• Nuclear transport: is atomic energy really a viable path to reaching net zero?

    As governments around the world recognise the urgent need to decarbonise, nuclear power looks set to make a resurgence as advocates of the technology position it as a key component in the energy mix over the coming decades. Significant resource and investment is being channelled into the development of small modular reactors (SMRs), mini versions of power stations made in factories and capable of powering up to a million homes each. Politicians including US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson are backing the concept, while companies including EDF, the world’s biggest operator of atomic plants, Rolls-Royce and TerraPower, a nuclear innovation firm backed by tech billionaire Bill Gates, all have prototype reactors in development. SMRs started life as propulsion systems…

  • View from India: Budget green signal for agriculturists

    Digital is the crux of diverse verticals, so it’s understandable that in her Budget earlier this month the Union Finance Minister (FM) Nirmala Sitharaman (pictured) has initiated efforts to build an industry-ready workforce. The efforts, understood as skilling programmes, include industry partnerships to promote continuous skilling avenues, sustainability and employability. The National Skill Qualification Framework (NSQF) will be aligned with industry needs. That apart, entrepreneurial opportunities are likely to emerge from the Digital Ecosystem for Skilling and Livelihood (DESH-Stack) eportal. It aims to empower citizens to skill, reskill or upskill through online training. It will also provide API-based (application programming interface) trusted skill credentials, payment and channels…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Sponsored: Designing for Facility Management 2.0

    This white paper brings together industry thought leaders from across the value chain to discuss a recommended path forward, including the tangible benefits to each stakeholder with proof of success. Key Learning Points: You will better understand that even though evolving standards and guidelines are encompassing many of the new FM challenges, the industry has yet to catch up and embrace the vision of facility management 2.0. You will learn about the challenges faced by each stakeholder group across the building value chain and the tangible benefits they can realise through a more collaborative approach in the design-build process. You will discover a recommended set of new best practices intended to help all players, large and small, around the globe move forward in helping make the…

  • The bigger picture: Human-faced robot

    The robot, which can copy human expressions, has the ability to move its eyes, eyebrows, mouth, and other muscles. It can also answer questions, serving as a “companion”, the company claims. Promobot, the company behind ‘Android Robo-C’, claims its human-like bot, which has a specially developed artificial skin, has a range of over 600 facial expressions. Promobot's chairman of the board of directors, Aleksei Iuzhakov (pictured below, eyeing up his robotic alter ego), says anyone will now be able to order a robot with any appearance, for professional or personal use. Image credit: , Iuzhakov says the company can build a linguistic model based on popular phrases of a particular person – the robot will communicate and answer questions by analysing frequent expressions…

  • Hands-on gadget review: Kokoon Nightbuds

    These are petite Bluetooth earbuds designed to be comfortable even in your sleep, however you sleep. They’re not separate ‘true wireless’ earbuds; instead the two are joined together with a wire. The design seeks to minimise the size of the buds and ensure that they stay in firmly. Each genuinely fits into your ear without protruding. A spur of silicone points backwards and helps it stay comfortably in place, while the wire goes upwards and then is shaped to loop over the back of your ear. Then the design unusually has a zig-zag of wires leading to a flat, fabric-covered pack at the back of your head. The pack contains controls, an indicator light and no doubt the battery. There are just three little buttons at the top of the pack. One for power and the others adjust the volume. They’re…

  • Zero carbon energy grids need nuclear in the short term, study finds

    Currently, gaps in energy production from wind and solar are often replaced by power generation from natural gas. In a zero-emission electricity system, another way is needed to provide electricity when renewables are not generating energy. “Renewable energy sources like wind and solar are great for reducing carbon emissions,” said lead researcher Lei Duan from the Carnegie Institution for Science. “However, the wind and Sun have natural variation in their availability from day to day, as well as across geographic regions, and this creates complications for total emissions reduction.” Previous studies have shown that curbing 80 per cent of carbon emissions can be achieved by ramping up wind and solar power harvesting installations. However, gaps between supply and demand created by…

  • Could nuclear power help get us to net zero?

