Digital reefs for protecting vulnerable coasts
CategoriesSustainable News

Digital reefs for protecting vulnerable coasts

Spotted: Rising demand for leisure trips is fuelling a rapid growth in global coastal and maritime tourism, with a market size worth more than $2.9 trillion (around €2.7 trillion). Many of these coastal destinations rely on reefs to protect wildlife, beaches, and communities from erosion and severe climate events. But the world’s reefs are in danger – around 14 per cent of the world’s coral was lost between 2009 and 2020.

CCell is working to heal damaged reefs, with artificial reefs powered by renewable energy that allow corals, bivalves, and other organisms to thrive. The company’s reefs use a steel frame and calcareous rock is grown around this, acting as a substrate for plants and coral to attach. Units are constructed in sections and transported to reefs that need repair.

Once in place, a safe low-voltage current is passed between a small metal anode and the steel structure. At the anode, oxygen is produced, nourishing marine life. On the main steel structure, which acts as the cathode, the pH rises and prompts the precipitation of dissolved minerals in seawater. The result is a calcareous rock, mainly Aragonite and Brucite, that fills in missing reef sections. The electrolysis is powered using energy from the waves.

CCell’s innovation relies on a digital management system – CCell Sense – allowing power output to be optimised and renewable energy to be distributed carefully across a structure.

Research and development of CCell’s concept was funded using £2 million (around €2.3 million) in government, non-equity funding last year. In 2022, the company also launched various pilot projects to prove the viability of its solution, including in Yucatan, Mexico.

Saving the world’s coral reefs is the subject of a wide range of recent innovations, from using natural antioxidants to stop coral bleaching to 3D-printed reefs made from cremated remains.

Written By: Lisa Magloff

Reference

Muscle-powered emergency generators for vulnerable communities
CategoriesSustainable News

Muscle-powered emergency generators for vulnerable communities

Spotted: Today 940 million people—13 per cent of the world’s population—lack access to electricity. For ten years, grassroots NGO Deciwatt has been developing renewable energy innovations that help the world’s most energy-insecure communities have emergency access to lighting. Now, it has launched a new product to expand the impact of its activities.  

The organisation’s origins lie in a project to replace the dangerous, expensive, and polluting kerosene lamps that are still relied on by hundreds of millions of people around the world. This brief inspired designers Martin Riddiford and Jim Reeves to take advantage of the vast improvements in LED technology to create a lighting solution that harnessed the power of gravity. Supported by crowdfunding, this insight formed the basis of the GravityLight – a design that required no batteries or sunlight but was powered instead by a user pulling on a weighted cord.

Supported by further crowdfunding campaigns, the GravityLight was put through its paces in a series of field trials and further tweaked to meet the needs of users. However, despite the incremental improvements, users indicated that they needed a longer-lasting, brighter light, and the ability to charge mobile devices. This prompted a pivot to a new product – the NowLight.

The refined design of the NowLight provides instant light and power. The device can provide over two hours of light from the user pulling on a cord for just one minute. And, crucially, the new design is over ten times brighter than the GravityLight and is efficient enough to charge devices through a USB port. Moreover, it provides versatility by supporting mains and solar charging.

Springwise has also recently spotted a sodium-ion battery system that provides power to vulnerable communities. And a university student has also developed a kinetic energy power source for remote areas. Another innovation that helps to tackle the immediate causes of insecurity of supply, is a smart energy device that helps to reduce the impact of electric hot water systems in South Africa.

Written By: Matthew Hempstead

Website: deciwatt.global

Contact: deciwatt.global/contact

Reference