Global Oil Spills and Modern Solutions

Oil spills have been a threat to the environment ever since freight shipping began in the 1950s. We dive into the dynamic data looking at the current state of oil spills, their devastating effect on the aquatic environment, the unforeseen problems and the modern solutions working hard to keep our waters clean.

Devastating effects

Staggeringly, just 1 litre of oil can contaminate 1 million litres of water. It is estimated that approximately 2.7 billion litres of waste oil enters the ocean every year, this means that about 2.7 trillion litres of water is polluted by oil each year. History has shown that cleaning up this oil is not very efficient and varies widely, with the recovery rate ranging from 5% and 20% of the initial volume spilled. This has caused ever-lasting damage to aquatic life.

The damage caused by oil pollution can be compartmentalised into three major categories:

Environmental

Oil spills can cause severe ecological alterations. The pollution destroys the aquatic organic substrate, which consequently disrupts the food chain, resulting in the extinction of species.
Animals that live in or near the ocean often experience smothering from the oil waste, causing hyperthermia, as well as the loss of habitats and shelter during the destructive clean-up process.

Economic

There are significant clean-up costs required in oil spill responses.
Disruption of financial confidence, recreational activities, power generation, agriculture, commercial fishing, tourism, and interconnected industries, such as transport, often follows.

Social

Health and safety concerns, as oil waste that invades and pollutes coastal areas negatively affect mental and physical health of population, as well as causing financial stress to the local community.

Global Oils Spill Trend

Unfortunately, reporting of spills is difficult to achieve as data is often incomplete, making it highly unreliable. In the last five decades, approximately 16.6 billion litres of oil have been lost in our waters due to global tanker incidents. However, promisingly, there has been a significant reduction in volume of oil spilt over the last 50 years (cf. Figure 1 & 2). These reported incidents however only relate to major oil spill incidents, classified as medium (7–700 tonnes) and large (>700 tonnes) sizes. Therefore, the true total quantity of oil spills, including small sizes, is both far greater and largely unknown.

Figure 1: Annual number of oil spills (>7tonnes) over last 50 years, (ITOPF)

Figure 2: Major oil spills since 1967 (rounded to nearest thousand), (ITOPF)

In the 1970s, the average number of spills per year was 79 – this figure has now decreased by over 90% to a low of 6 (cf. Figure 3).

Figure 3: Number of Spills (>7 tonnes) from 1970-2019 (ITOPF)

Figure 4: Location of spills from 1970-2019 (ITOPF)

Why the decline in oil spills?

Clearly, things are moving in the right direction, with oil spills at an all-time low, but why?

The most significant factor causing this decrease in oil spills over the last 50 years has been regulation. This has been in particular with regards to the introduction of the MARPOL 73/78 legislation which has signatories from 156 states. This accounts for 99.42% of the world’s shipping tonnage. The current convention covers spills ranging from bilge washing (failure to notify the government of illegal, but intentional, discharges from ships) to major accidental oil spills due to groundings or collisions; all are subject to severe fines and other significant penalties.

An example is the US Oil Pollution Act of 1990 charges criminal fines of $25,000 per day and/or one year imprisonment against a party that negligently caused an oil spill. While increased tanker movements implies increased risk, it is encouraging to observe the inverse relationship as the downward trend in frequency of oil spills continues. This is despite an overall increase in oil trading over the same period (cf. Figure 5).

Figure 5: Decline in number of tanks spills vs growth in crude and other tanker trade loaded (ITOPF)

However, many companies are reshoring manufacturing facilities and the current economic climate, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, suggests a negative oil trade outlook from 2021 as domestic production increases.

There has also been a huge global drive to reduce fossil fuels, headlined by Biden’s sustainable agenda which included re-joining the Paris climate agreement. In addition, the EU is looking to cut carbon emissions by 55% of its 1990 levels within a decade, adding strong stimulus to this movement. Alternative modes of freight transport are also being considered, such as the re-emergence of rail and electronic vehicle trucking. The UK is also set to ban the sale of petrol cars by 2030. All of this points towards a global reduction in the demand for oil. This in turn will likely help to reduce the rate of oil spills even further.

