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UTILITY WEEK | 1ST - 7TH MAY 2015 | 31 Community Editor: Ellen Bennett, t: 01342 332084, e: ellen.bennett@fav-house.com; News editor: Jillian Ambrose, t: 01342 332061, e: jillian.ambrose@fav-house.com; Associate news editor: Mathew Beech, t: 01342 332082, e: mathew.beech@fav-house.com; Insights editor: Jane Gray, t: 01342 332087, e: jane.gray@fav-house.com; Research analyst: Vidhu Dutt, t: 01342 332026, e: vidhu. dutt@fav-house.com; Reporter: Lois Vallely, t: 01342 332080; e: lois.vallely@fav-house.com; Business development manager: Ed Roberts, t: 01342 332067, e: ed.roberts@fav-house.com; Business development executive: Sarah Wood, t: 01342 332077, e: sarah.wood@fav-house. com; Publisher: Amanda Barnes, e: amanda.barnes@fav-house.com. General enquiries: 01342 332000; Membership subscriptions: UK £577 per year, overseas £689 per year, t: 020 8955 7045 or email membership sales manager Paul Tweedale: paultweedale@fav-house.com. ISSN: 1356-5532. Registered as a newspaper at the Post Office. Printed by: Buxton Press, Palace Road, Buxton, Derbyshire SK17 6AE. Published by: Faversham House Ltd, Windsor Court, Wood Street, East Grinstead, West Sussex RH19 1UZ 3,580 Average circulation Jan–Dec 2014 Membership subscriptions: UK £577 per year. Overseas £689 per year. Email: paultweedale@fav-house.com William Marchant @richonlyinname Supercritical CO2 – like normal CO2, only it doesn't know what you were thinking buying that dress – as a battery? Molly MEP @MollyMEP Greens prove nuclear & fossil fuel dragons can be slayed by 100% renewable energy #StGeorgesDay The White House @WhiteHouse "We're using more clean energy than ever be- fore. America is number one in wind power." —Obama #ActOnClimate #EarthDay Dana Popp @DanaPoppEU "#decarbonizing thanks to #NatGas"? Is that a trendy oxymoron or just misleading advocacy? #FossilFuels #EnergyUnion Jon Hugh @J_Mendelsohn Finally, a party in the UK wants to implement a Robin Hood tax! @TheGreenParty @natalieben FlowEnergy @FlowEnergyUK #FridayFact The word energy comes from the Greek word energeia meaning activity Peter Campbell @Petercampbell1 Bingo! First shareholder also complains that Centrica ran out of biscuits before the AGM. EIA @EIAgov About 13% of US #electricity was generated from #renewable energy sources in 2014. #EnergyFacts Guy Shrubsole @guyshrubsole 40% of UK public say the environment hasn't been discussed enough in this election. Damn straight. Patrick Wintour @patrickwintour Home Secretary should be entitled to display her ignorance of history but not to question the legitimacy of a free and fair election in UK. Top Tweets Disconnector Gas light Disconnector was a little scepti- cal on reading that Audi had developed a synthetic diesel fuel made from CO2 and water. Could it be true? Well, kind of. What is true is that Audi has invented a way to split water into oxygen and hydrogen, using a process known as reversible electrolysis, and the hydrogen can be mixed with CO2 har- vested from the atmosphere. The result is "e-diesel". In fact, Audi has set up a pilot plant in Dresden run by clean fuel company Sunfire that can produce 160 litres of e-diesel a day. The crystal clear fuel is being used to power an Audi A8 driven by Germany's education minister, the improbably named Johanna Wanka. All of which is impressive stuff, but you have to read the small print. Reversible electroly- sis is a power-hungry process and the fuel is only carbon- neutral if you assume, as the company does, that the power will come from renewables. Likewise the economics look promising, but only if you don't factor in the cost of the eletricity required. The great man is not convinced Audi has cracked it just yet. A perfect cuppa While the Germans are aiming at the big one, a US design agency from Michigan has been aiming somewhat lower: how to keep your cup of tea at exactly the Disconnector right temperature from the first sip to the last. The Daily Mail has dubbed the resultant product the Goldi- locks mug (not too cold, not too hot), which is a catchier name than the nanoheat wireless heated mug, which is the name the Design HMI and Green Lama came up with. The plastic mug uses a heater and a thermostat to keep your tea warm for up to 45 minutes and it can be charged wirelessly or via USB. The company reckons it can punt out the product at £30 a pop if it produces enough of them and is currently trying to raise funds via Kickstarter to set up commercial production. There are some drawbacks, of course. Setting aside the fact that Thermos cups already do a pretty good job of keeping your tea warm at the cost of a few pence, there's also the economic and environmental cost of constantly recharging the cups, not to mention the fact that in offices up and down the land workers would have to dispense with their regular china mugs, complete with amusing slogans of the "you don't have to be mad to work here but…" variety. Not going to happen, mate. Spud-u-light The truth is that inventing a cup that keeps your tea warm for 45 minutes is frivolous. The world doesn't need it. Finding out how to get a useful amount of electricity out of, say, a potato – that's a different matter. Now, it's true that genera- tions of schoolkids have wired up a light bulb to a rudimen- tary battery made from a potato and a couple of metal plates. What has changed is the usefulness of low-voltage electricity – for powering mobile phones or LED lights, for instance. And a scientist prepared to really apply him- self to the task. Step forward Haim Rabi- nowitch of the Hebrew Univer- sity of Jerusalem. Rabinowitch and his team found that by boiling the potatoes for eight minutes, it broke down the organic tissues inside, reduc- ing resistance and allowing for freer movement of electrons – producing more energy. They also increased the energy output by slicing the potato into four or five pieces, each sandwiched by a copper and zinc plate, to make a series. "We found we could improve the output ten times, which made it interesting economically, because the cost of energy drops," he said. Their cost analyses sug- gested that a single boiled potato battery with zinc and copper electrodes generates portable energy that is 50 times cheaper than a typical 1.5V AA alkaline cell or D cell battery. "It's low-voltage energy," said Rabinowitch, "but enough to construct a battery that could charge mobile phones or laptops in places where there is no grid, no power connection." But lots of potatoes.