• Book review: ‘Memo for Nemo’ by William Firebrace

    In my lifetime, I’ve been lucky enough to have met and befriended one true polymath. Before I reveal his name, however, let’s remind ourselves what that word actually means. According to online dictionaries, it describes an individual whose knowledge and skills span a substantial number of different subjects. The best known polymath in history was probably Leonardo da Vinci , whose multiple areas of expertise included painting, engineering, science, sculpture and architecture, to name just a few. Among other historic polymaths (some of whom featured in a 2019 E&T article ’Great polymaths of history’ ) were, in no particular order, Benjamin Franklin, Aristotle, Lomonosov, Tesla, Newton and my favourite ones, Emmanuel Swedenborg, an 18th-century Swedish theologian, engineer, scientist, biologist…

  • China unveils plans for ‘green technology innovation system’

    The Chinese government has introduced a new environmental action plan with the goal of seeking high-tech solutions to remedy its complex environmental challenges. The Asian nation said its "green technology innovation system" will be built over the next three years, to tackle air, soil and groundwater pollution, reduce waste and protect ecosystems, noting that current technologies were not mature enough to serve the country's long-term needs. To finance the plan, China is expected to encourage enterprises and financial institutions to provide more support to innovative green technologies. The system will also be  backed by tax incentives and new “green technology banks”, the government said. The ultimate aim of the strategy, according to the country's Ministry of Science and Technology…

  • EU’s CO2 emissions fall for first time since pandemic

    The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) said that emissions had fallen by 5 per cent over the past three months compared to the same time last year. Its analysis is based on a new near-real-time emissions tracker, developed by CREA, which shows the recent fall in emissions has brought to an end a 16-month surge following significant falls during the pandemic. The Covid-19 lockdowns had a dramatic impact on emissions, which fell by a record amount in 2020. But the drop was temporary and emissions surged back as economies reopened. The tracker draws on real-time data from the EU electricity and gas transparency platforms, as well as on monthly Eurostat data on oil consumption. It shows demand for fossil fuels is currently falling due to high prices and strong wind and solar…

  • Most ‘compostable plastics’ in the UK end up in the soil without degrading

    The researchers at University College London (UCL) also said that citizens are confused about the labels of compostable and biodegradable plastics, leading to incorrect plastic waste disposal. A recent OECD report showed that plastic consumption has quadrupled over the past 30 years and yet only 9 per cent of plastic waste is recycled globally. Some 50 per cent ends up in landfills, 22 per cent evades waste management systems, and 19 per cent is incinerated. In response to this pollution crisis, several countries have set targets to eliminate all single-use plastics and to make plastic packaging 100 per cent recyclable, reusable, or compostable by 2025. Compostable plastics are becoming more common as the demand for sustainable products grows. The main applications of compostable plastics…

  • Oil giants use search engines for greenwashing, study finds

    Nearly half of the $23.7m (£21m) large oil and gas companies spent on Google advertising have targeted search terms on environmental sustainability, according to a new report.  These are the conclusions drawn by a team of researchers with the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a US nonprofit group that studies disinformation online. The team examined more than 32,000 search ads on Google's US site paid for by five major fossil fuel companies – ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, Shell, and Aramco – and targeting 61,000 different climate-related queries over the past two years.  The scientists' goal was to understand how search engines could be used to downplay the industry's impact on global warming.  The nonprofit's findings, published in its latest report , stressed that  Google has…

  • Money & Markets: Financial institutions are addicted to leverage

    Archimedes said, as I’m sure you recall, ‘Give me a big enough lever and a place to stand and I will move the world’. What he did not note was that in the process he might throw the planet off its orbit with a catastrophic result. He certainly used levers to upend the Romans. In markets it is simple: ‘Leverage kills.’ If you lever up your position 1,000 per cent, a 10 per cent move against you will lose you everything. A 10 per cent move in your direction will double your money. Greed is, of course, the one side of the trading coin that this risk/reward ratio speaks to most loudly. It is a trap set for anyone foolhardy enough to reach for more returns than are usual. Markets wobble. They do so because the process of markets is noisy. Leverage amplifies that noise and noise is power law…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Smart windows could provide green Wi-Fi alternative