Grey area over small oil spills

Although medium and large spills have fallen dramatically over the last 5 decades due to strict penalties enforced by regulators, there seems to be a grey area of how big of an issue small oil spills really are. Over 80% of oil spills recorded in the last five decades fall into the smallest spill size category. This includes spills of less than 7 tonnes in size. Unfortunately, the volume of small oil spills is unquantifiable due to incomplete reporting.

In order to seriously tackle the severity of all oil spills, it is paramount that data is obtained about small oil spills. This is needed to quantify the severity of the problem and that we may build metrics that regulators can employ.

Modern solutions

RanMarine’s WasteShark

80% of small oil spills arise from operational accidents during loading, discharging, and bunkering within inland environments. There are many start-ups and modern technology entrepreneurs looking to find ways to solve this problem. This includes the innovative technological solution from RanMarine, founded in 2016.

RanMarine Technology developed the WasteShark, the world’s first data harvesting Autonomous Surface Vessel (ASV) designed to remove unwanted material from urban water. The WasteShark can remotely controlled as well as autonomous. It relies on minimal manpower to collect, detect and analyse water, exposed to unquantifiable, small oil spills in large areas such as ports, marinas and harbours., It boasts a 500kg debris cleaning capacity per day – it is a solution for monitoring oil pollution, but also a solution to the exponentially growing plastic problem.

This invention should help to assist authorities to verify compliance with pollution regulations, by flagging and identifying polluter infringements, in particular negligence and failure to report unknown incidents, which could result in severe fines. Its successful series A funding last year demonstrates investor interest, increasing traction and huge potential.

All in all, despite being a huge problem 50 years ago, oil spills have become much more regulated and as a result are much more infrequent. Nonetheless, work still needs to be done with regards to small-sized oil spills which are often unreported and therefore ignored. Recent analysis shows global economic losses of $ 474 billion per year from inadequate water supply, sanitation and urban property flood damage. Innovations such as RanMarine’s support the cleanliness and the health of the Earth’s waters.

Article by Dominic Wall, Market Analyst

Looking to Nature’s Designs to Solve Human Made Problems

When a genius and an icon like Leonardo da Vinci looks to nature for inspiration in his designs and inventions, art and creativity, how could the rest of us even think about ignoring this wondrous three-billion-year history of evolution?

In his day, when Leonardo was roaming the countryside, strolling through the streets of Florence, or counting the branches on a tree, he embodied an intense curiosity about the natural world around him. It was a deeply embedded curiosita. Today we call it biomimicry.

Velcro is a much cited example of biomimicry (inspired by burdock burrs stuck in a dog’s fur), as is the flipper (inspired by ducks and their webbed feet), the submarine (whales), and Japan’s famous bullet train (the kingfisher). But none of these solutions actually do our environment any good.

Because when people look to nature to solve problems, shouldn’t nature herself benefit too?

We should all know by now that nature is in crisis. We’re facing food and water insecurity, melting ice caps, global warming from fossil fuels, deforestation, biodiversity loss, air pollution, and of course, plastic pollution. And that’s not even all of it.

But let’s look beyond the crisis of nature for a moment, and look to nature herself for the inspiration we need to solve the mess we’ve collectively made. As lovers of the ocean, we can’t help but dive under the waters for a closer peek at the plethora of magnificent creatures that live there as an example of extraordinary design.

The electric eel, for example, can produce enough electricity to light up to 10 light bulbs. Sea cucumbers clean the ocean (they eat anything that sticks to sand, take in the food, and then excrete the sand again, all nice and clean). Feather stars are almost walking plants that wave their ‘feathers’ around to move underwater. The blue dragon is a sea slug that floats upside down on the ocean waves. And basket stars, close relatives of starfish, use their many arms to create an intricate web to trap their prey.

And then of course, there’s the incredible fact that 76% of ocean creatures produce their own light. And still, we only know a tiny fraction of our ocean’s various species. New marine life is being discovered every day. How could we not be inspired to a da Vinci level of curiosity?

