastal areas — are very different beasts. Even within the category of solar power there are myriad technologies. And each one has distinct properties that affect where and how it can best be deployed.

ABB will deliver five turnkey 34.5/69kV substations including 12 step-up power transformers rated at 33MVA, air and gas-insulated switchgear, medium-voltage reclosers, and distribution transformers. The company will also supply and install 60km of 69kV overhead transmission lines to connect a 290MW wind farm to the national electricity grid that is currently under construction in the northeastern state of Bahia. According to ABB, Brazil currently has around 600MW of wind power capacity, with another 450MW under construction.

This is why Highview has been testing its 300-kilowatt pilot plant for the past nine months, supplying electricity to the UK's National Grid. The process stores excess energy at times of low demand by using it to cool air to around -190 °C. Excess electricity powers refrigerators that chill the air, and the resulting liquid air, or cryogen, is then stored in a tank at ambient pressure (1 bar). When electricity is needed, the cryogen is subjected to a pressure of 70 bars and warmed in a heat exchanger. This produces a high-pressure gas that drives a turbine to generate electricity. The cold air emerging from the turbine is captured and reused to make more cryogen. Using ambient heat to warm it, the process recovers around 50 per cent of the electricity that is fed in, says Highview's chief executive Gareth Brett. The efficiency rises to around 70 per cent if you harness waste heat from a nearby industrial or power plant to heat the cryogen to a higher than ambient temperature, which increases the turbine's force, he says. Unlike pumped-storage hydropower, which requires large reservoirs, the cryogen plants can be located anywhere, says Brett. Batteries under development in Japan have efficiencies of around 80 to 90 per cent, but cost around $4000 per kilowatt of generating capacity. Cryogenic storage would cost just $1000 per kilowatt because it requires fewer expensive materials, claims Brett.

Production of small SHP improves in the country

Much of this book is concerned with showing that powerful and well-financed rightwing thinktanks and lobby groups lie behind the denial of climate change in recent years.

Klein interprets the marginalisation of climate change in the political process as the result of the machinations of corporate elites. These elites “understand the real significance of climate change better than most of the ‘warmists’ in the political centre, the ones who are still insisting that the response can be gradual and painless and that we don’t need to go to war with anybody… The deniers get plenty of the details wrong… But when it comes to the scope and depth of change required to avert catastrophe, they are right on the money.”

Klein is a brave and passionate writer who always deserves to be heard, and this is a powerful and urgent book that anyone who cares about climate change will want to read. Yet it is hard to resist the conclusion that she shrinks from facing the true scale of the problem. When I read The Shock Doctrine (Guardian review headline: “The end of the world as we know it”), I was unconvinced that corporate and political elites understood what they were doing in promoting the wildly leveraged capitalism of that time, which was already beginning to implode. The idea that corporate elites are in charge of the world is even less convincing today. The neoliberal order has recovered, and in some countries even achieved a spurious kind of stability, but only at the cost of worsening global conflicts.

there are now other forms of energy harvesters developed initially at the micro level which are now being scaled to produce enough energy to replace or supplement grid power. For example, take the humble bicycle dynamo - based on an electrodynamic energy harvester. The same technology is also used in large scale wind power, but now it has been redesigned to work beyond a rotary means. EnOcean, Germany, offer more than 500 products based on this technology from light switches powered by pressing the switch to wirelessly monitored mouse traps powered by the mouse entering the trap. Re designing the decades old technology is now making other, larger scale applications possible.