• Mixing wind, wave and solar could smooth the bumps in renewable power

    The sun doesn’t always shine, and the wind doesn’t always blow – so can renewables become a more reliable energy source? Rapid decarbonisation efforts are seeing countries around the world increasing the share of energy that comes from renewable sources. However, unlike the reliable and consistent fossil fuel generators used in the past, renewables introduce an intermittency that can threaten grid stability. The problem lies with the unpredictable nature of wind and solar power, which rely on weather patterns. Baseload generators – typically gas power stations in the UK – are spun up in the short term to fill the gap when needed. Unfortunately, this undermines broader efforts to decarbonise the grid and leaves energy security in the hands of other countries, potentially even rogue states…

  • London’s ageing Tube faces growing heat problem as climate warms

    Temperatures on the London Tube and other underground train systems are continuing to increase, leading to escalating complaints from passengers. Northwestern University scientists have conducted a broad-ranging study that scraped social posts and online reviews published between 2008 and 2024. They then analysed more than 85,000 crowdsourced comments from across Boston, London and New York. The findings show a clear pattern that as temperatures rise because of climate change, below-ground thermal complaints also increase. “No one wants to feel uncomfortable,” said Giorgia Chinazzo, who led the study. “But while discomfort might seem like a minor inconvenience, extreme heat also represents a serious threat to public health. Extreme heat causes more deaths per year than all other natural…

  • EU proposes ‘Made in the EU’ plan to protect industry from cheap Chinese imports

    The European Commission has unveiled the proposed Industrial Accelerator Act (IAA), aimed at shielding Europe’s key sectors from global uncertainty and unfair foreign competition. The proposed law includes measures to boost both the production and demand of European-made technologies and products. Through scaling European manufacturing, the aim is to reduce dependence on non-EU suppliers in strategic sectors including steel, cement, aluminium, automotive and clean technologies. “Facing unprecedented global uncertainty and unfair competition, European industry can count on the provisions of this act to boost demand and guarantee resilient supply chains in strategic sectors,” said EU industry commissioner Stéphane Séjourné when unveiling the IAA at an event in Brussels last week. In 2024…

    E+T Magazine
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  • BYD’s 1.5MW flash EV charger ‘finally matches’ petrol refuelling speeds

    BYD, the world’s largest manufacturer of electric vehicles (EV), has unveiled battery and charging technology capable of delivering speeds that rival refuelling at a petrol station. The new 1.5 MW Flash charging technology, coupled with the firm’s latest second generation blade lithium iron phosphate battery, delivers charging speeds of 10% to 70% in five minutes, and a full 97% charge in only nine minutes. Even in extreme cold weather of -30°C, which often impedes batteries from charging, the time it takes to fully charge only increased by three minutes compared to charging in an ambient temperature. BYD demonstrated the two technologies using its latest DENZA Z9GT model, which launched earlier this month. After charging the battery to 97%, the EV is able to hit the road again with a…

  • Most modern buildings unprepared for rising heat and extreme weather

    Most modern buildings are not designed to cope with increasingly harsh environments brought about by changing climate, a researcher at Heriot-Watt University has said. Most structures built over the last 40 years were designed with historical climate data in mind. But scientists predict that by the 2030s and 2040s they will need to contend with rising global temperatures, increased rainfall and unpredictable weather patterns. Susan Roaf, a professor at Heriot-Watt, has called on architects to begin adapting building design for the future realities of a changing climate. “We are moving into a world that is getting significantly warmer, with extreme weather records being broken year after year,” she said. “Our workplaces, our public sector care facilities and our own homes must be designed…

  • High-res 3D scans reveal new details of 3.67-million-year-old ‘Little Foot’ fossil

    A digital reconstruction of the face of the millennia-old fossil ‘Little Foot’ offers fresh insight into early human evolution, according to a study. The study, led by researchers at Wits University in Johannesburg, South Africa, used advanced 3D scanning technology to digitally reconstruct the fossilised face of Little Foot. First discovered in South Africa’s Sterkfontein Caves in 1994, Little Foot is one of the most complete skeletons of an early human, or hominin, ever found. Since then the skeleton has been much studied; however, investigation of the face has been challenging due to distortion caused by millions of years of geological processes. Researchers have found it impossible to correct these distortions using physical reconstruction methods. Partnering with the UK’s national…