    The last decade or so has been full of ups and downs, with construction of two EPR pressurised water reactors (PWRs) at Hinkley Point C a prominent example. Originally announced in 2010 and, according to lead investor EDF, now on course to open in 2026, the project has been the source of financing tensions between the government and its owners. A reflection of those is that while the original estimate was that Hinkley C could produce electricity at £20/MWh, the final ‘strike price’ EDF negotiated is £92.50/MWh (2012 prices and indexed to rise with inflation). And the project is still a year behind schedule. It is the only one of eight nuclear power station sites originally selected by Westminster to be under construction. In 2018, Toshiba pulled out of a project at Moorside in Cumbria,…

  • Scotland to get two ‘green freeports’ with focus on net zero commitments

    Freeports are special areas within the UK’s borders where different economic regulations apply and are centred around one or more air, rail, or seaport, but often extend beyond it too. The Department for Levelling Up said the new hubs will support the regeneration of communities across Scotland and will bring jobs to the region. The Green Freeports will be built with net-zero targets in mind as prospective bidders will have to make a pledge to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2045. The bidding process will open this spring with hope that the new sites will be operational by the same time next year. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: “Freeports will help to accelerate our plan to level up communities across the whole of the United Kingdom. “They have the power to be truly transformational…

  • Photo essay: modern X-ray gallery

    Little has changed in radiography since it was first used. Shadow images are still captured with a detector and film is still often processed with the same techniques of the late 1800s. It is, however, always in development; images are now of higher quality with greater sensitivity, thanks to better film and film grain size. In many industries, digital array detectors have replaced film, which means the digital capture can go anywhere, any time, and never degrade, which physical film could. Technology has enabled diverse fields to access radiography and the industry now has access to smaller and portable equipment, which can be used at airports and other locations that need security systems. With radiographic inspection, many weird and wonderful items can be picked up. …

  • Radioactivity boasts benefits in medicine and beyond

    Radiation is a double-edged sword for healthcare. The high-energy waves can be used to examine bones in X-rays and destroy tumours, but the same high-energy rays can be destructive, burning skin and damaging internal organs without any outward sign. X-rays are a form of electromagnetic radiation, similar to but more intense than infrared, ultraviolet or microwaves. Radiation therapy uses X-rays and gamma rays delivered in a beam of high-energy light by an external source. Today, around 50 per cent of cancer patients benefit from radiation therapy in the treatment and management of their disease. The rays actively divide cells in DNA and also oxidise water to make free radicals, which diffuse to the DNA. Splitting a double strand in the DNA in a tumour cell will kill it. There are different…

  • Apple will update its AirTag tracking devices to allay privacy concerns

    AirTags, which were first introduced in April last year, are small devices designed to be attached to bags, keys or anything users want to keep track of. Their whereabouts can then be tracked using Apple’s ‘Find My’ network, which uses Bluetooth if nearby or an encrypted network made up of nearly a billion Apple devices if not. Since their release, some people have reported being tracked using AirTags without their consent, raising privacy concerns. Addressing the concerns, Apple said: “We have been actively working with law enforcement on all AirTag-related requests we’ve received. Based on our knowledge and on discussions with law enforcement, incidents of AirTag misuse are rare; however, each instance is one too many.” It condemned “malicious” use of the product and revealed plans…

  • Google’s privacy changes accepted by competition watchdog

    The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said the search engine has now signed up to legally binding rules designed to inhibit Google extending its market dominance even further in online advertising. Regulators will have an oversight position to ensure Google’s 'Privacy Sandbox' plan avoids squeezing competition when removing third-party cookies on its Chrome browser. The commitments, which run for six years, include the CMA and Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) working with Google during the development and testing of the new Sandbox proposals. Regulators said they want to ensure the changes protect consumers both from competition and privacy and will not be put into action prior to a series of testing phases. Google has already delayed rollout of the plans until 2023 and…

  • ‘Engineers who forget to think about materials will never be good engineers’: Dr Kate Black, Meta Additive

