• UK set several clean energy records in 2022

    RenewableUK and National Grid ESO have highlighted two wind energy records achieved in the UK at the end of 2022: one related to wind energy generation and another regarding the overall percentage of low-carbon electricity produced.  On 30 December, a new record for wind generation was set in Britain for the third time in the year.  The record saw 20.91 gigawatts (GW) of power being produced from offshore and onshore wind turbines in Britain, in the half-hour period between 6 and 6.30pm on the second-to-last day of the year.  This metric beat the previous record of 20.896GW set on 2 November 2022.  "The fact that the UK's onshore and offshore wind farms keep setting new electricity generation records shows just how important this technology has become in our modern energy system," said…

  • Europe’s largest carbon emitter failed to curb emissions in 2022

    According to climate think tank Agora Energiewende, Europe’s largest CO2 emitter needs to “urgently” implement structural measures to achieve both climate targets and energy security. Greenhouse gas emissions stagnated at around 761 million tonnes of CO2-equivalent, which means last year was the second time that the country has failed to meet its target. “CO2 emissions are stagnating at a high level, despite significantly lower energy consumption by households and industry. This is an alarm signal with regard to the climate goals,” said Simon Müller, a director at Agora Energiewende. According to an evaluation by the firm, energy consumption in Germany fell by 4.7 per cent or 162 terawatt-hours compared to 2021, partly as a result of the massive price increases for natural gas and electricity…

  • Self-powered, printable smart sensors could mean cheaper, greener Internet of Things

    Powering the increasing number of sensor nodes used in the IoT creates a technological challenge. The economic and sustainability issues of battery-powered devices mean that wirelessly powered operation – combined with environmentally friendly circuit technologies – will be needed. Large-area electronics – which can be based on organic semiconductors, amorphous metal oxide semiconductors, semiconducting carbon nanotubes and two-dimensional semiconductors – could provide a solution. Simon Fraser University (SFU) professor Vincenzo Pecunia believes that emerging alternative semiconductors that are printable, low-cost and eco-friendly could lead the way to a cheaper and more sustainable IoT. Leading a multinational team of experts in various areas of printable electronics from SFU's campus…

  • BT confirms £5m deal to launch the UK’s first drone superhighway

    Traffic management firm Altitude Angel wants to create a drone superhighway that would be the largest and longest network of its kind in the world. Its Unified Traffic Management (UTM) software has been designed to allow drones to fly safely, without a pilot, over large distances. The deal with BT will accelerate the roll-out of technology which detects and identifies drones to allow them to safely share the airspace with crewed aviation. It is estimated that the UK’s drone cargo delivery could be worth £45bn by 2030 and enable drones to transform how essential services function – from supporting the emergency services with real-time search and rescue, fast transportation of medical supplies, farming analysis, and architectural planning. The long-term aim of the project is to connect…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Caltech launches solar power prototype into space

    The 110lb SSPD prototype was launched into space on the Transporter-6 mission, which lifted off from Cape Canaveral on Tuesday 3 January 2023.  The demonstrator is part of the Caltech Space Solar Power Project (SSPP). The scientists behind the mission have designed three experiments to test several key components of an ambitious plan to harvest solar power in space and beam the energy back to Earth.   Satellites in geosynchronous orbit receive sunlight for more than 99 per cent of the time – as they are not subjected to the cycles of a day and changes in weather – and at a much greater intensity than solar panels on Earth, making them a much more efficient source of energy.  The launch of SSPD is the first step on a mission that could see the deployment of a constellation of space solar…

  • View from India: National Geospatial Policy promises citizen-centric approach

    A 13-year guideline has been formulated for the development of the geospatial data industry in the country. A national framework is also in place. The government plans to develop a geospatial knowledge infrastructure by 2030. This is expected to happen with the establishment of an Integrated Data and Information Framework. By 2035, it is envisioned to leverage geospatial data for mapping the sub-surface infrastructure in major cities and towns across India. It’s not just terrestrial but geospatial data’s high-resolution accuracy could also contribute towards the betterment of the blue economy. For instance, the Bathymetric Geospatial Data of inland waters and sea surface topography of shallow waters or deep seas could help in building a blue economy. Geospatial technology is vital to the…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Volvo completes purchase of autonomous driving firm

