US plant owners have purchased way less uranium in the year 2022 when you compare it to the year 2021. They have also had to buy it at a much higher price as well. US uranium buys keep on being dominated by a lot of foreign suppliers and it looks like this is amounting to thousands of pounds. The EIA have the Uranium Marketing Report as well. This provides a lot of details regarding the marketing activities from the USA and it also shows the summary data which goes back to the year 2001. This information is based on collected data and this can range from deliveries to contracts, enrichment services and more. The uranium purchased by a number of owners and operators for nuclear power looks to be down and the total power reactors are down as well. This is not good to say the least, especially for those who work in renewables. A lot of the deliveries were of foreign origin and the top source appears to account for well over 27% of the deliveries. 35 million pounds of uranium feed is being delivered to enrichers and it seems that 41% of the total feed is going to enrichment suppliers. 14.2 million enrichment services have been bought by US operators and it seems that 75% of this was from foreign-origin SWU. At the end of the day, when you break all of the data down, US commercial inventories, including those owned by plant-owners, brokers and even converters, are going to be down by 1% of the 141.7 million pounds. Contracted deliveries and unfulfilled market requirements represent an anticipated market and it is safe to say that more has to be done to try and make sure that we are no longer reliant on foreign sources of uranium.

A new MRI imaging technique has revealed just how Covid-19 could change the human brain in more ways than one. The whole thing has been developed by the University of Waterloo and it seems that the imaging technique, which is correlated diffusion imaging, has been developed by a system engineer professor. Alexander Wong has been working on the system for quite sometime and they have been doing studies to see how they could use it to the maximum level of efficiency. If you work in the renewables sector then you should know that the new imaging technique is going to correlate diffusion CDI imaging. It is also going to be looked at by Rotman Research and Sunnybrook Hospital. This is going to take place in Toronto. Some might think that the Covid-19 disease affects the lungs only but this is not the case at all. What has been found is that the new MRI technique is very good at identifying changes in the brain that could happen as the result of Covid. Of course, Covid has the ability to change the white matter in the brain and it is important to understand this more if possible. Wong, who works at the Artificial Intelligence and Medical Imaging service has said that he has developed a CDI in hopes of trying to find a better way to detect cancer. This is a new form of MRI and it is great at highlighting all of the differences between the molecular tissue. It is able to capture and mix MRI signals and it is also able to showcase things at varying strengths as well. This works with different images and it also helps to really push the boundaries for what this kind of tech can do overall.

It would seem that solar storage microgrids are going to be replacing diesel generators soon. This is going to be replacing the groundwater wells and it is also going to make it way easier for people to get the help that they need to reduce energy costs while cutting carbon emissions. The microgrids are going to feature clean energy and this is going to make a major difference to the industry as a whole. Scale and Cadiz have said that the microgrids are going to lower the project’s energy costs and that there are going to be cuts of over 30%. Carbon emissions are going to be cut by 75% and on top of all of this, there is going to be 100% uptime reliability. At the end of the day, microgrid technology has improved over the years and it has gotten to the point where the shift to green energy is now the best way to operate off the grid. Susan Kennedy has said that she is very proud of the movement and it would seem that she is more than willing to do what she can to make it better for the future. Cadiz announced that the construction phase is going to be completed soon and that new groundwater wells are going to be installed. This is going to capture 50,000 acres of feet every year and this is going to include surplus groundwater as well. The idea is that this is going to be captured before it goes into the desert. The water is going to be sent by pipelines and it is going to be sent to railroad corridors. This is going to include converted natural pipelines as well. The Cadiz wellfield as well as the infrastructure is going to provide reliable supplies during drought and it is also going to help with underground storage during wet periods too.

Canadian Solar have started work on building their new manufacturing plant. They are going to start work in Mesquite, Texas and they have the ultimate plan of being able to start production at the end of 2023. The announcement marks the Canadian Solar entrance into US territory. They are one of the biggest module producers in the world and they happen to operate plants across Southeast Asia, Brazil, Canada and more. It's important to know that a lot of their products are shipped from China. The facility is state-of-the-art and if you work in renewables, you will know what a major impact this could have on the sector. The vast majority of modules that have been imported into the US do contain PERC cells. These are monocrystalline modules, and they make up around 95% of the global manufacturing amount. That being said, a transition is currently underway to try and generate higher-efficiency cells. This happens to include heterojunction and TOPCON.

When you break it all down, you will soon see that tunnel oxide passivated contact cells are actually gaining a lot of commercial interest and a lot of this comes down to the fact that the cells are doped with something called phosphorous. This has one more electron than the traditional silicone module. This makes it negatively charged. Of course, the very first solar cell was invented in the year 1954 and ever since then it has been N-type. Of course, this means that the P-type positive structure is much more dominant, and this has had a major impact on the renewables business. Only time will tell what the future holds for it but right now it looks like things are moving positively and in the right direction.