    Smart windows could offer a low-energy alternative to Wi-Fi or cellular data transition by using light to send information.  The innovative design features a glass system that would modulate the s unshine streaming through the window, encoding data into the light, which could then be detected and decoded by the electronic devices in the room. The leader of the research team,  Basem Shihada, said he had been exploring data encoding into an artificial light source when he had the ‘lightbulb moment’ to use sunshine. “I was simply hoping to use a cellphone camera to record a video of the encoded light stream to try to decode the video to retrieve the data; that's when I thought, ‘Why not do the same with the sunlight?’” Shihada said.  “This would be much easier and can be done over the…

  • Rishi Sunak urged not to ‘back track’ on sustainable farming reforms

    Wildlife and Countryside Link (WCL), which represents 67 environmental organisations, has said that ‘Environmental Land Management’ (ELM) scheme funding should be maintained at current levels, with increases expected from 2025. ELMs were introduced by Defra in a bid to boost sustainable farming practices such as reducing inorganic fertiliser and pesticide use, taking care of local soils and improving farmland biodiversity, water quality, air quality and carbon sequestration. It also included programmes to allow nature to thrive within farmed landscapes and payments to landowners who want to take a large-scale approach to producing environmental and climate outcomes through land-use change and ecosystem restoration. Proposals on the future of farming funding are expected later this month…

  • The self-driving vehicle fallacy explained

    It’s a question that comes up time and again: “How will self-driving robotaxis improve the world?” The short answer is, they won’t. And yet robotaxis have long been the primary focus of many companies developing autonomous vehicle (AV) technology. It’s what I call a vertical fallacy. Robotaxis represent one of the most complex product verticals to commercialise, requiring years of hugely difficult and costly development - only to create a market-ready passenger vehicle that moves only one or two people, thus delivering less value but at a significantly higher price. In fact, putting more single-occupancy taxis on the road closes off an important route to addressing congestion, safety and carbon emissions. Chief among the obstacles that robotaxis face en route to market is the challenge…

  • UK accused of ‘inconsistent’ carbon emissions reporting

    MPs in the Public Accounts Committee have criticised the poor quality of emissions measuring and reporting across central government.  The report published by the committee just before the start of COP27 stressed that “inconsistent” reporting of data across the public sector made it difficult to compare performance between periods and departments and could undermine the legally binding target of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. “Leadership and oversight of emissions measurement and reporting in central government is fragmented and ineffective,” it said. At the moment, three different departments – the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Beis), the Treasury, and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) – share the responsibility of overseeing…

  • Major brands expected to miss plastic sustainability targets

    The Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s (EMF) ‘Global Commitment 2022 Progress Report’ has revealed that the target of achieving 100 per cent reusable, recyclable or compostable packaging by 2025 will “almost certainly” not be met, and also found that virgin plastic use had actually increased back to 2018 levels. The Global Commitment and Plastic Pact network represents more than 1,000 businesses, governments and other organisations that have pledged to create a circular economy for plastic in which it never becomes waste. For the third year in a row, the share of reusable, recyclable or compostable plastic packaging has increased slightly among members to 65.4 per cent. However, this percentage varies widely across signatories – from below 20 per cent to close to 100 per cent – mainly driven…

  • Hydrogen’s potential as transport fuel needs investment, says report

    The shift to sustainable fuels could be vital in reaching the UK government’s 'Net Zero 2050' targets. Hydrogen is an emerging player in the road transport energy mix and part of a portfolio of green energy solutions that are at different points on their evolutionary timelines for replacing fossil fuels.   However, for hydrogen to be used in the future, policymakers and industry need to consider its role now, as well as the infrastructure needed, and make the necessary investment for this to happen. Joanne Cowell, lead author of the report, a member of the IET’s Transport Panel and a technical director at Costain, said: “There is significant focus on electricity as a viable alternative energy source for road transport and in many cases battery electric vehicles are likely to be the most…