    The car firm raised its stake in Zenseact to 100 per cent ownership. It already owned 86.5 per cent of the company. Zenseact develops software using AI that is currently used for driver assistance systems but could one day enable full self-driving vehicles. The OnePilot software is currently capable of anticipating and avoiding dangerous traffic situations, even in darkness and generally poor visibility. It is capable of maintaining safe distances from nearby cars by automatically adjusting the vehicle’s speed and position to handle sharp turns and other tricky situations. It also makes real-time use of high-definition maps to help the car see beyond the visible horizon and better adjust the driving to what’s beyond the next turn. It uses maps to ensure the vehicle stays centred in…

  • Book review: ‘A Traveler’s Guide to the Stars’ by Les Johnson

    The idea of a guide book to the Universe is not new. At different times it has been tried by the likes of Stanislaw Lem (‘The Star Diaries’) and Douglas Adams (‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’). It is the American writer and physicist Les Johnson, however, who with ‘A Traveler’s Guide to the Stars’ (Princeton University Press, £22, ISBN 9780691212371) adds solid scientific and engineering foundations to that so far nebulous, utterly fictitious, and, in the case of The Hitchhiker’s Guide, humorous, concept, which, incidentally, Johnson does not reject. On the contrary, he uses a quote from Douglas Adams as an epigraph to one of his opening chapters: “Space is big. You won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the…

  • Meta paid over 80 per cent of EU's 2022 GDPR fines

    The latest data analysed by Atlas VPN revealed that as of December 2022, companies paid a total of €2.83bn (£2.48bn) in 1,401 cases of violating various data protection laws. Of that amount, GDPR fines in the last year totalled €832m (£731m), a 36 per cent decrease from the previous year. The most shocking part of the report, however, was the severity of the charges imposed on a single entity – Meta. Overall, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp was ordered to pay an amount equal to 80 per cent of all fines imposed by the EU, over its data protection practices.  The largest fine imposed upon Meta was worth €405m (£355m). It was imposed by the Data Protection Commission (DPC), an authority for GDPR enforcement in Ireland, on 5 September 2022, over issues regarding the…

  • Elon Musk's SpaceX reaches $137bn valuation

    Elon Musk's reusable rocket maker and satellite internet company is currently raising more capital in a funding round that is reportedly being led by  Andreessen Horowitz, also known as a16z.  The company had previously invested in SpaceX, alongside Founders Fund ,  Sequoia , Gigafund and others, and participated in Musk’s controversial Twitter acquisition .  Musk’s SpaceX was the first private company to send humans into orbit and its constellation of over  3,000 satellites in low-Earth orbit and ground terminals has recently exceeded one million subscribers and provided a lifeline to users in Ukraine who suffered infrastructure disruptions after Russia’s invasion.  In 2022, the company raised over $2bn (£1.67bn) in funding and was valued at $127bn (£106bn) during an equity round in…

  • Tesla hit with £1.8m fine for exaggerating EV range

    The car firm, which is headed by Elon Musk, claims that its Model S can drive up to 360 miles between charges. According to the Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC), Tesla had been exaggerating the “driving ranges of its cars on a single charge, their fuel cost-effectiveness compared to gasoline vehicles as well as the performance of its Superchargers” on its official local website from August 2019 until recently. The KFTC also added that driving ranges for Tesla EVs could plummet by as much as 50 per cent in cold temperatures. Some studies have shown that in extremely low temperatures, the likes of which were recently experienced in the US (around -20°C), Tesla vehicles could lose up to 50 per cent of their range from an equivalently charged battery. Even temperatures as high as 5°C…

  • Next-gen solar cell study could help resolve instability issues

    A University of Warwick team is undertaking a five-year study which will delve into the atomic-level structure of the new material known as perovskite. Perovskite solar panels could be easily deposited onto most surfaces, including flexible and textured ones. The materials are also lightweight, cheap to produce, and as efficient as today's leading photovoltaic materials, which are mainly silicon. However, it currently faces issues with stability and a short lifespan which decreases further in high humidity, strong sunlight and at elevated temperatures. While the properties of perovskite solar cells change in a range of atmospheric conditions, they remain remarkably stable outside the Earth’s atmosphere. This points to the potential for harvesting energy in space. The European Space Agency…

