• View from India: Fragile ecosystems encapsulated on film

    Insects bring to mind creepy-crawly creatures. Some of these winged creatures buzz around, often intimidating people nearby. It’s always best to keep away from them. Yet these creatures aroused the curiosity of Charlie and Lois O'Brien, who have spent a lifetime watching them closely, studying and monitoring them. Their insect pursuit saw the couple travel to over 70 countries, just to bring home an unusual species. Their enduring collection has been turned into an award-winning documentary, appropriately titled 'The Love Bugs', by All Living Things Environmental Film Festival (ALTEFF). Incidentally, the insect love bug - aka the honeymoon fly - is almost always found in pairs. With over 60 years of marriage, Charlie and Lois O'Brien are similarly matched. He, her teacher, liked weevils;…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • FBI chief speaks against TikTok because of its links to China

    The Chinese government could use TikTok to control the data of millions of American users, according to the FBI. During a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on worldwide threats to US security, the agency's director, Christopher Wray, warned against the popular social media app, stressing that its control is in the hands of a government “that doesn’t share our values.” When asked whether China could use the app to feed misinformation, Wray said "yes" and added that the agency is not sure whether this could be detected if it were to happen.  Wray said the FBI was concerned that the Chinese had the ability to control the app’s recommendation algorithm, which would allow them to choose the content that is shown to each user, and therefore influence opinions. He also asserted that China…

  • WhatsApp would refuse to comply with Online Safety Bill

    Will Cathcart, Meta’s head of WhatsApp, has described the bill as the most concerning piece of legislation currently being discussed in the Western world. The executive told reporters the company would refuse to comply if asked to weaken the privacy of encrypted messages, preferring to leave the UK than provide a less-secure service to users.  “We’ve recently been blocked in Iran, for example. But we’ve never seen a liberal democracy do that,” said Cathcart. “The reality is, our users all around the world want security. Ninety-eight per cent of our users are outside the UK. They do not want us to lower the security of the product, and just as a straightforward matter, it would be an odd choice for us to choose to lower the security of the product in a way that would affect those 98 per…

  • Track down the plastic greenwashers

    “We can be a bit geeky,” says John Willis, director of research at financial think tank Planet Tracker, “but we like to make sure what people are saying is true. We go through all the footnotes, and everything the auditors say; the devil is often in the detail.” It may not be the most glamorous of roles, but work Willis and his team do behind the scenes is critical, given the prevalence of increasingly sophisticated greenwashing. “I don’t think the general public are aware of how widespread this is, and they think quite reasonably that someone must be checking all of this, but until now they haven’t been,” he says. Last year, Willis came across the Alliance to End Plastic Waste (AEPW), and the organisation seemed “very worthy. We would love to see plastic waste ended,” he says. After…

  • Latin America poised to become renewable energy giant, report reveals

    Latin America is poised to become one of the world's largest producers of renewable energy, with almost one billion solar panels' worth of large-scale clean-electricity projects slated to come online in the next seven years across the region, the report says. GEM, a US-based non-profit organisation which tracks clean-energy development, states: "Rich in wind and solar resources, Latin America has the potential to be a global leader for renewable energy". Together with existing distributed and smaller-scale solar capacity, Latin America will be on track to meet, and potentially surpass, the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) 2030 regional net-zero renewable energy goals if it implements all of its prospective larger-scale projects. GEM's report - 'A Race to the Top' - tracks the utility…

  • UK ‘will fail’ to reach net zero targets without carbon capture funding, say MPs

    The House of Commons' Scottish Affairs Committee has warned that the UK might fail to meet its net zero targets without the widespread implementation of carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) projects.  The committee chair, Pete Wishart, insisted it was “deeply disappointing” that the Acorn CCUS project in  St Fergus, Aberdeenshire, had been “put on the back burner”. Wishart highlighted that much of the necessary infrastructure for the project – which missed out on funding in the first phase of the UK Government’s CCUS cluster sequencing process – was already in place.  “Net zero is little more than a pipe dream without carbon capture,” Wishart said, as he demanded that   “clarity must be given at next week’s Budget”. Wishart’s comments were made as the committee published a…

  • What makes a credible corporate climate pledge?

