• Escalating boreal forest fires point to carbon ‘time bomb’, scientists warn

    Boreal forests, or taiga, is a biome characterised by coniferous forests consisting mostly of pines, spruces, and larches. While they typically account for 10 per cent of global fire carbon dioxide emissions, they contributed 23 per cent in 2021, a new study reports. “Boreal forests could be a time bomb of carbon and the recent increases in wildfire emissions we see make me worry the clock is ticking,” said study author Steven Davis. Extreme wildfires – which impact the climate through the carbon dioxide they emit – have become more common. According to the researchers, wildfires in tropical forests have received notable attention for their emissions, while fires in boreal forests have attracted much less focus. This is despite the fact boreal forests are the world’s largest land…

  • 117 zero-emission buses to take to English roads

    The Department for Transport (DfT) said 117 of the zero-emission vehicles will be rolled out in Yorkshire, Norfolk and Hampshire. The buses will be manufactured in Northern Ireland by Wrightbus and operated by First Bus. FirstGroup, an operator of buses and rail in the United Kingdom, said its capital spending would increase to £120-125m in the full year 2024 as it plans to put in an additional £35m to expand the fleet and electrify the infrastructure. The group secured £25.3m in co-funding from the Zero Emission Buses Regional Area scheme to purchase the vehicles to serve Norfolk County Council; Portsmouth City Council; Hampshire County Council; West Yorkshire Combined Authority and City of York Council. This brings total government funding to almost £300m for up to 1,395 zero-emission…

  • View from Brussels: Bond, Green Bond

    Estimates vary but according to one consultancy, Europe will have to invest €28tn over the next 30 years in order to neutralise greenhouse gas emissions and achieve its ‘first climate-neutral continent’ ambitions. Needless to say, that is a lot of money. Far more than what the public purse can afford and, currently, far more than the level of investment being made in clean energy, low-emission transport and other pollution-busting policies. That is why it has been generally accepted that private capital is going to do most of the heavy lifting and public money is going to have to act as a catalyst or a sweetener for most clean technologies and green projects. Enter the European Union. This week, governments and EU lawmakers agreed on a new set of rules for green bonds, a financial instrument…

  • Industry calls for ‘urgent’ publication of strategy to bolster hydrogen transport

    In the future, hydrogen could be used to fuel vehicles where current battery technologies struggle to provide enough power density such as planes and heavy goods trucks. Hydrogen UK, which represents the industry, has called on the government to publish a strategy with aims to establish a network of refuelling stations by 2030. It also called for an increase in the rollout of more hydrogen ecosystems like the Tees Valley project , which attempts to aggregate various hydrogen demands to reduce the risk of investing in supply. The report benchmarks the UK’s current global position on hydrogen transport deployment against other international economies. “We know that hydrogen has a critical role to play in the decarbonisation of transport and this report highlights the importance of implementing…

  • British-based renewables produced more electricity than gas this winter

    Renewably produced electricity this winter has displaced more than a third of the UK’s entire annual gas demand for power generation, according to the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU). Between October 1 and February 28, power generated by wind, hydro and solar reached 47TWh (terawatt hours), the research said. In contrast, generating the same amount of electricity using gas power stations would have required around 95TWh of gas – equal to 110 tankers of liquified natural gas (LNG), which would have potentially increased net gas imports by more than 22 per cent, including gas imported via pipeline. “We’re seeing the old electricity system give way to the new, with renewables becoming the backbone and displacing more and more gas," said Jess Ralston, head of energy at ECIU. …

  • Sponsored: The Electrical Digital Twin

    The Electrical Digital Twin represents the physical components of the electrical network. Connected to field devices, the digital twin allows engineers and operators to manage assets throughout the project lifecycle, run what-if scenarios assessing equipment response under specific conditions and analyse and optimise settings and procedures in a safe virtual environment. This webinar will provide application examples and best practices, demonstrating its value in the areas of: Electrical Safety Efficiency & Sustainability and System Reliability From the design, and analysis to operation and automation - throughout the entire power system lifecycle and across the energy landscape. Register for this webinar to learn about: The concept of Electrical Digital Twin The importance…

