• Could EVs overload the power grid?

    An £11.4m programme of funding by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is getting off the ground to make it easier for an electric vehicle (EV) to return electricity to the network during times of peak loading. Since June, all new private chargepoints must be smart enough to adjust their rate of charge in response to external signals, in order to ease demand on the network at times like the evening peak. There are clear reasons as to why the British government, among others, is keen to have EVs react to the needs of the grid. Without that ability, the risk is that if too many drivers in the same area demand their cars be ready to drive in the next hour it will lead to sudden blackouts. There are distinct differences of opinion on how disruptive EV charging will be…

  • UN begins nuclear safety consultations with Russia and Ukraine

    Rafael Grossi, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said on Monday that he has started consultations with both Ukraine and Russia to protect the area around Europe's largest nuclear power plant, despite the conflict between the two nations.  The head of the UN nuclear watchdog agency  made his proposal last week after leading a team of inspectors to the nuclear plant - Europe’s biggest, having six reactors - but gave few details at the time. “What we need here really is Ukraine and Russia to agree on a very simple principle of not attacking, or not shelling, at the plant,” Grossi told reporters at the agency’s Vienna headquarters. Last week, the plant was   knocked off Ukraine’s electricity grid after a fire caused by Russian shelling brought down its…

  • Ocean cooling debunked as hurricane prevention idea

    The study led by scientists at the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric and Earth Science showed that the amount of energy that would be needed to weaken a hurricane before landfall would make ocean cooling an inefficient solution to mitigate natural disasters. “The main result from our study is that massive amounts of artificially cooled water would be needed for only a modest weakening in hurricane intensity before landfall,” said the study’s lead author James Hlywiak, a graduate of the UM Rosenstiel School. “Plus, weakening the intensity by marginal amounts doesn’t necessarily mean that the likelihood for inland damages and safety risks would decrease as well." Hurricanes feed off warm waters and they weaken once they hit land or cooler parts of the ocean…

  • Blue Origin’s New Shephard rocket suffers first launch failure

    Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket was less than a minute into the flight when bright yellow flames shot out from around the single engine at the bottom. Immediately, the capsule’s emergency launch abort system kicked in, lifting the craft off the top. Several minutes later, the capsule parachuted onto the remote desert floor and crashed back into West Texas with no injuries or damage reported, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).  The rocket did not carry any human passengers, only science experiments. However, this same model of rocket is also used to launch people on 10-minute rides to the edge of space. "It appears that we've experienced an anomaly with today's flight," said Dr Erika Wagner, a senior director at Blue Origin, while doing the in-flight webcast commentary…

  • Book interview: ‘Playing to Win’ and the rules of gamification

    “I don’t think that anyone is going to be surprised by the fact that companies are trying to maximise profit,” says Adrian Hon. Neither does he think that people will be shocked to hear that authoritarian governments are “interested in controlling and manipulating citizens”. None of this is new, says the author of ‘You’ve Been Played’, “and it certainly existed long before the arrival of gamification”. What’s interesting, he says, is that gamification – the application of game-design elements and principles in non-game contexts – is becoming a new tool to achieve these pre-existing aims. The difference is that the incentives for modifying user behaviour are “styled deliberately to look like video games, with missions and quests, using interface symbols and elements that people are familiar…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • USA imposes sanctions on Iran over Albania cyber attack

    The United States has imposed sanctions on Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and its minister, accusing them of engaging in other cyber activities against the United States and its allies. The move comes after Albania severed diplomatic relations with Iran on Wednesday over the alleged hacking of government digital services and websites in July and again in early September. Albania ordered all  Iranian diplomats and embassy staff to leave within 24 hours. The US Treasury Department said in a statement that Iran's Ministry of Intelligence directs several networks of cyber-threat actors, including those involved in cyber espionage and ransomware attacks in support of the Iranian government. “Iran’s cyber attack against Albania disregards norms of responsible peacetime State behaviour in cyberspace…