    The British government likes to advertise its contribution to cutting carbon emissions. And the figures do look good at first glance. The UK was apparently doing a good job of meeting commitments agreed at the end of 2015 well before ministers even turned up in Paris for a signing session. UK emissions peaked 50 years ago, a time when coal was the predominant fuel for both heating and electricity generation. Though investment in its planned replacement, nuclear, petered out, the once proud ‘dash for gas’ since the end of the 1980s helped cut overall emissions. The UK’s estimated greenhouse-gas (GHG) output almost halved in the three decades since 1990, according to figures from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) published in February 2022. It’s a remarkable reduction and the kind of…

  • Dear Evil Engineer: Could I nudge the Earth a little further from the Sun?

    Dear Evil Engineer, As a yeti, I often wish that millions of years of evolution had better prepared me for life on a planet with average temperatures well above freezing. I tend not to stray far from the Arctic – which severely limits my career opportunities – but global heating is rendering even that habitat smaller and sweatier by the year. Would it be possible to nudge the Earth into a higher orbit around the Sun and bring down surface temperatures to something more comfortable? Yours, A yeti Dear villain, You will be pleased to hear that the question of moving the Earth into a different, higher orbit has been given more serious thought than questions of this magnitude usually are. Even given humans’ limited lifespans, they have difficulty accepting that the Sun will eventually…

  • Government delays HS2 by two years over ‘rocketing’ costs

    With over £20bn spent on Phase One – the line going from London to the West Midlands – already, the government said it was shifting towards prioritising this opening stage, with the first high-speed rail services set to run between new stations at Old Oak Common in West London and Curzon Street in Birmingham by the early 2030s. It added that while it remains “fully committed” to delivering HS2 from Euston to Manchester, inflationary pressures coupled with the UK’s struggling finances have forced the DfT to delay the Birmingham and Crewe leg by two years. It blamed “challenging economic headwinds” following Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine and ongoing supply chain disruption as the global economy recovers from the pandemic, which has made it difficult to deliver the project on time.…

  • Defect-detecting AI could enable 3D printing on industrial scale

    Many industries already rely on the process to rapidly build parts and components. Rocket engine nozzles; pistons for high-performance cars, and custom orthopedic implants are all made using additive manufacturing, a process that involves building parts layer-by-layer using a 3D printer. However, structural defects that form during the building process is one of the reasons why this approach has not become more widely adopted. Now, a research team led by Argonne and the University of Virginia (UVA) have developed various imaging and machine-learning techniques to detect and predict the formation of pores in 3D-printed metals in real time with near-perfect accuracy. The metal samples used in the study were created using a process called laser powder bed fusion, in which metal powder is…

  • After All: All aboard the vintage tram of life

    Guess what the biggest highlight was of my recent short visit to Lisbon? No, not Alfama, the city’s oldest district, with its winding, naturally ventilated alleyways, cobbled streets, and secret squares. Nor the magnificent Castelo de Sao Jorge, with its thick Moorish walls and lush gardens. Nor even the mouth-watering Pasteis de Nata, the famous freshly baked and cinnamon-dusted custard tarts – yum! No. It was the vintage city trams – those moving wrinkles on Lisbon’s ageless face, the ‘wrinkles’ that, surprisingly, make it both livelier and younger. Here they were: strewn all over the city like some randomly distributed slices of a giant birthday cake on wheels (the visit to Lisbon coincided with my birthday); trundling past castles and monuments; squeezing themselves into narrow streets…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Space junk treaty needed to keep Earth’s orbit usable, experts say

    The number of smaller pieces of space debris currently in orbit is thought to number more than 100 million. Due to their colossal orbital speeds, even small pieces can pose a threat to satellites and spacecraft, several of which have been damaged or destroyed already. The number of satellites in orbit is expected to increase from around 9,000 today to over 60,000 by 2030. While such technology is used to provide a huge range of social and environmental benefits, there are fears the predicted growth of the industry could make large parts of Earth’s orbit unusable. An international group of experts from the University of Plymouth; Arribada Initiative; the University of Texas at Austin; the California Institute of Technology; Nasa Jet Propulsion Laboratory; Spaceport Cornwall, and the Zoological…

