UK Only Article: 
standard article

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Anarchy in the UK

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Energy storage

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Ready to rock and roll

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A novel idea for storing electricity

Ready to rock and roll

THE easiest way to squirrel electricity away in times of plenty, for use when it is scarce, is to pump water uphill with it. Such pumped storage is widely employed where local geography and hydrology permit, but it does need two basins, at different heights, to act as reservoirs, and a supply of water to fill them. At least one of the basins is likely to have to be artificial. The two must be connected by a tunnel that lets water flow between them. And the tunnel must house turbines attached to electrical devices that can do double duty—as motors to turn the turbine blades when they are pushing water from the lower reservoir to the upper one, and as generators when the blades are rotated in the opposite direction by an aqueous downrush after the upper sluices are opened.
Where geography does not favour pumped …
Source: Utilities
Energy storage: Sisyphus’s train set

UK Only Article: 
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How to make a good teacher

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Carbon capture and storage

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How to keep waste carbon dioxide in the ground

THIS year the world’s power stations, farms, cars and the like will generate the equivalent of nearly 37 billion tonnes of waste carbon dioxide. All of it will be dumped into the atmosphere, where it will trap infra-red radiation and warm the planet. Earth is already about 0.85°C warmer than last century’s average temperature. Thanks to the combined influence of greenhouse-gas emissions and El Niño, a heat-releasing oceanic phenomenon, 2016 looks set to be the warmest year on record, and by a long way.
It would be better, then, to find some method of disposing of CO2. One idea, carbon capture and storage (CCS), involves collecting the gas from power stations and factories and burying it underground where it can do no harm. But CCS is expensive and mostly untried. One worry is whether the buried gas will …
Source: Utilities
Carbon capture and storage: Turning air into stone

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Under attack

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Walmart

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BENTONVILLE, ARKANSAS AND SAN BRUNO, CALIFORNIA

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Business is picking up

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As American shoppers move online, Walmart fights to defend its dominance

Business is picking up

THERE is little outward sign that Walmart’s “supercentre” in Rogers, Arkansas differs from any other of the giant retailer’s outlets. Walmart conquered America with such “big box” stores—vast concrete blocks in an ocean of parking spaces. Inside stretches aisle upon aisle of merchandise, from Patti LaBelle sweet-potato pies to Ruger rifles and ScentSationals Wax Warmers, shaped like owls. But this particular store, near Walmart’s headquarters in Bentonville, is different. It is where the world’s biggest retailer hones some of the new ideas which, it hopes, will help it keep its crown.
Recently the company has had lots of such brainwaves, from vegetables in …
Source: Retailing
Walmart: Thinking outside the box

UK Only Article: 
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Under attack

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Shopping in America

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Lessons from the two giants of American retailing

FOR decades a titan has towered over America’s shopping landscape. Walmart is not just the world’s biggest retailer but the biggest private employer and, by sales, the biggest company. Last year its tills rang up takings of 2 billion, about twice Apple’s revenue. But now the beast of Bentonville must cope with an unfamiliar sensation. After ruling as the undisputed disrupter of American retailing, Walmart finds itself being disrupted.
The source of the commotion is online shopping, specifically online shopping at Amazon. E-commerce accounted for in every that American shoppers spent last year, up by 15% from 2014. Amazon’s North American sales grew at about twice that rate. Walmart’s share of America’s retail sales, which stands at 10.6%, is still more than twice Amazon’s, but it peaked in 2009 at nearly 12%. …
Source: Retailing
Shopping in America: Between Bentonville and Bezos