• Onshore wind farm ban could have added £800m to household bills

    Government policies over the last decade which hampered the roll-out of onshore wind power in Britain might be adding close to a billion pounds to energy bills this winter, according to research from the Energy and Climate Change Intelligence Unit (ECIU), a UK-based non-profit body funded by a range of climate-focused philanthropic foundations. The effective ban on this energy source ban was first brought in by former prime minister David Cameron in 2016 after pressure from Conservative MPs who worried about the impact of wind turbines damage on rural communities.  Without this decision, developers could have built enough turbines to generate around 2.5 terawatt-hours of energy – enough to power 1.5 million homes through the winter – and reduced the need to use gas power plants, saving…

  • Over 95 per cent of 2022’s new malware threats aimed at Windows

    Windows is the most popular operating system among desktop and laptop users, with around 30 per cent of the OS market share worldwide. This is one of the reasons why it is also the most targeted by malware. According to data analysed by the Atlas VPN team, based on AV-TEST GmbH statistics, 59.58 million new Windows malware samples were detected in the first three quarters of 2022. They make up a whopping 95.6 per cent of all new malware discovered in that period. Linux malware takes the second spot on the list with 1.76 million new malware samples — 2.8 per cent of the total new malware threats in Q1-Q3 2022. Android malware takes the bronze medal, with 938,379 newly discovered malware threats detected in the same period. This constitutes 1.5 per cent of all new malware in Q1-Q3 2022. Finally…

  • View from India: G20, an opportunity to be grasped

    The G20 or Group of 20 consists of 19 of the world’s largest advanced and developing economies, as well as the European Union (EU). Every year they meet to discuss the most pressing global issues. G20 is the premier forum for international economic cooperation representing around 85 per cent of the global GDP, over 75 per cent of the worldwide trade, and about two-thirds of the world population. During the 2023 Presidency, India will hold about 200 meetings in 32 different sectors in multiple locations across the country. The Presidency’s goal is based on an inclusive and action-oriented agenda. It aims to bridge the digital divide and tackle the challenges of food and energy security. India has constituted 13 working groups under the Sherpa track to provide recommendations related to employment…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • How can agility help business tackle the ongoing energy crisis?

    With Europe currently experiencing one of the worst energy crises of all time, the UK has been badly impacted – with soaring gas prices driving up energy bills across the country. Energy suppliers are scrambling to counter the effects of shifted energy demands as well as cost-management challenges brought on by economic difficulties and political instability. As we enter the winter months and the cost-of-living crisis begins to take hold, addressing this problem has never been more important. In a market fraught with uncertainty, firms within the energy and utilities sector need to reconsider their business strategy to become more agile and responsive to the rapidly changing economic and business landscape. This can help them to channel their existing resources strategically to make them…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Hands-on review: Suri sustainable electric toothbrush

    Too many gadgets claim to be revolutionary but Suri (it stands for sustainable rituals) has a good go at reinventing the electric toothbrush. The focus is sustainability, but it also feels as though every element of its design has been thought through anew. One aspect of sustainability is the materials: Suri features an aluminium handle and plant-based heads (sustainably sourced cornflour with castor oil bristles). Another is minimising: it’s about one-third the size of standard electric toothbrushes, so it uses far less materials. Another is repairability: the body is designed to be easily opened, without the need for specialist tools. This allows for repair and also makes it easier to recycle at the end of its life. That’s a refreshing change when other brands make it almost impossible…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Airbus and Renault announce electric vehicle battery partnership

    The research and development agreement is aimed at accelerating both companies’ electrification roadmaps and will see their engineering teams joining forces to mature technologies related to energy storage, which remains one of the main roadblocks for the development of long-range electric vehicles. The agreement will also cover technologies that are key to energy management optimisation and battery weight improvements. In its announcement, Airbus said it wanted to move from current cell chemistries such as widely used lithium-ion batteries to all-solid-state designs which could double the energy density of batteries by 2030. The joint work will also study the full lifecycle of future batteries, from production to recyclability, in order to prepare the industrialisation of these future…