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    E+T Magazine
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  • Robot-assisted prostate surgery carried out remotely between London and Gibraltar

    A remote, robot-assisted telesurgery has been carried out on a patient 2,400km away in Gibraltar in a UK first. The prostatectomy – a removal of the prostate gland – was carried out in real time via telesurgery using the Toumai Robotic System. Professor Prokar Dasgupta used two screens during the procedure, which was carried out in London. One showed the surgical room in Gibraltar and the other showed the surgery itself taking place. A secure, high-performance network infrastructure was used to provide the real-time connection needed to safely perform the surgery with a time lag of around 48 milliseconds. It also had an emergency back-up link that operated over 5G in the event of networking issues, and a medical team in Gibraltar also remained on standby. The robot was equipped with a…

  • £6.65m funding deal to keep West London Orbital rail project on track

    Up to £6.65m will fund further development of the planned 18.5km West London Orbital Overground rail service. The funds are to be collectively contributed by Transport for London (TfL), four west London boroughs – Barnet, Brent, Ealing and Hounslow – and the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation. Running between Hendon in north London and Hounslow in south-west London, the proposed West London Orbital will use existing and underused freight rail lines. Once complete, the 18.5km passenger service will form part of the London Overground network, providing 10 new interchanges and four brand new stations. With up to six trains running an hour, the proposed service aims to improve access across west and north-west London, potentially removing up to 650,000 car journeys a year. Alex…

  • Chickpeas harvested from simulated ‘moon dirt’ for the first time

    Chickpeas have become the first crop to be grown and harvested in simulated lunar soil, according to a new study. With Nasa aiming to have humans living and working on the Moon in the next 10 years through its Artemis programme, many are wondering what these astronauts will eat. In a study led by the University of Texas at Austin, researchers have been looking into what it will take to grow crops on the lunar surface. Lunar regolith, commonly known as moon dirt, lacks the microorganisms and organic material required for plants to grow. While it contains some essential nutrients and minerals, it also contains heavy metals that could be toxic to plants. Sara Santos, the principal investigator of the project at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics, asked: “How do we transform…

  • Tech giants sign US pledge to bear costs of new energy infrastructure for data centres

    Major tech firms including Google, Amazon and OpenAI have signed an agreement with the White House to bear all the costs associated with new energy infrastructure needed to power their ever-expanding data centres. Large data centres can consume the power equivalent to the needs of tens of thousands of homes every year. As the sector expands, these large, site-specific demands can add pressure to local parts of the grid and create challenges around connecting new developments. The rapid growth in the number of data centres across the US, driven by the AI boom, has seen electricity prices for average Americans rise by 6-7% over the previous 12 months. With recent events in the Middle East disrupting oil supply chains, there are concerns that energy prices could rise even further, endangering…

  • AI data centre onboard floating offshore wind platform targeted for UK waters in 2028

    An AI data centre integrated into a floating offshore wind platform is being developed by US technology start-up Aikido Technologies for commercial deployment in 2028. Founded in San Francisco in 2022, Aikido Technologies has been developing a floating offshore wind platform that can be manufactured and deployed in a streamlined way. The start-up has now announced that the platforms can be transformed into floating offshore data centres, with computing infrastructure housed directly within the platforms. The turbines supply power to the servers, while onboard battery storage and grid connection provide backup. The surrounding ocean acts as a heat sink, enabling natural cooling for the computing systems. The rapid growth of AI data centres has become a contentious issue, with some firms…

  • OpenAI promises 25% drop in hallucinations with GPT-5.3 launch

    OpenAI has released GPT-5.3, with a focus on delivering more accurate answers and better contextualised results when searching the web. ChatGPT-5 was first released in August last year and was touted as a major upgrade and a “significant leap in technology” with fewer hallucinations than previous versions. One of the major flaws with AI chatbots, which include other models such as Google’s Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude, is their tendency to prioritise providing users with a satisfying response, even if the information given is heavily flawed or incorrect – hence hallucinations. While GPT-5.1 and 5.2 were both positioned as releases that would improve accuracy, users continued to complain that it all too frequently responded with incorrect answers. With GPT-5.3, OpenAI claims to have reduced…