  • ‘Urgent changes’ needed to decarbonise the power system, report says

    The CCC has criticised Britain's lack of a strategy to meet its targets of decarbonising electricity supplies in the next 12 years.  “The government has not yet provided a coherent strategy to achieve its goal, nor provided essential details on how it will encourage the necessary investment and infrastructure to be deployed over the next 12 years," reads a report published by the committee.  The report includes 25 recommendations the government should implement in order to reach a decarbonised power system, described as “the central requirement for achieving net zero”.  It includes a series of “urgent changes”, such as removing barriers from the regulatory, planning and consenting regimes for the development of new infrastructure. In addition, the CCC advises the government to offer new…

  • EV transition targets are ‘not achievable’ within current timelines, industry says

    New global research commissioned by ABB Robotics and Automotive Manufacturing Solutions, revealed that 59 per cent of respondents believe the shift to pure EV production is not achievable within current legislative timelines.   The survey included almost 600 global industry experts, from vehicle manufacturers and suppliers at all levels of management, engineering and other key professionals throughout the automotive world. Of these respondents, only 11 per cent believed that all regional targets for EV adoption by 2030-2040 were realistic. Around 28 per cent said the deadlines were achievable, and 18 per cent believed the present targets would never be met.  In contrast, 80 per cent of respondents said the shift to sustainable manufacturing is achievable, although challenging.  “The…

  • Netherlands to block chip exports to China

    The Dutch government has said it will impose export restrictions on the “most advanced” semiconductor technology, revealing the first details of the deal that The Hague and Tokyo struck with the US in January to limit sales to China. Liesje Schreinemacher, Netherlands’ trade minister, wrote to parliament on Wednesday (8 March) outlining the new measures.  As a result, companies that want to export semiconductor technology to the Asian superpower will have to apply for licences. These “surgical” measures would only include very high-specification systems for advanced semiconductors, including some of the deep lithography (DUV) tools made by Dutch company ASML. The restrictions will start being enforced before the summer.  "The Netherlands considers it necessary on national security grounds…

  • North Sea flaring activity drops by half in four years

    Around one-fifth of emissions from North Sea oil and gas production activities come from flaring, a process used in fossil-fuel extraction which burns excess gases before they are discharged, resulting in CO2 emissions. Venting is the discharging of gases straight into the atmosphere without burning. Flaring and venting of gases are periodically required for safety and operational reasons, but more can be done to reduce the amount it happens by industry. The North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) said that the savings achieved in 2022 equates to the gas demands of approximately 80,000 UK homes. This followed four years of reductions driven by “tough measures” to make UK oil and gas production cleaner, such as an investigation into an oil and gas company last year for flaring and venting…

  • Energy-saving paint created, inspired by butterflies

    Debashis Chanda, a professor in UCF’s NanoScience Technology Center, drew his inspiration from butterflies to create the first environmentally friendly, large-scale and multicolour alternative to pigment-based colourants, which could contribute to energy-saving efforts and help reduce global warming. “The range of colours and hues in the natural world are astonishing — from colourful flowers, birds and butterflies to underwater creatures like fish and cephalopods,” Chanda said. “Structural colour serves as the primary colour-generating mechanism in several extremely vivid species where geometrical arrangement of typically two colourless materials produces all colours. On the other hand, with manmade pigment, new molecules are needed for every colour present.” Based on such bio-inspirations…

  • ‘Unprecedented’ rise in ocean plastics since 2005, study finds

    A global dataset of ocean plastic pollution between 1979 and 2019 has been collated by Marcus Eriksen and colleagues from non-profit group The 5 Gyres Institute. Improved understanding of plastic accumulation in the oceans to date could provide a “critical baseline” to help address this form of pollution, the researchers said. Previous studies have focused primarily on northern-hemisphere oceans near the world’s most industrialised nations, while other studies have found increases in ocean plastic over shorter time periods. In this study, the researchers looked at data on ocean-surface-level plastic pollution collected between 1979 and 2019 from 11,777 stations across six marine regions (North Atlantic, South Atlantic, North Pacific, South Pacific, Indian and Mediterranean). After accounting…