  • View from Brussels: Shipping charts a new green course

    A couple of years ago, the Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) featured in a top 10 polluters ranking put together by environmental NGOs. Other entrants on the list were exclusively coal power plants. But the biggest difference between big shipping companies like MSC and mega-polluting plants in Germany and Poland was the carbon market rules that apply to them. That is now going to change. Currently, big industrial sites and energy producers have to buy emission permits for every tonne of carbon emitted. They get a big chunk of free allowances to help keep European industry productive but still have to pay substantial sums every year. Earlier this year, permits topped €100 for the first time and although the price has since dropped, it is a far cry from the sub-€20 pricetag that was…

  • UK government ‘failing to keep promises’ on environmental protection

    The Wildlife Trusts said the government has “a pattern of missing legislative deadlines” that undermines the UK’s ability to restore nature. The body, which is formed from 46 UK wildlife conservation charities, identified a raft of missing policies that have still not been implemented by the government despite being promised. They include a failure to institute targets in the Environment Act, and the still-missing Environmental Principles which help with interpretation of environmental laws and prevent damage to nature. The 30x30 target – designed to protect 30 per cent of land and sea by 2030 – is also only at 3.22 per cent this year with no clear plan of how to reach 30 per cent in the next seven years, the Wildlife Trusts said. The group highlighted a lack of new protections for…

  • UK and Ukraine close ‘landmark’ digital trade deal

    Ukraine’s first-ever digital trade deal is expected to support its economy through the current crisis and lay foundations for its recovery and revival.  Ukraine’s first deputy prime minister, Yulia Svyrydenko, will sign the trade agreement with UK Trade Secretary, Kemi Badenoch, with officials saying that the deal will support digital commerce through the facilitation of cross-border data flows. The digital trade agreement is expected to support Ukrainian businesses by cutting red tape and helping them to trade with the UK more efficiently, as well as make it easier for UK companies to work with Ukrainian businesses and support their economic recovery. The agreement, first announced in August, is based on a similar agreement signed between the UK and Singapore earlier this year, and it…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Compound fractures

    What the government gives, the government takes away. Newport Wafer Fab (NWF) was born in government and could well end up being hobbled by it, albeit by an administration of a completely different kind. The decision by business secretary Grant Shapps after just a few weeks in the job to force Nexperia to shed almost 90 per cent of its interest in the south Wales fab comes at a time when finding a buyer with the resources to maintain the level of investment promised by the owner, which is Chinese-owned but Netherlands-based, is a lot trickier than it was just a matter of months ago or indeed 16 months ago when the acquisition was waved through. However, Shapps was quick to argue in parliament that the act that allowed this decision only passed in January. “From what we see, it looks like…

  • Ofgem promises major green investment in electricity network without bill rises

    The controls will run from April next year until 2028 and are focused on driving the move away from importing fossil fuels and relying on expensive gas. Grid capacity will also be boosted in order to pave the way for cheaper greener energy as more products become reliant on electricity. The businesses include Southern England’s UK Power Networks and SP Energy Networks in southern Scotland, among others. They will need to invest a total of £22.2bn between 2023 and 2028 to help Britain prepare for a future where more homes and businesses opt for electric cars and heating. The potential of renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, and wave power require changes in the way energy is used and stored to gain their benefits. The price controls set out by Ofgem will allow for the scale…

  • Quantum research could help build ‘unhackable’ telecommunication networks

    With cyber-attacks and information leaks on the rise, quantum entanglement will allow future communications networks to be unhackable, the researchers said, even if devices are unsafe or in criminal hands. Quantum entanglement describes the phenomenon that occurs when two particles remain connected even when they’re separated by vast distances. When entangled photons travel long distances, they can be disrupted by noisy real-world environments, such as stormy weather, background noise, or signal loss in a communications network. These types of problems like these can jeopardise security in a quantum network. However, the new research by Heriot-Watt physicists, who have worked with colleagues at the University of Geneva in Switzerland, showed a new way for quantum entanglement to survive…

  • UK railways risk ‘spiral of decline’ without post-pandemic reforms, sector warns