  • Key milestone reached in delivery of UK’s largest electricity transmission project

    Major £3bn contracts have been signed for Eastern Green Link 3 (EGL3), the UK’s largest electricity transmission project between Scotland and England. The contracts cover the high-voltage direct current (HVDC) converter stations and the subsea and underground power cable system. Hitachi Energy will deliver the converter stations in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, and West Norfolk, England, while Danish cable manufacturer NKT will design, build and install the 525kV subsea and underground link connecting the two stations. Eastern Green Links is a electricity ‘superhighway’ project consisting of four high-voltage subsea and underground electricity transmission links between Scotland and England. These links will transport the vast amount of renewable energy generated in Scotland to other areas of…

  • Solar installations to directly power London Underground

    Transport for London (TfL) is partnering with SSE Energy Solutions to build purpose-built solar installations that will supply electricity to the Tube network. The deal will see SSE Energy Solutions – the business energy division of UK energy supplier SSE – build, operate and maintain the solar systems, with TfL paying for the electricity generated to power the transport network. This means that TfL will receive renewable electricity straight from purpose-built solar, bypassing the National Grid and helping to reduce pressure on central electricity grids. TfL is London’s largest single electricity consumer, with a demand of approximately 1.6 Terawatt hours per year. This is used to power underground and overground trains, the Docklands Light Railway, trams, stations, depots and other…

  • £1bn Leonardo military helicopter deal secures future of UK site

    A £1bn contract will see Leonardo build 23 new military helicopters for the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) at its facility in Yeovil, Somerset. Under the new medium helicopter (NMH) contract, the Italian-owned aerospace firm will build and deliver 23 latest-generation AW149 helicopters. Known as the ‘Home of British Helicopters’, the Yeovil site has been in operation for more than 80 years, with manufacturing dating back to the Second World War. With 3,300 people employed at the site, securing the competitive NMH government contract is seen as vital to safeguarding thousands of British jobs at the site as well as across the wider supply chain. Leonardo’s chief executive Roberto Cingolani said late last year that Leonardo “cannot subsidise Yeovil forever”, implying that the factory’s future…

  • Ericsson tests pre-standard 6G in over-the-air robot trial

    Ericsson says it has carried out the world’s first 6G over-the-air (OTA) trials after the technology was used to control AI-powered robots and conduct real-time video streaming. 6G is not expected to be made widely available until the end of the decade at the earliest, but operators are already assessing technologies that can deliver faster data speeds and much greater network capacity than 5G, as well as ultra-low latency. 6G is also likely to improve energy efficiency and reliability, which could help to power smart cities, advanced healthcare and next-generation industrial automation. Ericsson said the technology used in its trial was “pre-standard”, as the final standards and technical specifications will need to be confirmed by an industry body known as 3GPP. In last week’s 6G OTA…

  • Honor unveils ‘Robot Phone’ equipped with a gimbal-mounted 200MP camera

    A ‘Robot Phone’ with a camera module that extends on a gimbal has been unveiled by Chinese smartphone firm Honor at MWC Barcelona. The device has been designed to interact with the user through an embedded AI that can assist with taking photos and videos, and even “dance” to music. The firm said that the AI has been equipped with “multimodal perception”, allowing the robotic element to identify sounds, track motion and maintain visual awareness. The camera gimbal is housed in a chunkier-than-usual hump on the back of the device. It can be used in that setting, as with a traditional smartphone, or swing out to rest on the top of the device, where it has 360-degree motion for taking high-resolution selfies or tracking shots. Honor said that the 200MP sensor “closes the gap” between smartphone…