  • E&T Innovation Awards: Choose your young pioneer

    There is much talk of the skills shortage and the pipeline that is failing to rejuvenate the ageing stock of engineers. Nevertheless, there are clearly some brilliant young minds that are already making their mark in the engineering profession. The Young Pioneers category at the E&T Innovation Awards recognises such rising talent. A panel of expert judges has whittled the entrants down to just three finalists. The winner will be announced along with the rest of the E&T Innovation Awards at the gala presentation night taking place in London on 10 November 2022. More details about the event and how to be part of it are available online . The E&T Innovation Awards attract hundreds of entries: inspiring solutions to some of the world’s greatest challenges including sustainability, mobility…

  • UK drivers could be ‘priced out of the electric revolution,’ study warns

    A report by consumer website Electrifying.com has found that there are only seven new electric car models on sale in the UK for under £30,000, compared to  107 available models of petrol or diesel cars in the same price bracket. This lack of affordable options, added to the rise in electricity costs, has led to a decrease in the amount of money users can save by running an electric car instead of a petrol model, the company concluded.  Electrifying.com founder and chief executive Ginny Buckley said electric cars are “firmly embedded in the UK’s car-buying habits” but warned that drivers are “paying more” to make the switch from petrol and diesel. “The choice of affordable cars is dwindling and, unless you’re charging on a cheap night-time tariff, you’ll now barely notice the savings,…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • 43 per cent greenhouse gas target now law in Australia

    The Senate passed legislation supporting the target in a vote of 37 to 30, despite several senators who supported it wanting a more ambitious 2030 target.   The centre-left Labour Party government officially committed Australia to the 43 per cent target after it came to power for the first time in nine years at elections in May. Entrenching this goal in law has made it more difficult for any future government to reduce the target. Climate change and energy minister Chris Bowen said the Senate vote provided certainty to clean energy investors while strengthening transparency and accountability in Australia’s carbon reduction processes. “The message to investors is that Australia is open for business,” Bowen told parliament. The conservative opposition party voted against the Bill.…

  • Interview: Dr Andy Levers, Executive Director, IDEAS

    We’re sitting in a conference room in the recently inaugurated Digital Innovation Facility (DIF), a £12.7m centre of excellence for emerging engineering technologies. Headed by Dr Andy Levers, DIF is a purpose-built environment to support collaborations and partnerships between academia and industry in the areas of computer and data science, robotics and engineering. Levers’ full title is executive director of the Institute of Digital Engineering and Autonomous Systems (IDEAS), which sits above DIF and the Virtual Engineering Centre in the organisational food chain. He says that DIF was set up to bring together a multi-disciplinary team of engineers, scientists and technologists who will use their expertise to “maximise the possibilities and impact of these emerging technologies”. Based at…

  • View from India: Elephants are essential for ecological balance

    Uttarakhand, located at the foothills of the Himalayas, has been in the news recently for its elephant corridor. The Uttarakhand High Court has directed the Central Government to consider giving the corridor the status of an eco-sensitive zone, under the Environment Protection Act. This corridor is in the Jim Corbett National Park, so it’s only befitting for the court to state that construction of hotels, resorts or restaurants should not be permitted in the vicinity. Any form of encroachment or obstruction would probably force the animals to scout for other passages that lead to the nearby Kosi River. Both central and state governments have been directed to take conservation efforts towards elephant corridors as well as monitor the traffic at night. The state of Uttarakhand is no exception;…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Campaigners call on police to end use of face recognition technology

    On his first day on the job, 14 campaign groups have written to Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley requesting an end to the use of facial recognition technologies by police forces. They called the technology   “privacy-eroding, inaccurate and wasteful”. Big Brother Watch, Liberty and Black Lives Matter UK were among the organisations that signed the letter. Facial recognition technologies have increasingly been used by police authorities around the world to fight against crime. The Metropolitan Police and the South Wales Police are some of the forces that  have been known  to use these technologies. However, this use of facial-recognition technologies has led to civil rights challenges and condemnation from human rights groups, who argue that the technology is often mistaken…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Dear Evil Engineer: Could I live in a lair on the ocean floor?