  • Health sensors made from seaweed outperform synthetic materials

    Developed by a team at the University of Sussex, the sensors can currently monitor heart rate and temperature and are built using natural elements like rock salt, water and seaweed, combined with graphene. Because they are solely made with ingredients found in nature, they are fully biodegradable, making them more environmentally friendly than commonly used rubber and plastic-based alternatives. Their natural composition also places them within the emerging scientific field of edible electronics as they are safe for human consumption, the team said. The seaweed-based sensors were found to outperform existing synthetic-based hydrogels and nanomaterials used in wearable health monitors in terms of sensitivity and accuracy. Dr Conor Boland, a materials physics lecturer who worked on the…

  • SpaceX launches international crew to ISS in scientific mission

    Nasa's SpaceX Crew-6 mission lifted off at 12:34am EST (05:34am GMT) from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The mission has seen the arrival of the first person of Arab origin intending to stay for an extended time in the ISS, as part of a six-month-long science mission that will study microgravity. UAE's first-ever astronaut launched to orbit in 2019 aboard a Russian spacecraft. The SpaceX launch vehicle consisted of a Falcon 9 rocket topped with an autonomously operated Crew Dragon capsule called Endeavour. Onboard were Nasa's retired Navy submariner Stephen Bowen and Woody Hoburg, the United Arab Emirates' Sultan Al Neyadi, and Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev. Fedyaev is the second cosmonaut to fly aboard an American spacecraft under a renewed ride-sharing deal…

  • View from India: When digitisation and diversity go hand in hand

    If we view the organisation as a pyramid, generally gender diversity tends to be represented in the middle layer. The top layer could have fewer female representatives than the middle one and, coming to the bottom layer, it’s very rare to find female employees there also. So when Wabtec Corporation offered a tour of its vertically integrated multimodal factory, it was surprising to find women working in the manufacturing unit. Dressed in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, they seemed comfortable carrying out the various production tasks. To think of it, the shop floor is a labour-intensive male-dominated segment of any manufacturing unit. However, companies are beginning to employ women. Their inclusion brings diversity into the workforce. Women assemble, sort and package products for distribution…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • India tops table of countries experiencing politically motivated internet outages

    According to Access Now, authorities shut down the internet across 35 countries at least 187 times. It described the protracted shutdowns as “maliciously targeted” attacks on human rights that were deployed to wipe out democratic movements, crush people power and provide cover for violence. Leaders in Myanmar and Ethiopia were found to be already replicating these tactics in 2023. “Governments wield internet shutdowns as weapons of control and shields of impunity,” said Felicia Anthonio, campaign manager at Access Now. “In 2022, under authoritarian regimes and in democracies, powermongers accelerated their use of these callous tactics, disrupting the internet to fuel their agendas of oppression; manipulating narratives, silencing voices and ensuring cover for their own acts of violence…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • AI tool helps pick the perfect organs for transplant

    A project that uses AI to help match organ donors with recipients has received £1m in funding from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR).  The new method uses AI and its "memory" of tens of thousands of images of donor organs to identify those that offer the best chance of transplant success.  Currently, surgeons examine donor organs and assess their suitability. However, using AI for this process could help NHS surgeons perform 300 more transplant surgeries every year, experts have said. The team behind the technology, known as OrQA – 'Organ Quality Assessment' – said it could result in up to 200 more patients receiving kidney transplants and 100 more receiving liver transplants every year in the UK. “We are developing a deep machine-learning algorithm which will…

  • Biden’s requirements to chip makers winning funding raise industry questions

    The Biden administration has released its plans to begin accepting applications in late June for its silicon manufacturing subsidy programme, including requirements for companies to share excess profits and explain how they plan to provide affordable childcare. Companies winning funding are also prohibited from using the 'Chips and Science' funds for dividends or stock buybacks, and must provide details of any plans to buy back their own shares over five years. Although no companies have said they would scrap expansion plans to build in the US, industry sources told Reuters that the unexpected provisions make the funds less attractive. The most contentious part of the conditions seems to be the profit-sharing requirements, which would mean each company would have to negotiate separate…

