Monthly Archives: December 2014

Nuclear power in China: Make haste slowly…

UK Only Article:  standard article Issue:  Sheikhs v shale Fly Title:  Nuclear power in China Rubric:  China’s rush to build nuclear power plants is dangerous Main image:  20141206_LDP004_0.jpg COAL kills, especially in China. Up to half a million people die … more »

UK Only Article: 
standard article

Issue: 

Sheikhs v shale

Fly Title: 

Nuclear power in China

Rubric: 

China’s rush to build nuclear power plants is dangerous

Main image: 

20141206_LDP004_0.jpg

COAL kills, especially in China. Up to half a million people die prematurely each year as a result of the country’s infamously foul air. Coal, from which China gets roughly four-fifths of its electricity, is the main contributor to that deadly pollution. And since the country’s power-generation may need to double by 2030 to keep pace with economic growth and more affluent lifestyles, the damage from coal will get worse before it gets better. Given that grim picture, it is understandable that the government wants to diversify its energy sources.
Nuclear power is central to this ambition. Even as doubts about it grow in the rest of the world, China has made its expansion a priority. With over two dozen reactors under construction, it wants to more than triple nuclear capacity by 2020. On December 10th China …

Source: Utilities

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The Economist explains: The convenience-store comeback…

SHOPPING in Britain in the 1950s used to be an arduous task. Back then the high street was dominated by smaller specialist stores, which offered only a limited range of items. That changed when supermarkets came along in the 1960s, … more »

SHOPPING in Britain in the 1950s used to be an arduous task. Back then the high street was dominated by smaller specialist stores, which offered only a limited range of items. That changed when supermarkets came along in the 1960s, offering greater choice at lower prices, in larger warehouse-style buildings. But over the past few years supermarket chains throughout the rich world have been investing more heavily in smaller stores. In Britain, the floor area of the average store run by Sainsbury’s, a large supermarket chain, has fallen from around 2,000 square metres in 2008 to just 1,750 square metres today. In America the number of smaller stores started to rise again in 2011. Walmart, a hypermarket specialist, unveiled its first convenience store in March, and plans to open more. So why are smaller shops making a comeback?Partly it is the result of the financial crisis. In an effort to reduce the amount of food they are throwing away, shoppers are now buying what they need more frequently at smaller shops or shopping online, rather than doing bigger and more speculative weekly shops at hypermarkets. The average spend per visit at Britain’s big four supermarket chains has fallen by 5% over the past year, according to Nielsen, a market-research firm.Economic forces do not completely explain the trend, however. Convenience-store openings have accelerated since the …

Source: Assets

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EnerNOC and Pulse Energy: Selling it by the negawatt…

UK Only Article:  standard article Fly Title:  EnerNOC and Pulse Energy Rubric:  The demand-response industry is consolidating Byline:  E.L. Main image:  20141206_wbp501.jpg WHY sell megawatts when you can sell negawatts? That is the thinking behind the demand-response industry, which pays … more »

UK Only Article: 
standard article

Fly Title: 

EnerNOC and Pulse Energy

Rubric: 

The demand-response industry is consolidating

Byline: 

E.L.

Main image: 

20141206_wbp501.jpg

WHY sell megawatts when you can sell negawatts? That is the thinking behind the demand-response industry, which pays consumers to curb their electricity use, and then sells the resulting spare capacity back to the grid. On December 2nd, EnerNOC, the sector’s biggest software-services firm, which focuses mainly on managing big customers’ electricity demand, announced that it had bought Pulse Energy, a Canadian startup that specialises in offering similar services to small and medium-sized companies. The result, says David Helliwell, Pulse Energy’s boss, is a company that can handle everything from the “smallest shoe store to the largest factory”. The size of the deal was not disclosed.
EnerNOC had revenues of 3m last year, 90% from demand response. It has 6,000 customers and reported a year-on-year increase in revenues of …

Source: Utilities

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