    Dear Evil Engineer, I am a reclusive billionaire, seeking peace in retirement after a long and tyrannical career. Being even more misanthropic than the typical villain, I would like to live as far from human civilisation as possible: the bottom of the ocean. Could you advise me how to build a lair on the ocean floor? Yours, An aquatic villain Dear villain, The bottom of the ocean is a prime piece of real estate for a villain who values solitude and aesthetic considerations: there is nothing quite like a goblin shark or a giant isopod floating past your toilet window to reassure you that you have (at last) found Hell on Earth. I’m pleased to say that an underwater lair is possible, from an engineering perspective, and – as a billionaire – you may even have the means to make it a…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Industry pays tribute to Queen Elizabeth II

    The world is mourning the death of Britain's longest-reigning monarch, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, a sad and historic event which brings to a close the second Elizabethan era. From the first computers to global connectivity, via hybrid cars and the biodiesel-powered Royal train, the Queen was a fundamental and consistent presence in the UK's transition to the digital era. Her Majesty always embraced change and was an unwavering advocate of engineering and technology, no less so than in her patronage of the IET, which now honours her memory following her death. “On behalf of everyone at the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and our global engineering community, we are saddened to learn of the death of HM The Queen, Patron of the IET," said current President Sir Julian…

  • Hands-on review: Proscenic i10 cordless vacuum cleaner

    We previously looked at another cordless vacuum cleaner in Proscenic's burgeoning range, the P11 , back in April this year. That model is still doing the vacuuming business for us, turning in a performance every bit as easy-breezy and satisfying today as it was back then. Now there's a new model: the i10. It looks very similar to the P11 – and to many other similar vacuums, both in Proscenic's own range as well as those from its competitors – but this appears to be the ubiquitous style and silhouette of upright vacuum cleaners today. The most obvious difference between the two machines is cosmetic: the i10 comes in an attractive metallic blue finish, whereas the P11 was various shades of classy grey with red accents. Sometimes, it's these little things that can make all the difference…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Scientists warn against over-relying on carbon removal to achieve net-zero

    An international team of researchers has highlighted the risk of relying too much on carbon removal technologies to limit climate change in a new study published in  Nature . Carbon removal technologies are often seen as a great solution to the challenge of limiting global warming to  within 2°C above pre-industrial levels. However, the detrimental effects of climate change on crop yields could reduce the capacity of large-scale bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) and threaten food security, creating an unrecognised positive feedback loop on global warming, the study says.  The team behind the research comprises scientists from the Vienna-based International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Fudan University in Shanghai, China, and several other institutions…

  • Truss freezes energy bills in new plan to tackle the cost-of-living crisis

    Newly appointed UK prime minister Liz Truss has finally set out her plan to shield households and firms from the energy crisis by freezing energy bills, as had been expected, but also by removing the ban on fracking.  Under the government's proposed plans, energy bills will be frozen at £2,500 and businesses will be spared crippling increases until the next general election, scheduled to be held in two years' time. The measure will replace the existing energy price cap set by regulator Ofgem, which was set to increase to £3,549 come October.  Downing Street has refused to put a cost on the programme, but experts have estimated its cost at around £150bn which will have to be funded through increased borrowing, with the economic specifics of this to be unveiled during Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng…

  • Apple unveils new iPhone 14 Pro models, Watch Ultra, plus more

    The special virtual event - called 'Far Out' this year - was streamed yesterday evening (Wednesday September 7) from Apple Park, the firm's Cupertino headquarters. Apple used the event to unveil the latest models of its flagship devices in the form of the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max, describing this as "the most advanced Pro lineup ever", although arguably not without good reason. The smartphones will debut a new feature dubbed the 'Dynamic Island' — a new design that introduces an intuitive way to experience iPhone, with relevant context-appropriate content presented — and the 'Always-On' display, so the user doesn't need to tap or lift their phone to check notifications (lying the phone face down will turn the screen off completely). Powered by A16 Bionic…