  • TSMC begins mass production of 3nm semiconductors

    Taiwanese tech giant TSMC said on Thursday (29 December) that it had started mass production of next-generation chips, among the most advanced to come to market. The Taiwanese company operates the world's largest silicon wafer factories and produces high-performance chips used in everything from smartphones and cars to missiles. It is also Apple's primary chip supplier.  The news follows last year's announcement that Samsung Electronics had become the first chipmaker in the world to mass-produce advanced 3nm microchips, which are said to be smaller as well as more powerful and efficient than currently used 5nm semiconductors. "Our 3nm technology will be used massively in future state-of-the-art technological products, including supercomputers, cloud servers, high-speed internet and many…

  • Lab-grown meat and insect protein more appealing to younger people, survey finds

    While these foods avoid many of the environmental and ethical impacts of rearing animals, they also have their detractors. University of Reading researchers interviewed 23,000 consumers across 18 countries and asked how they felt about lab-grown foods – also known as cellular agriculture – and eating insects. The survey showed that young adults are most open to consuming these products, with around half of 18 to 24-year-olds saying they would happily eat lab-grown foods. People up to the age of 44 are less also likely to totally reject the idea of eating insects. Professor Richard Bennett led the research. He said: “This is an interesting result for the future of sustainable food. Young people tend to be the innovators in changing food habits. They are likely to influence older people…

  • ‘Largest-ever’ hydrogen plane to begin real-world testing after regulator approval

    ZeroAvia’s Dornier 228 aircraft has been retrofitted with a prototype hydrogen-electric powertrain, meaning the firm can now begin the first test flights of its 600kW hydrogen-electric powertrain. The 19-seat twin-engine aircraft has been retrofitted in an engineering testbed configuration to incorporate ZeroAvia’s hydrogen-electric engine powering the propellor on its left wing, operating alongside a single Honeywell TPE-331 stock engine on the right to allow for redundancy if something should go wrong. When test flights begin in January, the Dornier 228 testbed is expected to become “the largest aircraft to ever fly using a hydrogen-electric powertrain,” ZeroAvia said. Reducing carbon emissions from the aviation sector is notoriously difficult, with many environmental campaigners and…

  • Meta to settle Cambridge Analytica class-action lawsuit for $725m

    The proposed settlement would resolve a four-year-long lawsuit prompted by revelations in 2018 that Facebook had allowed the now-defunct British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica to access the data of as many as 87 million users. The settlement - obtained by Reuters - has been detailed in a public court filing in the Northern District of California, four months after news first emerged of Meta's intention to settle the case.  "Plaintiffs respectfully request that the Court preliminarily approve the $725m non-reversionary Settlement," reads the document .  Lawyers for the plaintiffs called the proposed settlement the largest to ever be achieved in a US data privacy class action and the most that Meta has ever paid to resolve a class action lawsuit. "This historic settlement…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Microplastic quantities on the seafloor triple in 20 years

    The team from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (AUB) and Aalborg University said the increase corresponds with the type and volume of consumption of plastic products by society over that time. The study is the first high-resolution reconstruction of microplastic pollution from sediments obtained in the north-western Mediterranean Sea. Despite the seafloor generally being the final sink for microplastics floating on the sea surface, the level of build-up and the sequestration and burial rate of smaller microplastics on the ocean floor is unknown. It was found that microplastics are retained unaltered in marine sediments, and that the microplastic mass in the seafloor mimics the global plastic production from 1965 to 2016. “Specifically, the results show that, since 2000, the amount…

  • Report calls for end of ‘costly’ genetic modification prohibition

    The IEA report has backed the government's proposed Precision Breeding Bill, which aims to update the regulatory framework related to precision-bred plants and animals developed through techniques such as gene editing.  The think tank - which influenced the policy ideas of former prime minister Liz Truss - also said that the UK must go further than current reforms and embrace genetic modification. Gene editing is a process of modifying the existing genetic material of an organism. It has been portrayed as a powerful tool that can boost sustainable farming, fight nutrient deficiencies and reduce consumer food prices. Technologies developed in the last decade enable genes to be edited more quickly and precisely to mimic the natural breeding process, helping to target plant and animal breeding…

