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China’s carbon emissions set to decrease from 2024

China’s carbon emissions are set to fall in 2024, according to new analysis for Carbon Brief. The country – the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter – is projected to account for 45 per cent of global CO2 emissions between 2023 and 2050. China has recently witnessed an increase in its CO2 emissions of 4.7 per cent year-on-year in the third quarter of 2023. Scientists have interpreted this surge as a rebound from the nation’s ‘zero-Covid’ period. They have predicted that the country’s emissions will reach a peak this year, before beginning a structural decline from 2024. China is aiming to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 . As part of this effort, the country has made significant investments in renewable energy sources such as solar and wind. The country met its solar and wind installation…

E+T Magazine in Sustainable Development
University of Edinburgh launches generative AI laboratory

The University of Edinburgh has unveiled a new multi-million pound initiative to create a generative AI laboratory (GAIL). The initiative is expected to allow the university to “push the forefront of generative AI” as well as “benefit society and stimulate economic growth” by powering applications in areas including robotics, drug discovery, medical diagnoses, semiconductor development and tackling climate change. GAIL’s researchers will also work in partnership with the university’s Centre for Technomoral Futures to address the ethical, legal and regulatory frameworks necessary to ensure the safe and responsible use of AI, the university said. “GAIL builds on world-class research at the School of Informatics in AI and machine learning, which has been applied to a variety of fields…

E+T Magazine
UK’s EG to buy Tesla’s ultra-fast EV charging technology

EG Group has announced its plans to acquire Tesla’s ultra-fast EV charging units, with a view to expand its charging network from over 600 EV chargers to more than 20,000. The business is owned by the billionaire brothers Mohsin and Zuber Issa, who also own UK supermarket Asda. The company plans to use Tesla’s industry-leading technology for its new charge points, which will be branded ‘evpoint’ and supplied by 100 per cent renewable energy. However, the hardware will operate on an open network basis to allow drivers of any EV brand to access the chargers. “The rapid installation of reliable, easy-to-use EV charging infrastructure is the right step towards a sustainable future,” said Rebecca Tinucci, Tesla’s senior director of charging infrastructure. EG’ s evpoint is one of Europe…

E+T Magazine in Power Conversion
Wall Street works to recover from cyber attack that hit China’s largest bank

ICBC Financial Services said it is recovering from a cyber attack that disrupted its systems and forced employees to trade with USB sticks. ICBC FS is the US unit of China’s biggest bank and the world’s largest commercial lender by total assets. The attack rendered the bank unable to clear many US Treasury trades and caused it to temporarily owe BNY Mellon $9bn (£7bn). It could only return the debt after a cash injection from its Chinese parent. ICBC has said it is working with cyber-security firm MoxFive to set up secure systems that would allow it to resume normal business on Wall Street. However, the disruption caused by the hack has raised concerns about the resilience of the $26tn (£21tn) Treasury market. “Immediately upon discovering the incident, ICBC FS disconnected and isolated…

E+T Magazine in Cybersecurity
Airbus signs deal with the ESA on upcoming Starlab space station

Starlab is a planned low-Earth orbit (LEO) space station designed by Nanoracks that is expected to launch in 2028. The station is seen as a successor to the International Space Station (ISS) after its deorbiting, which is currently planned for the early 2030s. The new agreement signed with ESA focuses on the firms’ intention to foster science and technology development, which could include astronaut missions and research activities, as well as the use of technology developed in Europe such as advanced robotics and AI. It also introduces plans to establish a complete ‘end-to-end’ system with the Starlab space station as an LEO destination and a potential ESA-developed European cargo and crew transportation system. European astronauts have been travelling to the ISS for over 20 years, offering…

E+T Magazine in Space
Thames Water pumped 72 billion litres of sewage into the Thames in two years

Thames Water has pumped at least 72 billion litres of sewage into the River Thames since 2020 – an amount roughly equal to 29,000 Olympic swimming pools. The data was obtained by the Liberal Democrats through an environmental Freedom of Information request, as first reported by the BBC. The water company discharged at least 14.3 billion litres of sewage into the Thames in 2022, and at least 32 billion in 2021 – making it the worst year on record for sewage discharges into the river. But the total volume of sewage discharged is likely to be far higher than this. Thames Water only has sewage monitors to measure volume in some locations, which it used during the construction of the Thames Tideway Tunnel. Currently, water firms have no legal obligation to report the amount of sewage…