  • EU sets out windfall tax plans to combat ‘astronomic’ energy bills

    EU Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, has introduced the bloc's plan to address the rise in energy costs brought forth by the Russian shutdown of the key Nord Stream 1 pipeline and exacerbated by the climate crisis and lingering effects of the Covid pandemic. The five “immediate” moves proposed to help tame Europe’s energy emergency include: s etting a price cap on Russian gas,; mandatory measures to reduce energy use during peak times, funding for ailing utility companies, a windfall tax on fossil fuel companies and a cap on energy companies' revenues.  “We are facing an extraordinary situation because Russia is an unreliable supplier and is manipulating our energy markets,” Von der Leyen said while outlining the Commission’s plan. “Our unity and our solidarity will ensure that…

  • Money & Markets: Inflation is here; what happens next?

    It was a long time ago when I first wrote about inflation here. At that point, many respected authorities were claiming deflation was imminent. Then the call was transitory inflation, then followed mea culpas about not seeing it coming. Well, here it is and inflation is everywhere in the headlines. It appears there is no consensus on what is going to happen next. Here is my thesis. Typically it’s cresting. It is my observation that attention in accidents is at its peak after they have happened, not before or during. The very moment of peak interest is exactly when is over and hopefully in a repair phase. I am lucky here that my readers appreciate the second, third and fourth derivatives when many are struggling with the first. I keep coming back to this, but inflation is always a…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Bizarre Tech at IFA 2022: Go Colop e-mark, Bob the mini dishwasher, and Respiray

    Go colop e-mark Hold me closer, tiny stamper. Austrian-based stamp manufacturer (riveting in itself) Colop was showing off its new mobile printing device, the e-mark , at this year’s IFA. The “innovative” e-mark can “design unique and personalised imprints and print them immediately on many surfaces” like paper, cardboard, cork and wood. FYI, it doesn’t work on skin. I tried it: resembled a specific scrape you would get on the playground. Also, felt a bit warm. Would not recommend. Anyway, it’s designed for professionals, and you can print company logos, texts and images in colour. It holds four designs, and you tap on the wee printer to switch them out. However, watching the Colop sales rep go tappa tappa tappa, seemingly on end, trying to get it to change the design, was a somewhat…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Truss to ‘tweak’ Online Safety Bill to protect free speech

    The Prime Minister said the Online Safety Bill will continue its progress through Parliament but confirmed the legislation will not be passed in its current form. 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 has said it will make the UK “the safest place in the world for our children to go online”. In her first PMQS Truss discussed the legislation, saying: “There are some issues that we need to deal with. What I want to make sure is that we protect the under-18s from harm but we also make sure free speech is allowed, so there may be some tweaks required. “But certainly he is right that we need to protect people’s safety online.” …

  • Letters to the editor: volume 17, issue 9

    How do you upskill without experience? I’m currently a technician working in the food and packaging industry, but also have experience in the variable-speed and HVAC sector. I gained my engineering degree in 2016 with a view to moving into nuclear. Sizewell is close to where I live, and this seemed an ideal location to further my professional career. This is proving a difficult challenge. I recently had an interview with them for an engineering position and was turned down on one particular sticking point – I don’t have any nuclear experience. It seems that apprentices are accepted, as they will go through the company’s set training. It also seems that young graduates can gain entry too, seemingly as they have a longer working life ahead of them. I’m 49 years young, with a significant…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Breaking down stereotypes is key to encouraging developer talent

    Professional stereotypes exist in all industries. Investment bankers in sharp suits, advertising gurus with horn-rimmed glasses sipping flat whites – they’re everywhere. The tech sector is equally susceptible, with developers in particular being regularly typecast. For many, the title ‘developer’ conjures up thoughts of a young, white male wearing a hoodie and most likely working alone, illuminated by the soft glow of their monitor. And yes, there are plenty of developers who fit this description. Yet they don’t benefit from this stereotype either. Many enjoy characteristics, attributes and lives outside of the tech world that would most likely defy this narrow stereotype. And if we are to achieve diversity among developers and help ease the talent crisis, we need to completely break these…

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