  • Korean scientists work to prevent water leaks from district heating pipes

    The Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology (KICT) has developed a new technology for diagnosing faults to prevent water leaks from district heating pipes, which supply energy in an eco-friendly and economical way. KICT conducted research of measuring abnormal signals of the pipelines by using both acoustic emission (AE) sensors and accelerometer sensors and classifying the signals using machine learning to increase detection accuracy and diagnose various abnormalities including a water leak. Preventing such leaks could drastically increase public safety. District heating pipelines supply hot water at temperatures of as high as 120℃ at constant pressure from a District Heating Hot Water Production Facility plant to the point of demand. When a leak occurs in one of…

  • UK and Moderna cement 10-year partnership to build vaccine facility

    The partnership will also create more than 150 jobs and “future-proof” the UK against potential pandemics, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said. Plans for the centre were initially unveiled earlier this year when a government spokesperson said Moderna would make a minimum R&D investment of £1.1bn. The centre, which will be able to produce up to 250 million vaccines a year, will see the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) working with Moderna to ensure early vaccine development, supporting the G7 mission to get from variant to vaccine in 100 days. The centre will offer NHS patients access to Moderna’s Covid vaccines that can protect against multiple variants. It will also have the potential to develop vaccines targeting a range of other illnesses, such as flu and respiratory…

  • Japan to invest on nuclear energy in major policy shift

    Faced with fuel shortages and rising energy prices, the nation has taken the step to end an 11-year prohibition on the building of new nuclear reactors.  The new policy establishes that Japan must maximise the use of existing nuclear reactors by restarting as many of them as possible, prolonging the operating life of old reactors beyond their 60-year limit, and developing next-generation reactors to replace them. The policy document describes nuclear power as serving “an important role as a carbon-free baseload energy source in achieving supply stability and carbon neutrality” and pledges to “sustain use of nuclear power into the future”. The proposed legislation is thus a total reversal of the nuclear safety measures the country imposed after a powerful tsunami  destroyed Fukushima Daiichi…

  • Channel 4’s ‘Alternative Christmas Message’ to be AI speech delivered by robot

    A human-shaped robot called Ameca will lead the programme which will cover the highs and lows of the year gone by. The broadcast, which will run after the King’s annual Christmas message at 3pm, will also see the robot being questioned about humans. According to Channel 4, Ameca says we should be “neither happy nor sad about 2022” and “take it as a learning opportunity, a chance to change the way we think about the world and a reminder to help those in need whenever we can.” Engineered Arts, a British company based in Cornwall, developed the robot which is capable of ultra-realistic reactions and can smile or frown, blink, scrunch its nose and even wink. The speech will use AI software that generates answers from millions of different inputs to give a human-like response, and nothing…

  • Government awards £165m to green jet fuel projects

    The UK has taken another step towards its goal of achieving net zero carbon emissions and helping its sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) by awarding five projects a share of the £165m Advanced Fuels Fund. Together, the initiatives are expected to produce over 300,000 tonnes of SAF a year - enough to fly to the Moon and back an estimated 60 times - and slash CO2 emissions by an average of 200,000 tonnes each year, which would be the equivalent of taking 100,000 cars off the road. The  successful projects include SAF plants in Teesside, Immingham and Ellesmere Port, which will convert everyday household and commercial waste, such as black bin bags, into sustainable jet fuel. In addition, a  project in Port Talbot, south Wales, will convert steel mill off-gases into fuel and another scheme…

  • Can we beat OpenAI's chatbot?

    Should we make Boris Johnson take a Turing test? Now that OpenAI’s ChatGPT has surfaced, we have to question whether we can tell the difference between someone of the former prime minister’s calibre in debate and speech-making and an AI. ChatGPT was launched amid some big claims, such as the ability to understand and create correct software code and credible reports and articles. But its owners are less certain about  just how good it is at the job – and perhaps more importantly, whether it has the ability to work out when it is doing a bad job.   It does not take long to work out where the underlying AI, a slightly trimmed version of OpenAI’s GPT-3 in the case of ChatGPT, falls down. Arithmetic is one of the more obvious weak spots. Though large language models can cope with very simple…

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