IET EngX

Grid

List

Urban magnetic fields reveal clues about energy efficiency and pollution

Researchers from Germany and the US compared urban magnetic fields between two US cities: Berkeley, California, and the Brooklyn borough of New York City. They looked at what kinds of information can be extracted using data from magnetic field sensors to understand the working of cities. Magnetic field activity from various sources could provide insight into what is going on during a 24-hour period, the researchers said. “A city is viewed as a physical system akin to a distant astronomical object that can be studied using a variety of multispectral techniques,” said Vincent Dumont, from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. “In short, our project was inspired by our desire to apply what we learned practising fundamental physics research to the study of cities.” Researchers collected…

E+T Magazine in Electromagnetic Devices
BT and Ericsson partner to build 5G private networks

British telecommunications company BT has joined forces with Swedish telecoms equipment manufacturer Ericsson to offer private 5G networks to UK organisations, aiming to enable them to deploy Internet of Things and next-generation technologies in a fast and secure way. The partnership agreement is the first of its kind to offer an out-of-the-box private network to companies, rather than a service tailored to each individual business. In contrast to public 5G, private 5G networks allow companies to limit connectivity to a group of devices in a dedicated space, where 5G's security and ultra-low latency can be fully utilised in additional services. These networks are also said to provide higher quality connections, offering fewer delays and glitches than conventional Wi-Fi networks. “This…

E+T Magazine in Research and Innovation
EU to ban 90 per cent of Russian oil imports by the end of the year

The commercial war between Russia and the EU continues, as European officials approve a new set of sanctions against the Russian giant, in light of the continuing invasion of Ukraine. The embargo covers Russian oil brought in by sea, allowing a temporary exemption for imports delivered by pipeline, which is expected to provide Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic with additional time to wean themselves off crude oil supplies from Russia. Russia currently supplies 27 per cent of the EU's imported oil and 40 per cent of its gas, with the bloc paying around €400bn (£341bn) a year in return. T hat is equivalent to around 2.4 million barrels per day, according to data from the International Energy Agency. For this reason, the sanctions - expected to be legally endorsed on Monday - will…

E+T Magazine
Bills could be halved by 2035 with investment in low carbon heating

In a report, it found that the current heat-pump installation rate “languishes” at just 30,000 per year and hydrogen heating and heat networks are still nascent technologies. High upfront costs of around £10,000 are needed for the installation of heat pumps which means the government needs to provide “significant financial help” in the short term to reduce carbon emissions from heating in the long term. According to the report, this is compounded by the artificially high price of electricity relative to gas which is caused by government policy costs and unequal carbon pricing. “The good news is that innovators believe that with the right support they can bring down the upfront costs, permanently, to £5,000, or perhaps even to parity with boilers in time (roughly £2,500),” the report states…

E+T Magazine in Engineering with a Disability
Sub-£30 washing machine brightens laundry days for low-income families

Eight Bristol engineering students are refining a hand-spun washing machine. The $35 (£28) product from the Washing Machine Project has been designed to save around 20 hours of hand-washing chores per week. 3,000 of the cheap but effective bare-bones washing machines will be delivered in 2022, mostly to refugee camps but also to low-income families in the UK. The Bristol firm is led by University of Bristol alumnus Navjot Sawhney - a former Dyson engineer - who dreamt up the idea during a sabbatical in India. Some six billion people around the world live without a washing machine. For many, the problem is a lack of funds, while others may not have consistent access to electricity - or simply no electricity at all. Sawhney saw the need for hand-spun washing machines while making cooking…

E+T Magazine in Research and Innovation
Laser-welding ‘robotic snake’ brings fusion power closer to reality

The £2.7m project has taken seven years to develop as part of EUROfusion’s flagship DEMO programme, which is expected to be the successor to ITER – the experimental fusion reactor currently under construction in France. The snake will be deployed and operated remotely inside a hazardous environment without being touched by humans. It can also work effectively in pipes packed together, with little space for access. Tristan Tremethick, lead mechanical design engineer, UKAEA, said: “In fusion machines, pipework has to be connected and disconnected remotely because of the hazardous environment. “Pipework in DEMO is extra challenging because of the limited working space. We’ve been looking at different ways of tackling this and I’m delighted our new snake has passed its first set of trials…

E+T Magazine in Nuclear Power
China uses digital yuan to stimulate Covid-hit consumption