  • ‘Ultra-early’ wildfire detection network installed in Spanish forests

    Dryad Networks has developed a wireless network of environmental, solar-powered gas sensors, based on the open standard for long-range IoT networks. Its distributed architecture enables large-scale deployment in areas without network coverage and the data collected on the network is processed by machine-learning tools embedded within the sensor and cloud-based data tools for analysis, monitoring and alerting. Dryad’s wireless sensor network will operate deep within forest environments, where the impacts of climate change are more difficult to monitor. The installation is intended to reduce the percentage of area devastated by fire, which according to the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) rose in Spain to almost 310,000 hectares in the last year. With its deep experience in…

  • Immersive tech to help improve F1 sim racing performance

    The series of announcements were revealed at the Alpine Esports Sim Racing Expo at its F1 factory in Oxfordshire, attended by E&T. It showcased each product, discussed the state of the sim racing industry, which is forecast to be worth over $13bn by 2026, and outlined Alpine Esports’ ambitions for 2023 and beyond. “Sim racing is an important part of Alpine’s DNA,” Guillaume Vergnas, head of Esports, Gaming & Web3 at Alpine, said during the expo. “We see the crossover between real-world racing and sim racing continue to blur where it can support how we conduct testing of our cars, providing us with realistic data.” Vergnas added that the immersive technology could also allow the team to better engage with new audiences. “Our line-up of partners allows us to support our competitive ambitions…

  • Banks’ finance for clean energy still lags behind fossil fuels, report says

    Several climate scenarios suggest that to limit global temperature rises to 1.5°C above the pre-industrial average, the world needs to be investing $4 in renewable energy for every $1 invested in fossil fuels by 2030. Energy analysts BloombergNEF compiled data from 1,142 banks for what it calls an 'Energy Supply Banking Ratio' to assess whether banks are aligning their financing to the real economy and the 1.5°C target. In 2021, bank financing for energy supply totalled $1.9tn, just over $1tn of which went to fossil fuels and $842bn to low-carbon energy projects and companies, according to the report. The bank financing ratio, of 81 cents to $1, was below the global energy supply investment ratio of 90 cents to $1. The latter ratio has been climbing in recent years from around 0.45:1…

  • ‘Biocomputers’ could be developed within our lifetime, scientists say

    The Johns Hopkins research team has outlined their plan for the development of a 'biocomputer' that could create faster, more efficient, and more powerful computers.  They called this type of technology "organoid intelligence" (OI), as it is powered by living human brain cells.  "Computing and artificial intelligence have been driving the technology revolution, but they are reaching a ceiling," said  Thomas Hartung , the leader of the research team. "Biocomputing is an enormous effort of compacting computational power and increasing its efficiency to push past our current technological limits." Organoids are three-dimensional clumps of biological tissue that scientists have been growing and experimenting with for years, to avoid resorting to human or animal testing. However, Hartung…

  • No long-term plan for decarbonising UK power sector risks 2035 goal, warns NAO

    Under current proposals, by 2035 all electricity is expected to be generated using clean sources by phasing out gas-fired power stations in favour of wind, solar and nuclear power. But the NAO warned that the UK’s net-zero strategy predicts a 60 per cent increase in electricity demand − due to modes of transport and heating in buildings switching to electricity from fossil fuels – which could make it more difficult to fully decarbonise. Last month, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak split the department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) into two, which included the creation of the Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) department. The original plan was for the BEIS to draw up a clear pathway to decarbonisation by 2035 by October 2022 at the latest. But the department was forced…

  • Digital treatments for depression conditionally approved by NHS body

    Eight digital therapies have been “conditionally recommended” by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) while further evidence is generated. One in six people in the UK report experiencing a common mental health problem such as anxiety and depression in any given week, according to NHS Digital. The high demand for NHS talking therapies means that some people currently have to wait up to six weeks to access help. Six technologies were conditionally recommended for helping adults with anxiety disorders. The Perspectives app was approved for those suffering from body dysmorphic disorder. For depression, the committee conditionally recommended the use of three online CBT programmes – Beating the Blues, Deprexis, and Space from Depression (Silvercloud) – as treatment…

  • Book review: ‘Collision: Stories from the Science of CERN’

