Negative cash flows from operating and investing activities and negative working capital in 2018 let the company doubt whether it was able to continue as a going concern. In 2019 the company restructured its management team, raised capital under the at-the-market sales plan, which allowed accounts payable to be paid off. While some of the indicators of substantial doubt still exist, such as historical losses and negative cash flows,...
Surface coating of cathode materials has been widely investigated with a view to enhance the life and rate capability of lithium-ion batteries, but computationally identifying materials with suitable ionic conductivity can be a very challenging task: creating a more efficient cathode involves addressing a myriad of factors simultaneously, from keeping the cathode of a battery electrically and ionically conductive to making sure that...
The 2020 edition of Renewable Energy Statistics released by IRENA gives a comprehensive overview on global renewable energy capacity and uses data sets on power-generation capacity for 2010-2019, actual power generation for 2010-2018 and renewable energy balances for over 130 countries and areas for 2017-2018. Apart from that the report includes information on electricity generation and statistics on investments in renewables....
Perovskite solar cells are a very promising technology as their performance has increased rapidly over the past years and currently exceeds 20%. It is also possible to produce them more cost-effectively than commercial solar cells. However, so far science has not been able to solve one of the main problems of perovskite cells: poor stability, which is caused by the perovskite layer when it comes into contact with water. Now (2020),...
Boston Consulting Group (BCG) is an American management consulting firm which was founded in 1963. The company annually releases a ranking of the most innovative companies from all fields of industry. The most recent ranking can be viewed on the company's website. The metrics of the ranking are mainly based on a survey of 2,500 global innovation executives. For the ranking, the performance of the ranked companies was evaluated and...
Global consumption of the alkali metal lithium is growing rapidly. During the past decade annual production of lithium has risen to 85,000 tons. This is mainly due to its use in batteries of electric vehicles as well as laptop batteries and smartphones. Several million tons of lithium are mined in countries such as Australia, Argentina and Chili every year, which account for more than 80% of global production. Chile has the world’s...
The 2020 edition of the Environmental Performance Index (EPI-2020), traditionally released every 2 years by Yale and Columbia universities, ranks 180 countries on environmental and ecosystem performance. Refining its metrics, in comparison to previous editions, the 2020 EPI introduces eight new performance indicators within 11 categories, including waste management, carbon dioxide emissions from land cover change, and emissions of...
The Renewables 2020 Global Status Report by REN21 gives a comprehensive overview on global developments in renewable energy in 2019. In general, the report points out that renewable power generation has grown impressively over the past five years, while too little is happening in the heating and transport sectors due to lack of political support and slow developments in new technologies. 2019 was a record year – over 200 gigawatts of...
Cobalt has been used as cathode material for a very long time as it offers high conductivity and stable structural stability throughout charge cycling. There are, however, two major drawbacks attached to the use of cobalt: the high cost and political instability in the regions where cobalt is mined. Therefore, scientists are putting a lot of effort into finding ways to minimise or eliminate the use of cobalt in batteries. Now (2020),...
The 2020 edition of the annual Statistical Review of World Energy by BP analyses 2019 and notes the unusual decrease of growth in energy consumption and carbon emissions, combined with a trend of moving away from coal toward natural gas and renewables, which together account for more than 75% of the net increase. The review shows that the growth of primary energy consumption slowed to 1.3% in 2019, which is less than half the rate of...