The southern city of Shenzhen started distributing 30 million yuan (approximately £3.7m) worth of free digital cash on Monday to revive consumption and aid businesses. The move comes days after Xiong'an New Area, in northern Hebei province, launched a similar campaign to hand out 50 million yuan (approximately £6m) worth of e-CNY 'red packets' as gifts. China is actively developing a central-bank digital currency. Issuing these e-CNY subsidies has the dual purpose of encouraging consumption and further promoting use of the electronic yuan. Transactions using e-CNY totalled 87.6 billion yuan (approximately £10bn) at the end of 2021, with 261 million individual e-wallets opened, according to the central bank. "Previously, when the government issued subsidies, there could be certain obstacles…

E+T Magazine in Engineering with a Disability
Four Scottish cities introduce low-emission zones

Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee are introducing LEZs in order to improve air quality, with many older vehicles banned from city centres. Penalties for bringing a non-compliant vehicle into the LEZ will typically be set at £60, and halved to £30 if paid early. Although the LEZs have formally already begun, the four cities have established different grace periods to allow users to get used to the shift. While Dundee will start enforcing the measure from 30 May 2024, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen will end the grace period for residents on 1 June 2024, with Glasgow already enforcing the measures for buses and other specific types of vehicles. “Our air quality is generally good – but for too long air pollution has exceeded legal limits for health in our city centres as a consequence…

E+T Magazine in Air Pollution
Robots help address Singapore’s skill shortage

Singapore is heavily reliant on an immigrant workforce. However, after the number of foreign workers in the country fell by 235,700 between December 2019 and September 2021, the city-state turned to technology, in particular robotics, to address the shortage of workers, according to a Reuters report. Singapore is a good example of how Covid-19 curbs have sped up "the pace of technology adoption and automation" by companies, said the city-state’s manpower ministry. During the pandemic, Singapore trialled B oston Dynamics’ four-legged robot , 'Spot', to help promote safe distancing in parks, gardens and nature reserves to lower the risk of exposure to coronavirus. The robot broadcast a message reminding park visitors to observe social distancing guidelines. It was also fitted with cameras…

E+T Magazine in Research and Innovation
Carbon capture system sequesters record amounts of CO2 for direct air capture

Isophorone diamine (IPDA) in a “liquid-solid phase separation” system was found to remove carbon dioxide at the low concentrations contained in the atmosphere with 99 per cent efficiency. The researchers said that the compound is reusable with minimal heating and at least twice as fast as existing systems. While the world is currently trying to reduce its carbon emissions to net zero, scientists are also looking at ultimately removing CO2 that has already been released in order to bring levels down to those found in the pre-industrial era. Currently, many hurdles remain before carbon capture technologies can be deployed at scale. The biggest challenges come from efficiency, particularly in processing atmospheric air directly in direct air capture (DAC) systems. The concentrations of CO2…

E+T Magazine in Research and Innovation
G7 nations pledge to phase out coal

Climate and energy ministers from the Group of Seven nations have announced that they will aim to largely end greenhouse gas emissions from their energy sectors by 2035, with the goal of an “eventual” complete phaseout. The announcement by Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Japan, Canada and the US comes at the end of a three-day summit in Berlin and follows the European Union’s decision to find new energy sources and cut its reliance on Russian oil and gas as a response to the invasion of Ukraine. The ministers also said they would raise their ambitions with regard to renewable energies and "rapidly scale up the necessary technologies and policies for the clean energy transition." Germany, the current chair of the G7, has been one of the main drivers of this commitment. After taking office…

E+T Magazine in Renewable Energy
China readies launchpad for final missions to complete Tiangong space station

Over the weekend, Chinese state media reported that the China National Space Administration had moved its Shenzhou spacecraft to a launch site in inner Mongolia ahead of a planned launch on 5 June. The craft will be sent into space atop a Long March 2F carrier rocket. The flight will mark the ninth crewed Chinese spaceflight and the fourteenth flight of the Shenzhou program. The spacecraft will carry three People's Liberation Army Astronaut Corps (PLAAC) 'taikonauts' on the third flight to the Tianhe core module, the first module of the Tiangong space station. Tianhe was first launched into orbit in April last year, with three Chinese astronauts entering the module some months later . Following the upcoming mission, China will launch one of the station’s lab components in July this year…