E+T Magazine in Water Supply
UK signs major deal with the US to develop nuclear fusion technology

The UK has signed a deal with the US to further research into advanced fusion energy as part of efforts to tackle the climate crisis. In a joint statement, the UK’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) and the US Department of Energy said that fusion could provide “a low-carbon, safe, sustainable and reliable energy supply” with the potential to bolster global efforts to achieve net zero carbon emissions. The technology has been in development for decades but has yet to be commercialised. However, in December last year, scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory were finally able to produce more energy than was consumed during a fusion energy reaction in a major breakthrough. This new partnership between the two countries aims to further cooperation on fusion…

E+T Magazine in Research and Innovation
Governments ‘doubling down’ on fossil fuels despite climate change goals

The major new report from the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and other climate bodies found that 2030 production levels are 69 per cent more than what would be consistent with a less ambitious 2°C warming scenario. 151 national governments have pledged to achieve net zero emissions. The latest forecasts suggest that global coal, oil and gas demand will peak this decade, even without new policies. Despite this, current government plans would lead to an increase in global coal production until 2030, and in global oil and gas production until at least 2050. The Production Gap Report 2023 profiles 20 major fossil-fuel-producing countries including China, Germany, India, Saudi Arabia and the UK. It finds there are “uncertainties” around the viability…

E+T Magazine in Climate Change
Indonesia launches South-east Asia’s largest floating solar farm

Indonesia has opened a $108m (£88m) floating solar plant in a significant renewable energy milestone for the country. The project was developed by PLN Nusantara Power and the renewable energy company Masdar from the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The plant was built on Cirata reservoir, 108km (67 miles) south-east of the capital Jakarta. It is the third-largest floating solar plant in the world and could be expanded up to 1,000MWp, PLN chief executive Darmawan Prasodjo said. The 13 arrays installed so far only occupy 4 per cent of the reservoir’s surface. “Today is a historical day, because our big dream to build a renewable energy plant on a big scale is finally achieved,” President Joko Widodo said. “ We managed to build the largest floating solar farm in South-east Asia, and the third…

E+T Magazine in Renewable Energy
Smartphone sensors able to detect alcohol intoxication with high accuracy

Researchers at Stanford Medicine and the University of Toronto conducted a small study of 18 adults aged 21 or over. Participants were given a weight-based dose of alcohol and randomly assigned a series of tongue twisters – one before drinking, and one each hour up to seven hours after drinking. The participants were asked to read the tongue twister aloud, and a smartphone was placed on a table 1-2ft away to record their voices. Researchers also measured their breath alcohol concentration at the beginning of the study and every 30 minutes for up to seven hours. They used digital programs to isolate the speaker’s voices, broke them into one-second increments and analysed measures such as frequency and pitch. When checked against breath alcohol results, changes in the participants’ voice…

E+T Magazine in Research and Innovation
Ofcom unveils new rules to protect children online

UK telecoms regulator Ofcom has published guidelines on how tech firms can comply with the long-awaited legislation and protect children from coming into contact with harmful content online. The guidance is part of the first set of draft codes of practice under the OSA. This one focuses on how user-to-user (U2U) services – including social media platforms, online games and search engines – will be expected to respond to different types of illegal content. OSA has been described as a “landmark” legislation , aimed at preventing the spread of child sexual abuse material, terrorism content and fraud. According to Ofcom, its first priority will be protecting children. The codes recommend that platforms avoid presenting children with lists of suggested friends or allowing children to appear…

E+T Magazine in Ethical Aspects
New legislation to hold carmakers responsible for self-driving vehicle crashes

A new safety framework is to be introduced that will ensure companies producing self-driving vehicles are responsible for how their cars behave on the road. Every authorised self-driving vehicle will be given a corresponding ‘entity’ – often the manufacturer – which will be responsible for the car’s behaviour during operation. Companies will also have obligations to keep their vehicles safe and ensure that they continue to drive in accordance with UK laws. Over the last decade, progress has stalled on autonomous vehicles on both sides of the Atlantic, despite predictions that they would be commonplace by now. While the technology already exists for autonomous vehicles to drive relatively safely on UK roads, legislation has held it back from hitting the mainstream. Some studies suggests…

E+T Magazine in Ethical Aspects
Australia investigates network outage that left millions without internet