Biologist Frank Fish from West Chester University in Pennsylvania wins in biomimicry and sustainability for how he’s changing the way engineers think about aerodynamic design and inspiring the redesign of wind turbine blades that produce more energy more efficiently. And all this because Fish was captured by the unique design of humpback whales and their flipper bumps.

For EcoStp, their inspiration for zero power, zero chemicals, sewage treatment technology came from a cow’s own internal process. Nature’s genius empowered them to create a regenerative innovation that utilises the functional principles and strategies of microorganisms and the ecosystem found in a cow’s stomach. EcoStp’s patented technology treats sewage in a decentralised, self-sustainable way, without power, chemicals, or human intervention.

RanMarine’s waste-devouring WasteShark was inspired by the gentle and majestic giant of the ocean, the whale shark. A filter feeder, the whale shark swims with its mouth wide open, scooping up plankton and small fish as it moves slowly forward. And now its drone twin, the WasteShark, is also in our waters with its own wide-open mouth and voluminous belly, but its scooping up plastic pollution instead.

Richard Hardiman, CEO of RanMarine Technology, says it started at the V&A Harbour in Cape Town. Watching two people in a boat trying to battle plastic waste with nothing more than a pool net, he was struck by the futility of their efforts. Battling both tide and people’s inability to clean up after themselves.

‘When I later discovered this was standard practice in harbours all over the globe … and when I realised just how dire the marine plastic pollution crisis really is, I just knew I had to do better than that. We had to do better than that.’

The result is an autonomous aqua-drone that can collect up to 500kg of waste per day with a zero carbon footprint. It also harvests vital data about the health of the water. In fact, over 200 environmental sensors can be fitted onto one WasteShark, continuously reporting on vital facts to help us keep our waters healthy and protect the creatures living in it.

It’s a no brainer, when nature is our mentor, when nature is our inspiration, when we are truly connected, the sustainable solutions can be limitless.

These drones look for trash in waterways

In a river in the Danish city of Århus, a small machine called the WasteShark now autonomously sails through the water collecting trash, bringing it to shore, and then recharging itself. Soon, a drone will begin flying through the air to help: Using a special lens that collects data to be crunched by a machine learning algorithm, that drone can identify pieces of plastic or other garbage and direct the sailing drone to pick them up. The system can also identify oil spills, which the WasteShark can help clean up with a special filter.

“We’re testing a technology that can be scaled in a lot of different ways,” says Martin Skjold Grøntved, a special consultant for the Danish Climate Ministry. While the small trash-eating drone isn’t new, the addition of the flying drone makes it possible to find more garbage more quickly. The sailing drone also hasn’t been used to clean up oil spills in the past, because without the drone overhead scanning the water, it wouldn’t be able to identify the oil.

he tech startup Kinetica worked with the agency to provide a data platform, running on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, that makes the trash detection algorithm run quickly. This isn’t the first time they’ve helped equip drones to detect trash. Kinetica also worked with the nonprofit San Francisco Estuary Institute to test another project that uses drones to track how much waste is entering waterways to help understand how well waste-prevention efforts are working. In the past, that data was difficult to gather at a large scale. “Resources are limited, and city programs have only so much to put towards these efforts,” says Tony Hale, program director for environmental informatics at the San Francisco Estuary Institute. “Nonprofits have only so many people to put towards these efforts. And it’s a very time-intensive process to go out and just do the cleanups, first of all, let alone to count the amount of trash and then characterize it by certain categories. What this drone-based and machine learning-based method offers is a way to expand the geography.”

Read the full article by Fast Company – article

The Health of our Waters and Innovations to Protect Them

If we had to ask ourselves if we were doing enough to protect our waters, we’d have to admit to some pretty hard truths. Because really, all it takes is one glance around the globe to see that we need to be doing a lot more to understand, measure, and manage our waters, and we need to be doing it now.

The toxic algae bloom, for example, is a global issue we’re facing on an alarming scale in our oceans, rivers, lakes, ponds, and reservoirs. Sludgy, smelly, and hazardous, when toxic algae bloom out of control and release toxins, the results can be devastating.

Harmful algae blooms (HAB) have been known to last up to 14 months, wiping out all kinds of marine life in their path, including dolphins, sea turtles, and other wildlife, posing potentially dangerous health impacts for local communities, and devastating industries such as fishing and tourism.