E+T Magazine in Space
Exposed: The national wiring scandal putting lives at risk

Gareth Bourhill, who has worked in the electrical contracting industry for 40 years, says it is well-known in the industry that the public’s safety is being jeopardised in search of profit. “People know it’s a huge problem but it’s all down to money. That is because your normal householder, or unscrupulous letting agents and landlords, are simply driven by costs,” he says. A new law first introduced in 2020 means that landlords must have an inspection – known as an Electrical Installation Condition Report (EICR) – carried out on their properties every five years, but E&T has found that many electricians are carrying out inadequate tests. In some cases, contractors are incorrectly passing unsafe properties while others are mis-selling unnecessary upgrades. E&T has also heard evidence of…

E+T Magazine in Ethical Aspects
Sustainable air travel institution launched in bid to cut aviation emissions

Its researchers plan to look at all elements of air transport, from fuel and aircraft design to airport infrastructure, air traffic control and aviation policy. It comes a week after the government announced its ‘Flightpath to the future’ plan which is designed to help the sector recover from the disastrous impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. It details how aircraft emissions can be cut, including shorter-term plans to blend 10 per cent sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) into the UK fuel mix by 2030. The research institute has been back by a £25m donation from Brahmal Vasudevan, CEO of private equity firm Creador, and his wife Shanthi Kandiah, founder of legal firm SK Chambers. Professor Alice Gast, ICL president said: “The Brahmal Vasudevan Institute for Sustainable Aviation will focus Imperial…

E+T Magazine in Research and Innovation
Book review: ‘Machines Behaving Badly’

Books about the societal impacts of artificial intelligence and the ethical questions it raises are a dime a dozen, so it is always worth asking: does this book do anything differently? In the case of ‘Machines Behaving Badly: The Morality of AI’ (The History Press, £20, ISBN 9780750999366), the answer is yes, thanks to the author’s decades entrenched in the community from which AI has sprung. The first third or so of ‘Machines Behaving Badly’ examines the people and companies developing AI technologies. This is packed with nuggets of little-known information. It is not much known, for instance, just how small the group of people building AI is (“There may never have been a planet-wide revolution before which was driven by such a small pool of people”). Walsh paints this community with…

E+T Magazine in Engineering with a Disability
Six million UK homes could face power cuts this winter, as energy crisis worsens

The UK is preparing for a harsh winter, as the war in Ukraine drags on and energy prices continue to soar. In order to prepare for a “reasonable” worst-case scenario, Whitehall officials have drawn up a plan for the winter that could lead to the rationing of electricity for up to six million homes at the start of 2023, should Russia cut off all gas supplies to the EU. Earlier this month, Ofgem warned of a likely energy price cap increase “in the region of £2,800”. The curbs could be imposed on industrial use of gas, including on gas-fired power stations, and may last for more than a month, mostly at peaks in the morning and evening. A Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy spokesperson told the PA news agency the UK "has no issues with either gas or electricity supply…

E+T Magazine in Nuclear Power
Researchers develop hydrogen battery from bacteria

What if bacteria could be used to create hydrogen biobatteries? A paper published in Joule shows that these types of batteries could perhaps be used to store and release hydrogen. Green hydrogen, which is produced from water with the help of renewable energies, is one of the carbon-neutral energy sources that could become an effective alternative to fossil fuels. However, transporting and storing this highly explosive gas is difficult, and researchers worldwide are looking for chemical and biological solutions. A team of microbiologists from Goethe University Frankfurt has found an enzyme in bacteria that live in the absence of air and bind hydrogen directly to CO2, producing formic acid in the process. The process is completely reversible – a basic requirement for hydrogen storage.…

E+T Magazine in Biotechnology
Internet infrastructure in developing countries highly vulnerable to attack

A sweeping, large-scale study was conducted by computer scientists at the University of California San Diego, who surveyed 75 countries. “We wanted to study the topology of the Internet to find weak links that, if compromised, would expose an entire nation’s traffic,” said Alexander Gamero-Garrido, the paper’s first author. The study finds that a wider array of internet providers reduces the risk that any one attack would have a significantly disruptive impact upon a country’s internet infrastructure. It cites the US as an example where a large number of firms compete to provide services for a large number of users. These networks are directly connected to one another and exchange content in a process known as direct peering. All the providers can also plug directly into the world’s internet…