    CERN is a centre of exciting intellectual activity, so – as the introduction to ‘Collision’ asks – why should that stop with the sciences? Why shouldn’t its discoveries also inspire work in the non-scientific disciplines? The answer is, of course, that it shouldn’t. ‘Collision: Stories from the Science of CERN’ (Comma Press, £9.99, ISBN 9781912697687) was produced by pairing up esteemed authors with esteemed CERN scientists to explore ideas being investigated at the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest experiment. The authors were provided with a list of themes suggested by the scientists, took their pick, and each wrote a story inspired by their chosen theme. After the story was completed, the corresponding scientist wrote an afterword expanding on the scientific background. The collection…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Net-zero flying would require using half of the UK's agricultural land

    Scientists have not been able to find a single clear alternative to jet fuel that would help the aviation industry achieve net zero.  Currently, the UK aviation sector consumes 12.3 million tonnes of jet fuel a year and produces 8 per cent of the country's greenhouse gas emissions. However, it is considered a hard-to-abate sector  due to a lack of technologically mature alternatives to jet-fuelled engines.   Made from waste materials or by-products such as household waste, industrial gases or used cooking oil, SAFs have often been considered as the most efficient option, as they can achieve greenhouse gas emissions savings of more than 70 per cent compared to conventional fossil jet fuels.  Nonetheless, the authors of a report published by the Royal Society have found that replacing jet…

  • Brexit agreement ‘good news’ for UK membership of Horizon Europe

    The debate over the UK's long-delayed request to join the EU’s flagship research programme, post-Brexit, has seemingly been solved by a new UK-EU agreement. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said work on associating the UK to the EU’s Horizon Europe research programme will start “immediately” once the wider deal between Brussels and London over the Northern Ireland protocol is implemented. The deal, dubbed the 'Windsor Framework', was hailed as a “decisive breakthrough” in post-Brexit rules by UK prime minister Rishi Sunak. Sunak said the agreement would open "a new chapter" in the UK's relations with the European Union, which have been frosty over the past year due to the row over the Northern Ireland Protocol. The Windsor Framework is expected to remove trade barriers…

  • Norway’s Seed Vault acquires 20,000 new samples as climate pressure mounts

    20 depositors, including those with seed collections from Albania, Croatia, North Macedonia and Benin, took the trip to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault this week. The Seed Vault is a secure backup facility designed to provide long-term storage of duplicates of seeds conserved in gene banks around the world. Since it opened in 2008, the Seed Vault has been steadily collecting seeds and now holds over 1.2 million distinct crop samples, representing more than 13,000 years of agricultural history. In total, the Vault holds over 20 million individual seeds. The Vault is set 120m inside an Arctic mountainside on the remote Spitsbergen Island, off the coast of Norway. The latest deposit includes 290 samples of maize, wheat and beans from the Institute of Plant Genetic Resources of Albania and…

  • Solar radiation modification a potential climate solution, but more research needed

    The report by the panel finds that SRM is not yet ready for large-scale deployment to cool the Earth. The Panel says it is no substitute for a rapid reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, which must remain the global priority. Emergency temporary measures such as SRM are being raised in scientific and public discourse since global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are not on track to meet the 1.5°C Paris Agreement goal. Climate change continues to worsen, with some of its impacts already irreversible. SRM aims to cool the Earth rapidly by reflecting a small percentage of sunlight back into space. While some SRM technologies, such as Stratospheric Aerosol Injection, are more mature and outdoor experiments are being actively pursued, the review finds critical unresolved issues overall…

  • Bacteria used to extract rare earth elements from wastewater

    REEs are a group of 17 chemically similar metals which got their name because they typically occur at low concentrations (between 0.5 and 67 parts per million) within the Earth’s crust. Indispensable in modern technology – featuring in light-emitting diodes, mobile phones, electric motors, wind turbines, hard disks, cameras, magnets and low-energy lightbulbs, for example – the demand for REEs has increased steadily over the past few decades, and is predicted to rise further by 2030. Due to their rarity and high demand, they have become very expensive. A kilogram of neodymium oxide, for instance, currently costs approximately £175, while the same amount of terbium oxide costs approximately £3,350. China currently has a near-monopoly on the mining of REEs, although the discovery of promising…

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