Read our blog: Reducing Harmful Green-Algae Blooms Is Crucial to Protecting Aquatic Life

But release a DataShark into your waters and you can learn everything you need to know to help you protect your precious water resources both now, and in the future. An innovation from award-winning RanMarine Technology, the DataShark is the world’s first data harvesting autonomous surface vessel (ASV) to be commercially deployed in the fight against pollution and scourges like algae blooms.

The DataShark shares its design inspiration with RanMarine’s game-changing WasteShark. Both modelled on Mother Nature’s own whale shark, RanMarine’s WasteShark scoops up marine waste, biomass, and plastic, while the DataShark collects and collates water quality health data from waterways in any environment.

Freshwater ecosystems in particular, require effective management in order to remain healthy and function properly. Freshwater is indispensable for life on our planet, supports the environment, society, recreation, and the economy, and yet it is increasingly under threat.

In addition to the growing demand of freshwater for human purposes, the effects of climate change are also exacerbating changes, manifesting in ever more frequent and severe extreme events and disasters such as drought and floods. This in turn undermines the ability of freshwater ecosystems to contribute to both climate change adaptation, and mitigation.

Whether it’s freshwater or saltwater environments, a large water body, or small, RanMarine’s DataShark is user-friendly and easily integrated into any work environment or field operation. It only takes a one-person team to operate this intelligent aqua-drone and capture GPS tagged data points. In fact, signing into RanMarine’s secure customer web-portal would allow you to operate and manage your drones from anywhere in the world.

With 10-hours of battery life, and a typical range of 10 km, the DataShark harvests data which is captured through the RanMarine Data portal, and reported in both graph and raw format in real-time – and stored for analysis. All data is geo-tagged and time stamped, giving an accurate picture of the water quality health within your ecosystem.

Each DataShark drone can be equipped with a variety of water health quality sensors and probes. Partnering with Eureka Water Probes, RanMarine has designed its drones to facilitate the data harvesting of numerous data points including temperature, pH, conductivity, optical DO, turbidity (with optional depth and ORP), nitrogen, and toxic algae (blue/green) levels – with many other vital options configurable on request.

And the options are vital, because even something as apparently simple as a change in water temperature can have a negative impact on ecosystems. The temperature of the water influences not just the biological activity and growth of aquatic life – life that cannot survive when temperatures rise or fall too far beyond the ideal range – but it also has an effect on the water chemistry itself. Generally, the higher the temperatures, the more the chemical reactions increase. Warm water also holds less dissolved oxygen than cool water, which means there may not be enough dissolved oxygen for various aquatic species to survive.

Another apparently simple yet vital data point is the pH level of your water. For example, heavy metals dissolve much easier in acidic water and can become more toxic as a result. But even the slightest change in pH can be detrimental to aquatic life. Just a small shift can affect the gills of fish and diving insects, the hatching success of fish eggs, as well as the amphibian populations. When the shift in pH is even greater, water with an extremely high or low pH can be deadly for fish and animals.

Changes in pH and temperature can also point to the growth of algae.

Richard Hardiman, CEO of RanMarine Technology says, ‘Especially in the 21st century, the monitoring of water quality has become imperative in order to measure the effectiveness of current water policies, to better protect human health as well as the overall environment and economy, and to prevent events such as fish deaths, the loss of recreational use of water bodies, and to, when necessary, plan restoration projects.’

And we now have some compelling technology to help us protect the waters across our planet. With RanMarine’s data-harvesting DataShark and its intelligent aqua-drone twin, the waste-devouring WasteShark, the company remains steadfast in its goal to empower humankind to restore the marine environment to its natural state.

Top 5 sustainability pioneers in Europe

The events of the past year have put many things in perspective – and have served to highlight the urgency of the climate crisis. Sustainable start-ups are attracting increased interest from ethically-motivated consumers, as the world looks towards a greener post-pandemic future.