    Tucked away in the red-brick Dickensian backstreets of Stoke-on-Trent, in the area of the industrial Midlands known as the Potteries, there’s an old bottle kiln called Sutherland Works that’s being restored. This is where you’ll find Meta Additive, one of the UK’s leading lights in additive manufacturing, or as Kate Black puts it: “in layman’s terms, a 3D printing company that focuses on new materials.” For the past few decades, says Meta Additive’s chief technology officer, this Next Big Thing has been “limited by the materials it uses”. We’ve come a long way from the days when the process of stereolithography, or ‘rapid prototyping’ as it was once called, produced “plastic trinkets that helped you to see how something worked”. Black is referring to decades-old, antiquated processes that…

  • £2.5m bid to turn Devon site into woodland wildlife haven

    The nature charity is asking for the public’s help to urgently raise the remaining £1m of the £2.5m asking price needed to transform land near Lympstone, close to the Exe Estuary in Devon, with a mixture of planting and letting trees and shrubs grow back naturally. Areas will also be left as open ground with wood pasture and grassland and it is hoped the project will create conditions for a range of species to colonise, including rare nightjars, threatened bats, hazel dormice (pictured above) and dingy skipper butterflies. The 54-hectare (134-acre) site could even attract beavers from the nearby River Otter population once streams and waterways have been restored and colonised with native alder, willow and other trees, the charity said. The area is currently made up of farmland and small…

  • Low-carbon plastic recycling process developed using ‘supercritical’ water

    The team from the University of Birmingham used water under incredibly high pressure and temperature called ‘supercritical’, where its properties and operational behaviour are completely different from ambient/hot water. Supercritical water can be a solvent for all organic materials including plastics. Its gas-like penetration power makes it a superior medium to decompose mixtures of complex waste plastics into value-added materials, which are feedstock for manufacturing new plastics. The team wants to further develop the process, dubbed CircuPlast, to improve the conversion of non-recyclable end-of-life plastics into high-value chemicals for use as feedstock for the plastics industry. The process has been licensed to engineering consultants Stopford. The firm’s technology & innovation…

  • Letters to the editor: volume 17, issue 2

    Smart meters need reliable power A friend recently lost domestic heating, with a fault code showing on the boiler. The repair person visited, and found that the gas supply itself was the issue. The smart meter had shut down, because it depends on an internal battery. The solution requires the energy provider to schedule a complete replacement of the meter. That would seem reasonable enough, if the devices can achieve the hoped-for ten-year lifetime from their cells, although awkward and wasteful. However, this is the third such meter my friend has had fitted in three years. I imagine this is not an isolated case. That’s a lot of potential WEEE waste. There would seem to be some obvious design flaws here that could be addressed: A domestic remote energy monitor could warn the consumer of…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Gadgets: Kokoon Nightbuds, Sky Glass, Glowforge Pro and more

    Kokoon Nightbuds Tiny Bluetooth earbuds for sleep: they don’t protrude but connect comfortably behind your head. Listen to your favourites, plus the app offers a range of white noises and sleep-inducing meditations. It tracks sleep, even senses when you nod off, and then fades out the sounds. £229.99 kokoon.io Sky Glass A state-of-the-art 4K HDR Dolby Atmos TV with broadband-based Sky built in (no extra box, no satellite dish). It’s stunning, comes in a living-room-friendly range of colours and with intuitive voice commands, but pricey. Even if you pay monthly like a phone contract, you’ll need a Sky subscription too. From £649 (or £13 a month) sky.com/glass FlexiSpot E8 ...

  • Tesla recalls nearly 580,000 vehicles over ‘Boombox’ function, as scrutiny intensifies

    The recall is the fourth to be made public in the last two weeks as US watchdog the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) increases its scrutiny of the nation’s largest electric vehicle maker. In two of the recalls, Tesla made decisions that break safety laws, while the others were down to software errors. The NHTSA said on its website on Thursday that the cars and SUVs have what Tesla calls a 'Boombox' function that allows drivers to play sounds while the vehicles are moving. This breaches federal safety standards that require pedestrian warning noises for electric cars, which make little noise when moving, the agency says. The agency says the problem will be repaired with an over-the-air software update that will disable the 'Boombox' function. It says the function can…

