• Quantum navigation system fitted to London train offers alternative to unreliable GPS

    Network Rail is introducing quantum navigation technologies that can measure the position of trains with extreme precision. The location of trains on the network is typically determined using an electric track circuit that runs a current from one rail to the other through a relay. When a train runs on a section, it causes the current to bypass the relay, which is picked up by the signalling network. This is also supplemented by various technologies, including GPS and automatic warning systems that can monitor the exact position of carriages. But these technologies are vulnerable to a number of faults that can cause major delays including broken rails, a blown fuse, faulty electrical parts, cable theft or loose connections, all of which form a break in the track circuit. Network Rail is…

  • UK must back North Sea oil and gas drilling alongside renewables, says industry body

    UK domestic oil and gas production in the North Sea should continue alongside the expansion of offshore wind capacity to secure energy supply, according to an Offshore Energies UK (OEUK) report. In its Business outlook report 2026, OEUK warns that the UK “urgently” needs to produce its own oil and gas because without it the country risks becoming reliant on “energy imports at a time of rising global instability”. According to its analysis, oil and gas still supplies around 75% of the UK’s energy needs and is expected to meet around one-fifth of demand by 2050. David Whitehouse, chief executive of OEUK, said: “This is not an either renewables or oil and gas scenario. We urgently need greater supplies of secure, domestically produced energy including oil and gas, which will remain a critical…

  • UK injects £100m into mothballed CO2 plant due to shortages from the Iran war

    A mothballed factory in Teeside that produced carbon dioxide will be reopened with £100m in government funding because of fears the UK could face shortages of the gas following the war in Iran. The Ensus plant primarily manufactured bioethanol and outputs CO2 as a by-product, but it was shuttered last year after a trade deal removed tariffs on ethanol imports from the US. CO2 is a vital component in healthcare and food production, where it’s used to make fertilisers and packaging that keeps food fresh. But the war in Iran is increasingly disrupting the production of fertiliser in Europe, leading the government to reopen the plant to ensure supplies remain secure. The Department for Business and Trade said it had intentionally kept the facility on standby after its closure in the autumn…

  • ‘Wetware’: Is your next computer a living one?

    From brain organoids and neuron/microchip hybrids to fungal networks, computers made using living cells are forcing a rethink of traditional IT systems and could result in more sustainable and efficient AI. As tech firms look to build data centres half a mile long to power their AI, fuelling massive energy demand in the process, others are asking if a new breed of ‘living’ biocomputers can provide a more sustainable and effective alternative to traditional computers based on silicon. Recent advances underscore the potential of so-called ‘wetware’ as a medium for computation. The world’s first commercial biological computer, CL1 launched by Australian start-up Cortical Labs last year, merges human neurons grown from stem cells with a traditional silicon chip to create dynamic neural networks…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • OpenAI to close Sora video generation platform as rivals gain ground

    OpenAI has confirmed it will shut down its AI video generation platform Sora after just two years as the firm looks to refocus its resources on its core product ChatGPT. Sora was first launched in February 2024, but it wasn’t until the introduction of Sora 2 last September that the platform hit the mainstream, with users creating highly realistic video content based on single text prompts. But despite its initial popularity, daily users have fallen in recent months, stabilising at roughly 750,000 – a relatively low number compared to other OpenAI products. The platform also required vastly more computing resources per user interaction than a typical text-based interaction with ChatGPT. Some estimates suggest that a single 5-10 second video generation consumes roughly 1kWh of electricity…

  • Battery electric vehicles to dominate HGV market by mid-2030s

    Battery electric heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) could become a viable alternative for long-distance and heavy-duty applications by the mid-2030s, according to a new study. The study, published by the Faraday Institution, provides an assessment of the UK’s current HGV market and its transition to zero-emission technologies. The HGV sector is a significant part of the UK’s economy, supporting thousands of jobs and contributing substantially to the logistics industry. However, it is also a major source of emissions with 99% of the existing HGV fleet relying on diesel engines. With the average HGV travelling around 100,000 miles a year, the sector accounts for 16% of carbon emissions in the transport sector and 6% of the UK’s overall carbon emissions. The HGV industry is transitioning towards…