The Australian government has launched an investigation into the nationwide communications outage that left residents without access to the internet for 12 hours on Wednesday 9 November. “It is critical that industry and governments take stock following large-scale outages, given no network is immune,” said communications minister Michelle Rowland, calling the failure “particularly concerning”. Optus said a “configuration issue” may have been the cause of the outage, and stressed there was no evidence of a cyber attack. The outage disrupted countless services, including business transactions, phone lines used by emergency services and transport links such as t rain services in the state of Victoria. The Federal Department of Education, the Royal Melbourne Hospital and CommBank were…

E+T Magazine in Telecommunications
2023 set to become the warmest year on record, scientists say

Copernicus, the Earth observation agency, has warned that last month was the hottest October on record globally, with temperatures 1.7°C above late-1800s levels. This paves the way for 2023 to become the warmest year since records began. “We can say with near certainty that 2023 will be the warmest year on record, and is currently 1.43°C above the pre-industrial average,” said Samantha Burgess, deputy director of Copernicus Climate Change Service. “The sense of urgency for ambitious climate action going into COP28 has never been higher.” The EU agency said that g lobal average air temperatures in October 2023 were 0.4°C warmer than the previous high of October 2019. The rise in global temperatures was described as a result of increasing carbon emissions and an El Niño weather event. …

E+T Magazine in Climate Change
London to use waste heat from data centres to warm nearby buildings

Waste heat from data centres will be pumped into a new district heat network in London that is designed to warm nearby buildings. The government’s Green Heat Network Fund (GHNF) has awarded £36m to the project that will see a heat network being built in a new development area around Old Oak Common Station and deliver more than 9,000 homes and 250,000m 2 of commercial development. The scheme will be run by the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation (OPDC) in three London boroughs: Hammersmith and Fulham, Brent and Ealing. Data centres typically consume huge amounts of energy – a significant proportion of which is used to cool the enormous amount of waste heat generated during computation. This predictable supply of ‘low-grade heat’ (between 20°C and 35°C) is often wasted, with…

E+T Magazine in Computing
‘Digital divide’ between urban and rural areas widening, report shows

The report Connecting the Countryside, which has been carried out by WPI Economics on behalf of the operator, claims that close to a million (838,000) people are living in areas that would significantly benefit from access to 5G Standalone. Currently, the UK’s 5G networks are non-standalone, meaning that the core of the network is largely the same as it was during the days of 4G. With 5G Standalone, the entire network package has been upgraded with 5G-era technology, which should bring higher download and upload speeds. Most 5G in the UK is using non-standalone because it is cheaper and quicker to roll out. According to Vodafone, Scotland, Wales, East Anglia, Cumbria and the South-West are the worst-performing areas of Britain for connectivity. Vodafone said it “pledged” to close the…

E+T Magazine
North Sea oil and gas licences to be awarded annually

Until this week, the UK had no fixed period between the awarding of oil and gas licensing rounds. But Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has introduced a scheme that would require the North Sea Transition Authority to invite applications for new production licences annually. The announcement was made in the King’s Speech that marked the opening of Parliament. The new bill was described as helping the country transition to net zero in a “pragmatic, proportionate and realistic way”. “This bill will support the future licensing of new oil and gas fields, helping the country to transition to net zero by 2050 without adding undue burdens on households,” the King said, adding it would help “reduce reliance on volatile international energy markets and hostile foreign regimes”. The government has also…

E+T Magazine in Fossil Fuels
British Steel’s decarbonisation plan puts 2,000 jobs at risk

Its ambitious decarbonisation plan could put thousands of jobs at risk. The company – owned by China-based Jingye – has announced its intention of closing down the blast furnaces as part of a £1.25bn effort to shift to electric steelmaking operations, which would make British Steel “a clean, green and sustainable business”. The firm’s green plan includes the building of two EAFs located in Scunthorpe and Teesside, as well as the shutting of its polluting coal-fired blast furnaces. The EAFs are expected to reduce British Steel’s carbon dioxide emissions by 75 per cent. They could be in operation by late 2025, the company said. Chief executive Xijun Cao said the move was necessary in order to meet the company’s environmental commitments. “We have engaged extensively with the public…

E+T Magazine in Manufacturing
20GW of green energy projects fast-tracked for grid connection