E+T Magazine in Research and Innovation
The deep uncertainties that are stalling energy transition

Climate change is one of the planet’s most pressing issues. Whether its impact is on the places we inhabit, the air we breathe or civilisation itself, it is clear that climate change is having a disastrous effect on the world in which we live. Something must be done to reverse its detrimental effects, and there are a number of industries in particular where change could drastically improve the environment. The energy sector is one, contributing to much of the carbon dioxide emissions that are affecting the planet. That is why the global energy sector must transition to clean energy - a fossil-based carbon-zero structure. In principle, this switch sounds relatively simple, given we have the fossil-based fuels to make this transition. But not only is substantial investment needed to do so…

E+T Magazine in Sustainable Development
Musk sued for ‘manipulating’ Twitter takeover bid

More unknowns continue to circle Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter. A lawsuit filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California claims the Tesla CEO has attempted to drive down Twitter's stock price by expressing doubts over his decision to buy the company. The shareholders claim Musk wants to pressure Twitter to negotiate a substantially lower purchase price. The lawsuit seeks class-action status as well as compensation for damages. This is only the latest row in Musk’s journey to buy Twitter. The billionaire made an offer last month to purchase the company for $ 44bn (£35bn). However, he later backed down from the deal, stating that the acquisition could not go forward until the company provided information about how many accounts on the platform are spam or bots…

E+T Magazine
Rapidly rising electric vehicle charging costs outpaced by petrol prices

According to RAC analysis, the average price of charging an electric car on a pay-as-you go, publicly accessible rapid charger in Great Britain has increased by 21 per cent to 44.55p per kilowatt-hour (kWh) since September. The 7.81p per kWh increase, from 36.74p at the end of last summer, means that the average cost to complete an 80 per cent rapid charge of a typical family-sized electric car with a 64kWh battery has increased by £4 over this period, from £18.81 to £22.81. However, the cost of filling a 55-litre family car from empty to 80 per cent has increased even more over the same timespan by £14.54 since last September, from £59.67 to £74.21. The analysis finds that the cost of topping up electrically-powered vehicles is still nearly half the cost per mile compared to filling…

E+T Magazine
Robot artist paints portrait of the Queen

After seven decades on the throne, Queen Elizabeth might have thought she had seen it all – until a robot offered to paint her portrait. Ai-Da Robot is an artificial intelligence robot that creates drawings, paintings and sculptures. Through cameras and computer memory, she is able to leverage a variety of unique algorithms to make an artistic representation of abstract images. Then, Ai-Da's robotic arm turns its digital formations into physical drawings and paintings. The robot's portrait, Algorithmic Queen, was designed to reflect the different aspects of technological change that have taken place during Queen Elizabeth's 70-year reign. Robot artist reveals portrait of the Queen / Aidan Meller Image credit: Aidan Meller Ai-Da has the appearance of a woman

E+T Magazine in Robotics
Sponsored: Succeeding at connected operations with edge computing

The white paper from IDC highlights the power of edge computing in enabling the shift to a digital-first world. It provides insights about the factors driving edge investments, the challenges firms faced while deploying to the edge, obstacles to continued investment, and strategic recommendations to future-proof edge capabilities. The infusion of digital technologies into all aspects of society and business is a permanent shift. Using cloud and edge infrastructure, all industries are harnessing the power of data and digital tools to improve efficiency, sustainability, and safety and security. Embracing this shift and developing a strategy to navigate the digital-first world are choices that differentiate business leaders and set the foundation for rapid innovation and improvement. Many industries…

E+T Magazine in Computing
AI determines coral reef health by listening to its ‘song’

Coral reefs have a complex soundscape that requires painstaking analysis to get enough data to measure their health based on sound recordings. In the new study, a computer algorithm was trained using multiple recordings of healthy and degraded reefs, allowing the machine to learn the difference. It then analysed a host of new recordings, and successfully identified reef health 92 per cent of the time. The team used this to track the progress of reef restoration projects. “Coral reefs are facing multiple threats including climate change, so monitoring their health and the success of conservation projects is vital,” said lead author Ben Williams. “One major difficulty is that visual and acoustic surveys of reefs usually rely on labour-intensive methods. “Visual surveys are also limited…

E+T Magazine in Research and Innovation

Community Rules & Guidelines