  • UK’s first battery-diesel hybrid train enters passenger service

    According to its owner Porterbrook, the train was developed by adding a powerful battery to a 20-year-old diesel train to reduce fuel consumption and CO2 emissions by 25 per cent. The firm added that the two-carriage train, named HybridFLEX, also provides a 75 per cent decrease in noise and a 70 per cent decrease in nitrogen oxide. The Government has pledged to remove all diesel-only trains from UK railways by 2040. Chiltern Railways will introduce the train on its 40-mile route between London Marylebone and Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, from today (10 February). There are also plans to use it between the capital and Oxford in the coming months. “Chiltern Railways is determined to operate a railway that is as sustainable and environmentally friendly as possible,” said its managing director…

  • View from India: Preparing for a circular and green economy

    The spotlight is on clean and sustainable mobility. The finance minister has indicated that the use of public transport in urban areas will be promoted; this will be complemented by clean tech and governance solutions, special mobility zones with a zero-fossil-fuel policy, and electric vehicles (EVs). Considering the constraint of space in urban areas for setting up charging stations at scale, a battery-swapping policy will be brought in and inter-operability standards will be formulated. “For the Indian automobile sector, which is a significant contributor to the nation’s GDP [gross domestic product], the budget offers continuity and also additional opportunities to drive multi-year growth,” said PB Balaji, Group CFO at Tata Motors. "Specifically, the robust increase in capex [capital expenditure…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Fusion power experiment generates ‘milestone’ energy load

    According to researchers from the EUROfusion consortium, which encompasses 4,800 experts from across Europe, the experiment at the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) site in Oxford more than doubled previous energy generation records that were achieved in 1997. Fifty-nine megajoules of sustained fusion energy were generated for five seconds in the Joint European Torus (JET) tokamak machine. The scientific data from the experiment is seen as a major boost for ITER, the larger and more advanced version of JET. The ITER tokamak proof-of-concept fusion plant has been under construction in France since 2013. Its main reactor is planned to be completed in late 2025 and is designed to create and sustain a plasma of 500MW (thermal power) for 20 minutes, with just 50MW of thermal power injected…

  • View from Brussels: Fishing for chips

    Microchips are the latest technology to be the focus of a ‘Made in the EU’ drive by Brussels, which has already pumped millions of euros into batteries, quantum computing and the cloud.  According to a new strategy published on 8 February, the EU will allocate around €11 billion of public funding to develop new semiconductor technology and ramp up the production of chips within its borders. More than €30 billion in further investment from the private sector is being targeted by the architect of the ‘EU Chips Act’, the European Commission, which is the EU’s executive branch. A miniscule 9 per cent of global microchip production is currently located in the EU, and the goal of the Chips Act is to increase that to 20 per cent by 2030. If achieved, this would still only be a slight clawback…

  • Toyota and Honda profits fall due to chip shortages

    Toyota reported nearly a 6 per cent drop last quarter with profits totalling 791.7bn yen (£5.1bn), down from 838.7bn yen (£5.4bn) the previous year. Honda fared even worse, with profits dropping by a sizable 32 per cent to just 192.9bn yen (£1.1bn), down from 284bn yen (£1.8bn) the year before. Both firms anticipate that the chip shortage will continue to affect them over the next financial year. In June, an executive at chipmaker Intel said that the global semiconductor shortage could take many years to resolve as global supply chains continued to struggle under the “explosive growth in semiconductors” required for much of the world’s population to adjust to the coronavirus pandemic. While Intel's plans to expand its US chip manufacturing operations, with a $20bn investment towards two…

  • Geomagnetic storm destroys SpaceX satellites just days after launch

    The Starlink service has been designed to provide broadband internet using its own constellation of satellites, which function as a wireless network providing continuous coverage across the planet for Internet of Things devices, particularly in remote areas in industries such as agriculture and maritime. SpaceX launched 49 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit last Thursday on the back of a Falcon 9 rocket. They were quickly shifted into their intended orbit, roughly 210km above Earth, and the firm confirmed that each satellite managed to achieve controlled flight. Initially, SpaceX deploys its satellites into these lower orbits so they can be quickly deorbited by atmospheric drag if initial system checks show that they will not function correctly. “While the low deployment altitude…

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