  • Nasa to land humans on the Moon every six months while it builds a lunar base

    Nasa is planning to make manned trips to the lunar surface every six months from 2028 as part of efforts to lay the groundwork for a permanent Moon base. The agency said it would begin to incorporate more commercially procured and reusable hardware in its lunar trips in a bid to lower the cost of the Artemis programme. Artemis was formally established in 2017 and launched its first uncrewed mission in November 2022 using the long-delayed super heavy-lift launch rocket Space Launch System. Artemis II, the programme’s first crewed flight, was originally planned to take place in 2024, followed by a crewed landing on the Moon for Artemis III in 2025. However, in December 2024 the agency confirmed it would target April 2026 for Artemis II and mid-2027 for Artemis III, which will now involve…

  • UK families to trial social media ban and app limits for teens

    The UK government is piloting social media bans, time limits and digital curfews in the homes of 300 teenagers to inform a national consultation on children’s online safety. These trials will assess the impact that limiting social media use has on family life, sleep and schoolwork. Both the children and their parents will be interviewed at the beginning and end of the six-week period. This comes as children’s access to social media is increasingly coming under scrutiny. There have been calls for an all-out ban for under-16s similar to that in Australia. However, three months into the ban and the argument that it would give children their childhood back does not quite stand up: many Australian teens have found workarounds and many are on the apps as much as ever. Rather than a blanket ban…

  • Solar panels and low-carbon heating to be mandatory for all new homes

    It has been announced that the Future Homes Standard (FHS) will mandate that most new homes built from 2028 must include on-site renewable energy generation as standard. While it has been on the cards for some time, the government has now published details of its FHS, moving new regulatory requirements from policy into implementation. Under the FHS, all new homes – with some exceptions such as high-rise buildings – must include on-site renewables, mainly rooftop solar, along with low-carbon heating such as heat pumps and heat networks. This higher standard for new homes will come into force from 2028, a year later than anticipated. As outlined in the updated planning requirements, developers will need to install solar panels equivalent in size to at least 40% of the building’s floor…

  • Radiation-proof wifi chip could transform nuclear decommissioning robots

    Decommissioning nuclear power plants is a long and complex process and presents radiation challenges that often necessitate the use of robots to minimise the risk to humans on site. However, most robots are controlled through wired connections such as local area network cables, which limits how many robots can be used simultaneously and creates operational challenges such as cable management and the navigating of confined spaces. Now, researchers from the Institute of Science Tokyo (IST) have developed a 2.4GHz wifi receiver chip that can withstand radiation doses of up to 500 kilograys (kGy) and enable wireless control of robots in ultra-high-radiation environments. Robots have been routinely used as part of the clean-up of Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant which was damaged by…

  • HS2 trains could run slower than planned to save billions

    The High Speed Two (HS2) railway project could see trains running 16% slower in a bid to drive down spiralling costs and delivery times. In a written statement to parliament, transport secretary Heidi Alexander set out a six-monthly report on HS2. A headline point from the report is how a reduction in the speeds the trains travel at could save “billions” and bring the HS2 into service sooner. HS2 trains were originally planned to run at 360km/h, which would have made them the fastest conventional high-speed trains anywhere in the world. With HS2 officially given the green light in 2020, the project has since been beset by a string of failures and budget overruns, including the cancellation of routes ending in Leeds and Manchester. It was originally expected to be completed by 2033, but…

  • Heat pumps gain traction in the UK as efficiency and installation barriers fall

    Heat pumps have had a sluggish start to life, particularly in the UK. But now the technology is on an upward trajectory. In England, when the north-east winds blow across the Fens to Cambridge, ageing gas boilers within the medieval buildings of the university struggle to keep students warm. To compensate for raw conditions brought by the ‘Beast from the East’ and other cold snaps, radiators run at 80°C, churning out heat that leaks through rattling windows. But nearby there is a source of free heat – from the ground, from the River Cam, even from the air – and if advocates of heat pumps have their way, university buildings hundreds of years old will eventually be warmed by lower-carbon energy. If thermal energy could be stored and recycled here and across the UK, hefty emissions caused…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Seven locations named for government’s proposed ‘new towns’