The new energy infrastructure will start with 19 battery projects amounting to around 10GW that will be given the option of connecting to the grid about four years earlier than they otherwise would have done. A further 10GW will be unlocked in the Midlands, South West of England and South Wales, which includes a raft of low-carbon technology projects, bringing forward some ‘shovel ready’ schemes by up to five years. National Grid said the accelerated 20GW of projects equates to the capacity of six Hinkley Point C nuclear power stations. Developers looking to connect renewable energy projects have previously told E+T that they face delays of up to 15 years to connect to the electricity grid. In June there were around 220 projects due to connect to the national transmission system before…

E+T Magazine in Renewable Energy
First transatlantic flight powered by sustainable aviation fuel given green light

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said it had carried out technical assessments of Virgin’s plans, including undertaking ground testing with Rolls-Royce on a Trent 1000 engine running on 100 per cent SAF. SAFs are typically derived by combining jet fuel with alternatives such as biofuels or recycled oils from industrial food facilities to achieve carbon savings of up to 70 per cent. They are often considered to be the most carbon-efficient option for aviation given the limits of current technology, which leaves electric and hydrogen planes in the prototype stage for now. Currently, SAF is approved for use in all aircraft, but only in blends of up to 50 per cent with conventional jet fuel. Virgin Atlantic was awarded up to £1m of UK government funding in December 2022, following a challenge…

E+T Magazine in Aerospace
WeWork valued at just $50m as it files for bankruptcy

The story of the meteoric rise and fall of WeWork has come to an end, as the SoftBank Group-backed start-up has filed for bankruptcy in the US as a means of grappling with debts of billions of dollars. With its provision of shared working space, WeWork was once seen as the future of the workplace. The company, once valued at $47bn (£38bn), is now worth less than $50m (£41m), based on its latest share price. The filing is expected to give the company protection from its creditors and landlords as it restructures its vast debts. A WeWork spokesperson said about 92 per cent of the company's lenders had agreed to convert their secured debt into equity under a restructuring support agreement. WeWork has more than 700 sites around the world and around 730,000 members, but the bankruptcy filing…

E+T Magazine
Sizewell C to build desalination plant to meet its water needs

With the UK’s ageing fleet of eight nuclear power stations needing to be replaced, and only EDF’s Hinkley Point C undergoing construction, Sizewell C will play an important role in backing up renewable energy in the switch away from fossil fuels. The project is expected to be finished by 2036 at the latest and will provide 7 per cent of the UK’s electricity needs. Desalination is expected to become an important future technology in the UK as the effects of climate change put greater strain on water supplies in rivers and reservoirs. To reduce the impact of the plant on the environment, Sizewell C is in discussions with EDF Energy Nuclear Generation to agree on a supply of zero-carbon electricity from the neighbouring power station Sizewell B. This will reduce the need to run the desalination…

E+T Magazine in Nuclear Power
FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried found guilty of fraud and money laundering

A jury found the founder of FTX guilty on seven counts of criminal fraud, closing a chapter on one of the most publicised trials of the cryptocurrency world. The jury delivered the verdict after less than five hours of deliberations, leaving the judge to decide on a sentence that could send Bankman-Fried to prison for as many as 115 years. The former billionaire, 31, was arrested in the Bahamas and extradited to the US after FTX went bankrupt last year. The downfall of the crypto exchange and its sister hedge fund Alameda Research rattled financial markets and caused Bankman-Fried to lose his estimated $26bn (£21bn) fortune. “Sam Bankman-Fried thought that he was above the law,” said attorney-general Merrick Garland. “Today’s verdict proves he was wrong.” The ‘crypto king’ was accused…

E+T Magazine in Ethical Aspects
Europe’s ‘first operational orbital spaceport’ built on remote Norwegian island

Andøya Spaceport will be used to launch satellites from European commercial space company Isar Aerospace (IA). When fully constructed, the facility will host several launch pads, with IA gaining exclusive access to the first launch site, which was built to its specifications. It includes a launch pad, payload integration facilities and a mission control centre. The launch site will support the two-stage launch vehicle Spectrum, which is set to carry out final stage testing by IA. While the designs have been completed, the vehicle is currently in the production phase, including construction on the flight engines. The rocket stages will then have to undergo a series of tests that will verify that the systems meet all necessary requirements for flight. Image credit: Isar…

E+T Magazine in Space

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