    Rail Partners, which represents independent passenger and freight train operators, warned that the government’s current focus on cost reduction will lead to reduced services and fewer people travelling by train. “This would be a bad outcome for passengers and also for taxpayers funding the service,” the report said. It recommends boosting investment from private sector operators to help them attract passengers in a bid to restore revenues that have been lost since the pandemic. A thriving railway would also help to tackle some of the UK’s current economic challenges and contribute towards climate change efforts, report said. “As a lower carbon form of transport, rail also helps to deliver the government’s sustainability objectives, air quality improvements and reduced congestion in…

  • Programming tool turns handwriting into computer code

    The pen-based interface, called Notate, allows users of computational, digital notebooks to open drawing canvases and handwrite diagrams within lines of traditional, digitised computer code. This innovation allows far more creativity for programmers, who would usually have to type all of the commands into the code.  Notate is powered by a deep learning model that has been designed to allow programmers to link handwritten notes and diagrams to textual code and vice versa. For instance, it can identify handwritten programming symbols, like "n", and link them up to their typewritten equivalents. Programming tool turns handwriting into computer code / Cornell University Image credit: The 35th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (2022) …

  • Campaigners criticise the ‘watering down’ of the Online Safety Bill

    The new draft of the government's Online Safety Bill has softened its requirements of so-called 'Big Tech' firms, prompting criticism from digital safety advocates.  The much-delayed Online Safety Bill has been presented by the government as a ground-breaking law that will target online racism, sexual abuse, bullying, fraud and other harmful material often found on the internet.  In its original form, the bill gave regulators wide-ranging powers to sanction digital and social media companies such as Google, Facebook, Twitter and TikTok. It proposed  significant fines for those firms which failed to deal with online abuse as well as possible  criminal prosecution  for executives. Originally due to be presented to Parliament earlier this year in the summer, the bill was delayed due to the…

  • Call for ban on court-imposed pre-payment energy meters

    While energy firms are obliged to protect people from formal disconnection over the winter, the End Fuel Poverty Coalition (EFPC) has found evidence that customers in debt who are forced onto a PPM by their supplier will often “self-disconnect” and stop using energy. Reports have established that energy suppliers are now using PPMs more often as a method of revenue protection. Court warrants are increasingly being used to get magistrates courts to “rubber stamp” warrants to install meters, EFPC said. Freedom of information requests revealed 187,000 such applications were made in the first six months of 2022. Energy firms were also found to be switching smart meters from credit to prepayment mode, thereby effectively forcibly installing PPMs remotely and failing to follow due process by…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Orion capsule breaks space record

    The Orion capsule has reached the midpoint of its uncrewed mission around the Moon, travelling more than 40,000 miles (64,000 kilometres) beyond the far side of the Moon. The previous record for the farthest a human-rated spacecraft has travelled was set in 1970, during the Apollo 13 mission that saw humans walking on the Moon for the first time. The spacecraft carrying these astronauts travelled 248,655 miles (400,171 kilometres) from Earth.  Instead of three men, Orion carried three dummy astronauts, four Lego mini-figures, a cuddly Snoopy and Shaun the Sheep to this historic distance. The trial flight is part of Nasa's Artemis programme, which aims to take humans back to the Moon and establish a lunar colony in the Earth’s only natural satellite.  During this part of the mission, the…

  • Music streaming market healthy for consumers despite artist complaints, CMA finds

    In its final report on the sector, it found that consumers have benefited from digitisation and competition between music streaming services. Prices for consumers have fallen by more than 20 per cent in real terms between 2009 and 2021 – with many services also offering music streaming for free with ads. The study found approximately 39 million monthly active users access music streaming services in the UK, streaming 138 billion times a year. But the CMA has also heard concerns from artists and songwriters about how much they earn from streaming. With an increasing number of artists, tracks and streams, the money from streaming is shared more widely – with those that have the highest number of streams earning the most. Over 60 per cent of streams were of music recorded by the top 0…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Digital tools drive thermal management innovation for automotive specialist