The pandemic has prompted us to reconsider many aspects of our lives, from our working habits to how and where we spend our money. It has also served to heighten our awareness of environmental issues, as we begin to think of the world we would like to see post-pandemic. According to a survey by management consultancy company Accenture, 60 percent of consumers say that they have started making more environmentally friendly, sustainable or ethical purchases since the onset of the pandemic in 2020.

In the business world, too, sustainability has become a top priority over the course of the past year, with major firms such as Unilever and Google announcing significant green pledges over the course of 2020. Even amid the COVID-19 crunch, venture capital firms have been pouring money into sustainable, purpose-driven start-ups, suggesting that eco-friendly products and services may well be a key area of growth in the post-pandemic world. With that in mind, let’s take a look at five of Europe’s top sustainability pioneers.

1 – Oatly (Sweden)
The non-dairy milk market has been booming in recent years, and is predicted to reach revenues of over $38bn by 2024. This is good news indeed for Swedish oat milk-manufacturer Oatly, which has seen its sales soar as ethically-driven consumers seek alternatives to traditional dairy products. Founded in the 1990s, the company states its aim as: “to make it easy for people to turn what they eat and drink into moments of healthy joy, without recklessly taxing the planets’ resources in the process.” Boasting partnerships with major retailers such as Starbucks, the company is undoubtedly one of the most prominent names in the plant-based industry, and is now said to be seeking a valuation of close to $10bn as it prepares to go public on the US stock exchange.

2 – EO Charging (UK)
With many of the world’s workers giving up the daily commute in order to work from home in 2020, the pandemic has encouraged a reassessment of our transport usage. While global car sales fell by around a fifth during the pandemic, sales of electric vehicles rose by a remarkable 43 percent, showing an increased appetite for eco-friendly cars. As the demand for electric vehicles grows, the need for increased EV charging infrastructure is becoming ever more apparent. Based in the UK, EO Charging is one of Europe’s leading manufacturers of electric vehicle charging ports, having sold more than 30,000 charging points in over 30 countries in the five years since its launch. Working with high-profile partners such as Uber, Sainsbury’s and Ocado to facilitate a transition to EV, EO Charging was recently named among the Financial Times’ fastest growing companies in Europe.

3 – Cellugy (Denmark)
Plastic pollution is an area that has come into sharp focus over the course of the past 12 months, with discarded single-use masks becoming an all too common sight since the start of the pandemic. Based in Aarhus, Denmark, Cellugy is a pioneering biotech start-up that is committed to helping to bring an end to plastic pollution through the creation of alternative forms of packaging. Its innovative product, called EcoFLEXY, is a durable material designed for use in the packaging industry. Made from recycled food waste, the product is all-natural, fully recyclable and biodegradable. In a recent seed round, the company raised €2.38m from the European Innovation Council Accelerator, which will allow it to scale-up production of its EcoFLEXY product.

4 – RanMarine Technology (Netherlands)
An unexpected side effect of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the unfortunate increase in marine litter pollution. Plastic gloves, single-use masks and other forms of PPE have been washing up on beaches across the globe, with this increase in plastic waste threatening the health of marine life the world over. Dutch drone technology firm RanMarine is the company behind the innovative WasteShark – a product designed to clear plastic and other waste from all manner of waterways. The device has a 10-hour ‘swimtime,’ and is able to clear 500kg of debris from the water each day – with users able to control the device remotely and monitor its progress in real time. The firm secured a Series-A investment in 2020, allowing it to scale-up its operations this year and beyond.

Read full article by World Finance article

Engineering grad takes leap of faith with drone company

Mr Sharif Shaharudeen never expected the journey towards his first job to be so arduous.

Last year, he graduated with a first-class honours degree in aeronautical engineering from the University of Glasgow’s aeronautical engineering degree programme at the Singapore Institute of Technology with solid internship experience under his belt.

But the aerospace industry was negatively impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic that slashed demand for commercial flights.

Suddenly, the 25-year-old found himself in a precarious position.

“Initially, I was in denial. Based on my performance at university, I thought I wouldn’t have a problem finding a job – even if the pay was lower than before the pandemic,” he said.

His failure to secure a job was emotionally draining, especially since his family needed him to step up and help out financially.