  • Cumbria coal mine planning decision deferred yet again

    Environmental group Friends of the Earth said it had received a letter from the government confirming that the decision was now due to be made “on or before 8 December 2022”. A decision had been expected “on or before 8 November”, around the same time as next week’s COP27 climate summit in Egypt. In January 2021, the government said it would not intervene over a decision made by Cumbria County Council to approve the construction of a £165m deep coal mine – the UK’s first in 30 years. The controversial decision led to a strong backlash from environmental campaigners, who said it did not fit the UK’s plans to become a net zero economy by 2050. The business secretary at the time, Kwasi Kwarteng, admitted there was “slight tension” between the approval of the new mine and the UK’s climate…

  • Britain bids farewell to fax

    The lifecycle of fax machines has come to an end, or so Ofcom seems to believe.  The UK regulator has proposed updating the USO – a set of rules that ensures everyone in the UK has access to telecommunication services – to remove the requirement for telecommunications companies to provide facsimile machine connections. At the moment, BT and KCOM are the two designated telecom providers responsible for universal service in the UK, meaning they are legally obliged to ensure the existence of an affordable national telephone and fax service across the UK.  The move comes amid the diminishing use of fax machines, which were first commercialised by Xerox in 1964 and reached a peak in popularity in the late 1980s. The technology works by processing the contents of a fixed graphic image and transmitting…

  • UK reveals it has been boosting Ukrainian cyber defences since Russian invasion

    Foreign Secretary James Cleverly has revealed that the UK’s Ukraine Cyber Programme was launched shortly after Putin’s invasion in February to protect against increased Russian cyber-attacks. However, the programme had been kept quiet until now in order to protect its operational security. The programme has been used to provide incident response support to infrastructure run by the Ukraine government and prevent malicious actors from accessing vital information relevant to the war effort. Ukraine has had a long history of facing cyber-attacks on its critical infrastructure from Russia – despite the country repeatedly denying its involvement. Especially since the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014, Ukraine has been forced to reckon with repeated attacks on its telecommunication systems…

  • Elon Musk becomes Twitter CEO

    Elon Musk has become “sole director” of Twitter after finalising his $44bn (£38bn) takeover of the company , according to documents filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Monday. "The following persons, who were directors of Twitter prior to the effective time of the merger, are no longer directors of Twitter: Bret Taylor, Parag Agrawal, Omid Kordestani, David Rosenblatt, Martha Lane Fox, Patrick Pichette, Egon Durban, Fei-Fei Li and Mimi Alemayehou," Musk said in the filing. He later tweeted: “the bird is freed”. the bird is freed — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 28, 2022 Shortly afterwards, Musk tweeted that the move to dissolve the board "is just temporary," without elaborating. A  separate SEC filing showed that Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal had become…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • The UK must invest in green tech to 'future-proof’ its economy, Badenoch says

    The UK must “future-proof” its economy by investing in cutting-edge green technologies, International Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch has said. In a speech to the Green Trade and Investment Expo in Gateshead, Badenoch highlighted the UK’s success over the past two years in securing almost £20bn in green inward investment, creating over 11,000 new jobs. During the event, Badenoch showcased figures that reportedly show the positive economic impact of investments in clean and sustainable energy. According to government figures, total foreign investment has created nearly 85,000 new jobs for people across the UK in 2021-2022 alone, and the government is expecting £100bn in private sector investment to support nearly 500,000 new jobs by 2030. “We know trade and investment grows our economy,…

  • BP reports massive profits rise sparking calls to ramp up windfall taxes

    The oil and gas giant made £7.1bn between July and September which amounts to more than double its profit for the same period last year. This was even more than the figure predicted by market analysts, who forecast that the firm would make £5.3bn over the quarter. “Another week, another £7.1bn banked by BP in profits, with billions to be paid out to investors,” Greenpeace UK campaigner Philip Evans said. “Meanwhile the homes of the poorest households in the UK urgently need insulation, the growing numbers in fuel poverty need financial support, and further investment in cheap renewables could lower our bills permanently. “As Chancellor, [Rishi] Sunak imposed a windfall tax on these companies but gave them a loophole so big it turned into a huge tax break for more oil and gas. That won…