    The UK government has announced the seven locations that will host large‑scale settlements under its new towns housebuilding initiative. Each of the sites, which range from stand-alone new developments to expansions of existing towns, will deliver between 10,000 and 40,000 homes, according to the government. They include: Tempsford, Bedfordshire; Crews Hill and Chase Park, London Borough of Enfield; Leeds South Bank, West Yorkshire; Manchester Victoria North, Greater Manchester; Thamesmead, London Borough of Greenwich; Brabazon and the West Innovation Arc, South Gloucestershire; and Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire. A public consultation on the proposed locations and draft planning policy is open until mid-May, with final locations confirmed later in the year. Labour has repeatedly stressed…

  • Conductive nail polish offers fix for long nail touchscreen struggle

    A clear nail polish has been developed that could avoid the need to awkwardly lay the pads of your fingers onto the screen for those with long fingernails. Most modern touchscreens, such as those in smartphones and tablets, use capacitive technology that works by creating a small electric field across the screen. When a conductive material disrupts that field, such as a finger or a droplet of water, the surface changes its capacitance, allowing the device to detect where a tap has been made. But fingernails are a nonconductive material, which means they are unable to interact with a capacitive screen. A team from Centenary College of Louisiana has now developed a new nail polish that could make long fingernails touchscreen compatible by allowing them to carry a small electric charge.…

  • Musk unveils $25bn Texas ‘Terafab’ for AI chip production

    Elon Musk has unveiled plans to build a massive $25bn (£19bn) fabrication facility in Austin, Texas, to manufacture AI chips. In a speech at the defunct Seaholm Power Plant over the weekend, he claimed the project would be “the most epic chip-building exercise in history by far.” The joint venture is being led by three of Musk’s biggest firms – Tesla, SpaceX and xAI – and will play a major role in scaling chip production for Tesla’s forthcoming Robotaxis and its Optimus humanoid robots. Musk also suggested it could create chips “designed for space” that could be built into satellites deployed by SpaceX. It comes a month after Musk teased the project, saying that existing suppliers were not able to provide Tesla with the number of AI-capable chips it needs. The manufacturing facility will…

  • Widening copper supply gap threatens economic growth and clean energy transition

    As copper demand surges, mining companies are struggling to keep up and global shortfalls are expected in the coming years, according to analysis. The study, led by the University of Michigan, found that despite copper prices being at historically high levels, the financial risk involved in mining means that prices will need to go much higher before mining companies see profit in addressing the supply shortage. Copper’s superior ability to conduct electricity means it is used in a wide range of industries, including telecommunications, electric green energy, vehicle production and data centres. It also plays a critical role in the semiconductor industry, which is tipped to hit $1tn by 2030, primarily as a conductor of electricity within chips. In the UK alone, demand for copper is set…

  • Brain-inspired computer chip material could slash AI energy consumption

    A new kind of nanoelectronic device could dramatically cut the energy used by AI hardware through mimicking the human brain, according to a new study. In the study led by the University of Cambridge, researchers developed a form of hafnium oxide that acts as a highly stable, low‑energy ‘memristor’. This electronic component acts as a resistor with memory, mimicking the way neurons in the brain form and adjust connections. As AI adoption increases, this brain-inspired, or neuromorphic, computing could offer an energy-efficient way for AI systems to process information. Current AI systems rely on conventional computer chips that shuttle data back and forth between memory and processing units, utilising large amounts of electricity. According to the researchers, their device could reduce…

  • Uber strikes $1.25bn deal with Rivian to deploy 50,000 robotaxis in autonomous push

    Uber will invest up to $1.25bn (£930m) in electric vehicle maker Rivian as part of a deal to deploy 50,000 autonomous robotaxis across 25 cities in the US, Canada and Europe. An initial $300m investment will go towards the purchase of 10,000 fully autonomous R2 robotaxis, with the option of buying an additional 40,000 in 2030. Uber has struggled to transition to driverless vehicles in the past, even though the technology could be a major boon for the firm. In 2020, it sold its loss-making autonomous driving unit to start-up Aurora in a bid to accelerate its path to profitability. It finally achieved this in 2023, with a total profit of $1.1bn compared with a loss of $1.8bn the year before. But Waymo, a subsidiary of Google’s parent company Alphabet, is becoming an increasing threat to…