“I was actually extremely scared at one point and very depressed because even though I did my best as a student, I still could not secure a job to support my family,” said the eldest of three children whose father’s work in the money-changing industry was also badly affected by the pandemic.

Mr Sharif’s mother is a housewife. He has two younger sisters – one, a university student and the other, a Primary 5 pupil.

But after sending out dozens of job applications, the former Temasek Polytechnic student decided it was time to take a “leap of faith” and try to secure employment in a different – but related – industry.

Securing a position under the SGUnited Traineeship programme, Mr Sharif is now working as a systems engineer at drone company Drone Solutions.

In what seems to be a happy accident, he has found satisfaction in an industry which he sees as being the future of aviation.

Read full article by Straits Times article

Netherland-Based Company Believes Their ASV’s Provide an Innovative Solution for the Cleanup of Ports and Harbours

Netherlands-Based RanMarine has come up with an innovative solution for the cleanup of the world’s ports and harbors. They have created a technology that uses autonomous surface vehicles ASV’s to do this demanding and time-consuming job. The company truly believes its technology is the answer to the plague of plastic that has found its way into the world’s oceans and other waterways. It offers a flexible and cost-effective option to help solve plastic pollution problems in any body of water. An overview of this company can be seen on their Facebook Page here at https://www.facebook.com/RanMarineTechnology.

Richard Hardiman, RanMarine’s Founder, offered up some staggering numbers on the impact that plastic and other debris have on the world’s bodies of water and mankind in general. It all starts with an ecosystem that is under great stress from the way that people live. He stated that much of this is because 54% of the world’s population now lives in cities that are experiencing a rise in lifestyle expectations. This brings along with it increased consumption and the exponential growth of waste and pollution in vital ecosystems such as water. It’s estimated that the world is now producing some 300 million tons of plastic per year and this number is growing every year. The company founder stated that the fallout from this is failing ecosystems, increased civic costs, and a growing economic divide. Specific threats include that to the biosphere where over 700 species are now faced with the immediate threat of extinction due to marine litter. A heavy burden has also been placed on the economy due to the $260 billion lost globally every year due to unclean fresh water. He says that in addition to this, the annual cleanup costs of ocean litter amount to over $75 billion per year. The states of California, Oregon, and Washington alone spend over $500 million annually cleaning up their shared Pacific coastline. Hardiman remarked that perhaps the most pressing concern is that 2.8 billion people live in heavily polluted trans-boundary river catchment areas. These people who rely on seafood as a primary source of protein are eating seafood where an estimated 33% of that diet contains some form of plastic in it.

Read full article by Digital Journal article

First-Of-Its Kind Partnership to Address Plastic Pollution Crisis

RanMarine Technology and The Planet Calls are pleased to announce their newly minted strategic partnership. Combining RanMarine’s award-winning technology for cleaning the world’s waters and The Planets Calls’ unwavering mission for a greener and more sustainable planet, it’s a first-of-its kind partnership that forges a new way forward.

In a referral partner agreement, the brands have come together on a unique platform to address the alarmingly compounding issue of the plastic pollution crisis.

In some form, almost all the plastic ever created still exists today. The amount of plastic produced globally in just one year is almost the same as the entire weight of humanity. And scientists predict that by 2050, there will be more tonnes of plastic in our oceans than tonnes of fish.

There is no doubt that the call to act is urgent.

Richard Hardiman, CEO of RanMarine Technology says, ‘As a cleantech company, we are regularly introduced to people and networks who are passionate about the earth, its waters, and the need for urgent restoration; I can honestly say that few embody the same passion and vision or align with our mission so clearly as The Planet Calls; to be partnered with CEO Leslie Maliepaard and her team, to us at RanMarine, is the embodiment of what we are looking to achieve in creating stronger networks and commitments in the fight against plastic pollution.’

And in this fight against plastic pollution, RanMarine’s WasteShark drone range offers an incredibly intelligent tool for cleaning our waters.

Modelled on planet earth’s biggest fish, the whale shark, The WasteShark is the world’s first waste harvesting autonomous aqua-drone that collects marine waste, biomass, and plastic from all types of water. It can collect up to 500kg of waste per day with a zero carbon footprint.