  • AI data centre boom could push up UK electricity demand and carbon emissions

    Campaign groups warn that the soaring electricity demand from new AI data centres could drive up the UK’s carbon emissions. In a letter to UK technology secretary Liz Kendall, six non-governmental organisations, including Friends of the Earth and Foxglove, are calling for data centre developers to reveal if their projects will increase the UK’s net greenhouse gas emissions. This comes as the energy regulator Ofgem recently published a consultation to review how new projects are connected to the power grid as the connection queue grows. Ofgem has seen a surge in demand for connection applications – the total capacity of contracted connection offers rose from about 41GW in November 2024 to around 125 GW by June 2025. For comparison, peak electricity demand in Great Britain on 11 February…

  • Electric car batteries improving faster than global warming can degrade them

    Electric vehicle (EV) batteries are expected to degrade faster in the future as global temperatures increase, but research has found that gains to battery performance in recent years will more than offset this effect. Climate change is causing temperatures to increase unevenly around the world, leading to concerns that significant rises could impact the battery performance of EVs in some locations. To maximise efficiency, range and longevity for lithium-ion batteries, the “sweet spot” is generally considered to be between 20-25°C. However, a study led by University of Michigan researchers shows that batteries have gotten a lot better over the past several years and the gains will more than offset their expected heat-related degradation. “Thanks to technological improvements, consumers…

  • BMW to pilot humanoid robots at its Leipzig battery plant in Germany

    German carmaker BMW has launched a pilot project to integrate humanoid robots into real-world battery production. Developed with Zürich-based Hexagon Robotics, the AEON humanoid robot features technologies such as advanced sensors and AI-driven mission control to enable it to automate heavy, repetitive battery-assembly tasks. Hexagon Robotics launched AEON in June 2025 and is working with partners, including BMW, to adapt it to specific industrial processes. The robot underwent an initial test deployment at BMW Group’s Leipzig plant in December 2025. Its human‑like body allows for a wide range of hand and gripper elements or scanning tools to be attached, while wheels attached to the end of its ‘legs’ enable fast, convenient movement. During the pilot phase, due to start this summer,…

  • Drax power plant to stop burning Canadian wood pellets within the next year

    Drax power station plans to stop burning controversial Canadian wood pellets and switch to a US-only supply from 2027. Located near Selby in North Yorkshire, Drax started life as a coal-fired power station when it was opened in 1974, but started co-firing biomass by 2010 in response to government concerns about the UK’s carbon emissions. Generating approximately 6% of the UK’s electricity, the plant has received billions of pounds in renewable energy subsidies from the government levied on household energy bills as wood-burning is classed as a source of clean energy. This is on the condition that the biomass pellets are made from waste or low-value wood from sustainable, commercially managed forests. To feed this biomass plant, Drax owns wood pellet production plants in Canada. According…

  • Snake-like robot to retrieve radioactive debris from inside Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant

    A third trial to inspect and retrieve a small amount of radioactive debris from Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has been announced by plant operator the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco). The remotely operated robotic arm, measuring 22 metres and weighing 4.6 tonnes, will snake through narrow passages to conduct internal investigations and retrieve a sample of melted fuel debris from inside the nuclear plant. In 2011, a massive earthquake and resulting tsunami wrecked the Fukushima nuclear power plant. The meltdown was considered the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, Ukraine, in 1986. Tepco is currently engaged in a decades-long effort to decommission the plant. This includes dealing with large amounts of highly radioactive melted fuel inside three reactors damaged during…

  • Captured landfill CO2 to boost crop growth in Wiltshire growing domes

    Researchers are planning to extract gas that has built up under a landfill site in Wiltshire and use it for heat, power and CO2 in a growing dome to create ideal year-round growing conditions for crops. When organic waste such as food scraps, paper and garden waste break down in a landfill site, it typically decomposes anaerobically due to a lack of oxygen. This process, driven by naturally occurring microorganisms, produces landfill gas mainly composed of methane and carbon dioxide that cannot easily escape once the landfill site has been capped. The Royal Wootton Bassett Crapper and Sons landfill site is now planning to produce purified CO2, captured from the landfill gas-to-power process, which will be pumped into newly erected bio-secure growing domes to promote photosynthesis. Three…

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