  • Scientists discover enzyme that turns air into electricity

    The team for the Monash University Biomedicine Discovery Institute in Melbourne, Australia, have produced an enzyme that captures hydrogen from the atmosphere to create an electrical current.  The researchers created the enzyme from common soil bacterium. It is able to use the low amounts of hydrogen present in the atmosphere, opening the way to create devices that literally make energy from thin air. "We've known for some time that bacteria can use the trace hydrogen in the air as a source of energy to help them grow and survive, including in Antarctic soils, volcanic craters and the deep ocean," said Professor Chris Greening, "but we didn't know how they did this, until now." Recent work by the team has shown that many bacteria use hydrogen from the atmosphere as an energy source in…

  • UK could save ‘billions’ with new data laws, government says

    Science, innovation and technology secretary Michelle Donelan will introduce the data law proposal to the House of Commons today. The legislation intends to reform the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) with measures that would reduce costs and regulations for UK businesses while retaining the UK’s data adequacy agreement with the EU. The "common sense-led" reforms are expected to unlock £4.7bn in savings for the UK economy over the next 10 years, according to the government.  “Our system will be easier to understand, easier to comply with, and take advantage of the many opportunities of post-Brexit Britain," Donelan said. “Our new laws release British businesses from unnecessary red tape to unlock new discoveries, drive forward next-generation technologies, create…

  • Calls to launch social energy tariff for poorest households ramps up

    The call is backed by a coalition of consumer groups and energy bodies, including Martin Lewis and Energy UK. Citizens Advice said that targeted financial support in the form of a social tariff is the long-term solution to millions of people spending excessive amounts on their bills, both now and during what could be a decade of record prices. It wants to identify those most in need by combining HMRC data on household incomes and data from energy suppliers on how much electricity and gas they use. Based on analysis in the report, more than 12 million households on the lowest incomes would qualify for support, and the average qualifying household would see their energy bill reduced by £381 – with some getting up to £1,500. The call for a social tariff follows nine months of extensive…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Still no in-service date for Emergency Services Network

    The Emergency Services Network (ESN) is intended to replace Airwave, the system currently used by emergency services in Great Britain to communicate. All of the UK’s emergency services and over 300 public safety organisations communicate using Airwave and its coverage is superior to any of the publicly available networks. But it runs on a 2G connection, which limits its functionality. The 4G connection provided by ESN will allow for live video streaming from officers on the scene and quick transfer of data relevant to ongoing incidents. According to an NAO report, by March 2023, the Home Office will have spent just under £2bn on ESN, and a further £2.9bn to maintain Airwave. Eight years after proposals for ESN first emerged and having agreed Motorola will no longer work on the network…

  • Hands-on review: Char-Broil Smart-E electric barbecue

    You’ll love or loathe the idea of an electric barbecue. You get the push-button convenience and precise temperature control of an electric oven. But you literally lose the fire of BBQ cooking. If you have a weatherproof socket on the patio anyway, then the Smart-E will be an easy addition to your outdoor entertaining… and you need never buy fuel for it, just pay the electricity bill. It’s better for air quality then. And if you use a renewable electricity supplier, your barbecuing is carbon neutral too. The Char-Broil Smart-E arrived on a pallet in a huge box. It was a heavy, two-person lift. Unboxing is a big job too. The fact that everything arrived in perfect condition was impressive and a testament to the vast amount of packaging. Image credit: Char Broil …

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • China plans to form a national data bureau

    The bureau is expected to coordinate the sharing and development of the country's data resources, with the aim of fostering a digital economy.  The proposal has been introduced as part of a sweeping government reshuffle, and is set to be voted for at the National People's Congress during its annual session on Friday 13 March. The proposed bureau will be administrated by the state planning agency, the National Development and Reform Commission. It is expected to  collect all national, public data, in order to create a more streamlined approach to data governance and could further restrict private companies from collecting information. The new bureau could also have the power to investigate issues relating to the digital economy such as  algorithmic regulation , digital addiction and  cyber…

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