In addition to cleaning our waters, the WasteShark can be equipped with water quality sensors to capture and report on the health of our planet’s water. RanMarine’s mission is to empower people and organisations across the planet to restore the marine environment to its natural state.

To date, Dutch-based RanMarine has introduced WasteSharks to help clean up harbour waters in the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, South Africa, India, Denmark, Sweden, the United Arab Emirates, and Australia.

The eco-friendly and quietly unobtrusive drone is proving most effective at waste chokeholds like harbours, rivers, and canals where it can devour plastic pollution before it spills into our oceans.

Encouraged by the immediate impact the WasteShark can have on the health of our waters, the sustainability specialists at The Planet Calls already see the synergy and distinct value this range can offer their clients.

Read the full article by The Planet Calls article

Can autonomous water-robot technology solve the ‘pollution problem’ in water bodies?

Autonomous aerial robots have solved a number of impending problems across various industries, helping enterprises ensure completion of critical missions without any hindrance. However, the pollution problem in the water bodies has persisted and the aerial robots haven’t been able to contribute much in this regard.

They have majorly been involved in enhancing the security paradigm and ensuring asset protection across both private and government sectors. The authorities have been longing for a comprehensive solution to tackle the issue of water pollution.

This is where water-robot technology is coming up as a great innovative model to deal with the pending pollution problem in the water bodies. These autonomous vehicles are capable of removing tonnes of plastic waste from the surface of the water bodies, other than providing insights pertaining to the quality levels.The unmanned water vehicles are quite affordable and come with extended durability.

While many AI-based firms have worked extensively to develop fast-moving and heavy-duty water robots to clean up massive patches of plastic waste with great efficiency, RanMarine’s WasteShark has taken the lead to clean up as much as 200 litres of ocean waste before being emptied. It floats across the water bodies with its mouth wide-open and collects trash without affecting the marine life. While RanMarine is known for designing industrial autonomous surface vessels for ports, harbours and other marine and water environments, WasteShark is undoubtedly the best product developed by the company.

Some of the best features of WasteShark include 10-hour swim time, besides the ability to clean up over 500 kgsof waste every day. The product is already deployed in several water bodies across various countries and the results have been encouraging.

As a result, RanMarine has attracted investment from Luxembourg-based Boundary Holding, led by RajatKhare. The company is looking to utilize the funds to expand the business and set a new benchmark in the clean-tech sector.

The integration of advanced technology has opened the doors for various sectors and firms to find appropriate solutions to the new-age problems. The role of water-robots is also going to be crucial to live up to the expectations, as the pollution levels keep increasing, impacting the marine life, as well as the humans.

Read the full article by Globe Stats article

12 Netherlands-based energy startups that raised over €1M in 2020

The world is increasingly growing aware of the detrimental effects of fossil fuel and is actively seeking an alternative. According to the EEA, “The European energy system is undergoing rapid changes to set the EU economy on a low-carbon and resource-efficient path. Renewable energy is instrumental to this transformation. EU efforts to double the share of renewable energy in its consumption have paid off, having reduced significantly the amount of fossil fuels used and their associated greenhouse gas emissions.”

A number of European startups are also playing their part in helping the EU achieve a sustainable future; especially in the Netherlands. According to a report, the Netherlands is aiming for a rapid transition to a carbon-neutral economy to help its economic growth and energy security. The country has made notable progress on its transition to a carbon-neutral economy and has set targets to reduce them by 49% by 2030 and by 95% by 2050, compared with 1990 levels.

RanMarine Technology

Founder/s: Richard Hardiman
Founded year: 2016
Total funding: €1.6M

RanMarine Technology specialises in the design and development of industrial autonomous surface vessels (ASV’s) for ports, harbours, and other marine and water environments. The company specialises in remote-controlled and autonomous drones. It came up WasteShark, a drone to swim through water, gather data about the marine environment, and extract unwanted material. It is a drone that is efficient, non-threatening, unobtrusive, and long-lasting. This drone will eat plastics and litter, chemicals in the water, and extract pest and alien vegetation.

Read the full article by Silicon Canals article

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