  • ESA regains contact with Sun-observing spacecraft after month-long radio blackout

    The European Space Agency (ESA) has restored contact with its Coronagraph spacecraft weeks after communications were lost following an anomaly. As part of the Proba-3 mission, two spacecraft – Coronagraph and Occulter – were launched in late 2024 with a mission to study the Sun’s corona in depth to gain a greater understanding of the inner workings of our closest star. The two craft worked together, with Occulter blocking out the brightest parts of the Sun’s disk, allowing the Coronagraph to study its faint outer atmosphere without being blinded. But an anomaly in February caused Coronagraph to lose orientation and drift away from Occulter. It also failed to enter safe mode. The incident led scientists at the ESA to fear they would never recover control over the spacecraft. The agency had…

  • Households could save £203 a year if link broken between gas and electricity prices

    The government has been urged to decouple the price of UK electricity from gas – which typically commands the highest cost per MW – to save households around £203 per year on energy bills. Even though gas only accounts for about a quarter of electricity production in Britain, it sets the electricity price around 85% of the time – including from renewables such as solar and wind. In the UK, electricity production from offshore wind typically costs around £44 per MWh compared to an average of £114 per MWh from gas when factoring in carbon costs. This means that cheaper renewables are given inflated prices, which helped companies to make billions in windfall profits during the last energy price crisis at the outbreak of the Ukraine war. The left-leaning Common Wealth think tank called on…

  • E+T Expert Engineering: Advanced nuclear technology PART 1: Why nuclear needs a rethink

    Electricity is increasingly powering our lives but we need more of it… and fast. The shift to electric transport and the growth of energy-intensive industries such as data centres and AI, is driving this rise in electricity demand. The challenge is: how do we meet this demand without increasing emissions? The simple answer is deploying low-carbon technologies at scale. Enter nuclear.

  • Meta winds down Horizon Worlds VR as metaverse push fades

    Meta has announced plans to shut down its virtual reality (VR) platform Horizon Worlds as the company continues to pivot away from the metaverse. The platform was envisaged as the primary online social hub for users to access through Meta’s series of Quest VR headsets. It also supported user-created content including environments and games. Meta spent an estimated $70bn to $80bn on its metaverse division, which was responsible for developing Horizon Worlds, as well as the associated hardware needed to access it. It was released in December 2021 following broad proclamations from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg that it would be the “next frontier” in human connection and could even reach around one billion people by the end of the decade. The launch saw a modicum of success, attracting somewhere…

  • £45m AI supercomputer set to accelerate UK fusion energy research

    A new AI supercomputer will enable the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) to tackle key fusion energy challenges such as plasma turbulence, materials development and tritium fuel breeding. Due to start operations in June, ‘Sunrise’ will be based UKAEA’s Culham Campus in Oxfordshire, with £45m in funding from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ). Fusion is a potential source of almost limitless clean energy, seen as vital for energy security and the climate crisis. However, fusion is as difficult to realise in practice as it is hard to harness. Researchers will test and iterate designs virtually, avoiding the cost, risk and time required for physical testing. With its 6.76 exaflops of AI-accelerated modelling, Sunrise will enable the creation of high-fidelity simulations…

  • Tweaking flight paths could cut aviation’s climate impact by half, study suggests

    Small changes to aircraft flight paths to avoid contrails could reduce aviation’s global warming impact by nearly half, according to a study. The study, led by researchers at the University of Cambridge, suggests that changing cruising altitude by a few thousand feet, either up or down, could prevent contrails from forming. Contrails, or vapour trails, are line-shaped clouds produced by aircraft engine exhaust or changes in air pressure, typically at aircraft cruising altitudes several kilometres above the Earth’s surface. While the exact warming effect of contrails is uncertain, it is believed to be greater than warming caused by aviation’s CO2 emissions. Although modern commercial aircraft emit less carbon than their predecessors, previous studies have shown they could be contributing…

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