    As the automotive industry transitions to becoming all-electric, a wave of large batteries will be needed to power and run such vehicles. But if you know anything about batteries, you know they have the tendency to heat up, which is not ideal when driving from one place to another. Therefore, it is imperative that there are other components within the car that help maintain the temperature of the battery. In fact, tucked away in a German town between Frankfurt and Stuttgart lies a facility opened by the fluid handling specialists TI Fluid Systems (TIFS) dedicated to developing systems to help manage this temperature rise, thus increasing the battery’s efficiency, safety and lifetime. The Rastatt E-Mobility Innovation Centre (e-MIC) is the first of five centres worldwide that will comprise…

  • Book review: ‘Escape from Model Land’ by Erica Thompson

    Over the past few years we’ve been inundated with political catchphrases masquerading as unbiased policy which claim to be neutral because they ‘follow the science’. The idea behind the slogan was that – as with all mantras – if repeated regularly enough, people will come to believe it. When the public realised that ‘follow the science’ was only there to elevate baffling and often contradictory politicking to scriptural incontrovertibility, the spin doctors beefed up the linguistic illusion of credibility by adding the word ‘model’. Chanting this, they anticipated, would lead the public to eventually think: ‘well, if there’s a model involved, it must be true.’ As Erica Thompson says in her brilliant ‘Escape from Model Land’ (Basic Books, £20, ISBN 9781529364873), the problem with models is…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Hands-on review: Lenco LS-410WA Bluetooth turntable with built-in speakers

    Vinyl's resurgence continues, with sales booming and turntables aplenty on which to play those LPs covering all bases. Wired turntables that are part of a bigger separates system; Bluetooth turnables that transmit vinyl playback over the air to connected speakers, or all-in-one, standalone Dansette-style turntables with built-in speakers. Lenco, the long-standing hi-fi company with Dutch/Swiss roots, and which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, has a number of turntable options in all these spaces. Its LS-410WA belt-driven Bluetooth turntable with four built-in speakers, reviewed here, is a hybrid turntable covering aspects of all the types described above, to more or less some degree. There are four speakers, arranged in a line array, projecting sound from behind the grille in…

  • Smart wireless bandages could help heal chronic wounds

    The medical device designed at Standford University has shown promise in speeding up tissue repair by monitoring the wound healing process and treating the wound simultaneously. The smart bandage is composed of wireless circuitry that uses temperature sensors to monitor the progression of wound healing. If the wound is less healed or an infection is detected, the sensors inform a central processing unit to apply more electrical stimulation across the wound bed to accelerate tissue closure and reduce infection. The researchers were able to track the sensor data in real time on a smartphone, all without the need for wires.  In a paper published in the journal Nature Biotechnology, the team said their device promotes faster closure of wounds, increases new blood flow to injured tissue, and…

  • National Grid calls off emergency plan to prevent imminent blackouts

    Earlier today (Monday), National Grid Electricity System Operator (ESO) said it was considering activating the Demand Flexibility Service for the first time in order to prevent blackouts on the UK grid. Fears were stoked that energy supplies this evening and tomorrow evening would not be enough to satisfy demand, due to a combination of factors including insufficient nuclear power coming from a French interconnector and low ambient temperatures. “Even though wind is coming back for tomorrow evening’s peak, slow return of nukes in France plus lower temperatures may mean that there is a reduction in available imports across the interconnectors,” according to consultancy service EnergyAppSys. Ofgem approved the ESO’s calls to implement the Demand Flexibility Service earlier this month as…

  • UK pledges £1bn to insulate middle-income homes

    The government's recently announced Eco+ scheme could see hundreds of thousands of homes across the country receive loft and cavity wall insulation , saving consumers around £310 a year, according to the energy secretary.  The £1bn scheme will run for three years from Spring 2023 and target households that do not currently get support to upgrade homes. Around 80 per cent of the funding will be made available for those households who are in some of the least energy-efficient homes in the country – that is, those with an EPC rating of D or below – and in the lower council tax bands. A fifth of the funding will also be targeted to those who are the most vulnerable, including those on means-tested benefits or in fuel poverty, the government said. In addition, approximately £18m will be spent…

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