  • Microneedle patch to cure baldness developed with machine learning

    The team from the National Natural Science Foundation of China used the best candidate from their results to construct a proof-of-concept microneedle patch and effectively regenerated hair on mice. Most people with substantial hair loss have the condition androgenic alopecia, also called male- or female-pattern baldness. In this condition, hair follicles can be damaged by androgens, inflammation or an overabundance of reactive oxygen species, such as oxygen free radicals. When the levels of oxygen free radicals are too high, they can overwhelm the body’s antioxidant enzymes that typically keep them in check. Superoxide dismutase (SOD) is one of these enzymes, and researchers have recently created SOD mimics called 'nanozymes'. But so far, those that have been reported aren’t very good…

  • Emission reduction plans are too reliant on limited land space, report finds

    A global group of researchers found that countries intend to use 633 million hectares of total land area for carbon capture tactics such as tree planting, which would gobble up land desperately needed for food production and nature protection. Only 551 million hectares accounted for in pledges would restore degraded lands and primary forests, which store carbon, regulate rainfall and local temperatures, shelter plants and animals as well as purify water and air. In some cases the land belongs to indigenous people, whose land rights are found to be critical to reducing climate change due to their stewardship of forests. “Land has a critical role to play in global efforts to keep the planet cool, but it’s not a silver bullet solution,” said Kate Dooley, the lead author of ‘The Land Gap…

  • NSPCC criticises delays to ‘crucial’ Online Safety Bill

    The NSPCC has urged the government to end delays around the Online Safety Bill, drawing attention to the thousands of offences that are taking place while the legislation remains in limbo.  The Online Safety Bill has been presented by the government as a ground-breaking law that will protect the privacy and safety of children in the digital sphere. Former culture secretary Nadine Dorries said it will make the UK “the safest place in the world for our children to go online”. The legislation was due to be discussed in Parliament today (1 November), but has been pushed back once again following the latest leadership crisis in the Conservative Party that saw Rishi Sunak become the new Prime Minister of the UK. The political turmoil also led the junior minister responsible for delivering the…

  • Book review: ‘Chip War’ by Chris Miller

    It may be one of the most important stress tests of influence on the world’s geopolitical stage but, when it comes to the battle for supremacy in the world of semiconductors, few of us put them on a footing with traditional commodities. We take it as read that oil influences global economic prosperity and international stability, and yet we seem unconcerned that China spends more on importing chips from Taiwan than it does on oil. As Chris Miller points out in his compelling ‘Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology' (Simon & Schuster, £20, ISBN 9781398504097), with everything – from consumer gadgets to automobiles, stock exchanges to power grids – relying on the ubiquitous integrated circuit, when markets become politicised the modern world finds its foundations, to use…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • How can we fix the missing link holding back blockchain?

    The global digital supply chain market is projected to grow from $3.92bn in 2020 to $13.68bn by 2030, with digitalisation seen as key to ensuring the necessary agility and robustness across operations to cope with today's rapidly changing landscape. The headlines suggest that blockchain technology is set to play a crucial role in this growth, enabling data to be shared in a fast, secure way among different organisations. Yet blockchain is just a data store – in itself, it is not the 'silver bullet' that will unlock the next wave of transformation. The real key to success lies in the gathering of the data in the first place and the building of the records that will underpin digitalisation. Unless organisations gather the right data in the first place - and harness it effectively - even the…

  • EV battery firm Britishvolt under threat of administration

    The company has been developing a £3.8bn gigafactory intended to produce batteries for electric vehicles, in Blyth, Northumberland, where it had hoped to employ up to 3,000 workers. However, the group has been in emergency fundraising talks in recent weeks. The Financial Times reported that the company could slide into insolvency as soon as today (Monday). It is understood that Britishvolt has lined up advisers from accountancy firm EY to oversee the potential administration process. The Government previously backed the firm's plans - at least, in terms of vocal support - for the gigafactory in January and had said that it would support Britishvolt with undisclosed funding, understood to be worth around £100m. However, the firm has yet to receive any of the promised funding. However,…

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