• Tourism pollution in Wales assuaged with £26m funding

    Over one million tourists visit Wales every year. In 2021, the number of visitors from within the UK drastically increased, as people avoided travelling abroad due to the impact of COVID-19. In light of its popularity as a tourist destination, the Welsh government is taking steps to address the carbon footprint that the industry generates, as the country prepares for the summer holidays.  Last summer, social media platforms and news outlets were awash with pictures of overcrowding in popular destinations such as Snowdon, Yr Wyddfa, where there were daily queues to reach the summit. Globally, studies suggest that c arbon dioxide emissions from tourism could increase by more than 300 per cent by the end of the century if nothing is done to address this.  To tackle this challenge, the Welsh…

  • Energy price cap to rise in October as cost-of-living crisis worsens

    Ofgem chief executive Jonathan Brearley has told MPs the regulator is expecting an energy price cap in October “in the region of £2,800”. The energy regulator said it expects the cap to rise 42 per cent from its current level of £1,971. The news comes after Ofcom proposed to review the price cap every three months, instead of twice a year, in an attempt to bring down prices sooner. Last month, the cap increased by 54 per cent, from £1,277 in October 2021. “The price changes are genuinely a once-in-a-generation event not seen since the oil crisis in the 1970s,” Brearley told MPs on the BEIS Committee. Brearley warned that this increase in UK residents’ energy bills may double the number of people in fuel poverty - defined as households that spend over 10 per cent of their disposable income…

  • Graphyne, sister material to graphene, created in bulk for the first time

    Prior to the project by researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder, only a few fragments of graphyne had ever been produced despite decades of work and theorising. The CU Boulder team believes the material could open brand-new possibilities for electronics, optics and semiconducting material research. “The whole audience, the whole field, is really excited that this long-standing problem, or this imaginary material, is finally getting realised,” said Yiming Hu, lead author on the paper. Scientists have long been interested in the construction of new or novel carbon allotropes, or forms of carbon, because of carbon’s versatility in a wide range of applications. Using traditional chemistry methods, scientists have successfully created various allotropes over the years, including…

  • Ford trials geofencing technology to automatically control vehicle speed

    Ford is trialling an innovative geofencing technology - a type of virtual geographical boundary - where special rules can be set around specific locations. The company is hoping to be able to ensure that internet-connected vehicles automatically adhere to set speed limits in specific areas. By controlling vehicle speeds, the vehicle manufacturer aims to reduce the need for speed limit signs, as well as helping users avoid inadvertently breaching those limits.  In Europe, as many as 29 per cent of road fatalities are pedestrians and cyclists and many local authorities are s etting up 30km/h (approximately 20mph) zones to reduce the risk to pedestrians in urban areas, particularly around schools, hospitals and shopping areas.  “Geofencing can ensure speeds are reduced where, and even when…

  • London’s oft-delayed £19bn Elizabeth line finally opens to the public

    Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said that benefits of the new line will extend beyond London and the South East with the whole country “reaping the rewards” of a potential multibillion-pound boost to the economy created by the major infrastructure project. The project has been in the making for a long time, with Crossrail being given an initial £14.8bn budget that slowly ballooned over time following repeated delays to stand at around £19bn. Nine new stations are opening in central London which will provide Elizabeth line services every five minutes from 06:30 until 23:00, Monday to Saturday. The new railway will also connect some of London’s major employment centres with outer boroughs and increase central London’s rail capacity by 10 per cent, the largest single increase in more than…

  • War in Ukraine is unbalancing the global energy market

    Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has thrown the global economy and progress towards net-zero into turmoil. It has been joined by a report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which says too many countries are moving too slowly to implement even the Glasgow Climate Pact Alok Sharma rescued in November 2021. As he said, in marking six months since COP26, there are now more post-invasion supply chain worries. Some further threaten food security. In May, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation estimated that 25m tonnes of Ukrainian grain could not be exported because of Russian port blockades and damaged infrastructure. It says famines are a risk, so western countries are looking to free up those supplies quickly. Major powers are also acting in broad unison to support…

  • UK scientists blocked from Horizon funding programme amid Brexit tensions

    The EU has blocked British scientists from accessing the world’s biggest research programme in the latest Brexit row.  The UK’s associate membership of the €95bn (£81bn) Horizon Europe programme was foreseen in the 2020 Brexit agreement. However, the EU has been delaying the UK’s membership as a response to Prime Minister Boris Johnson's threat to tear up the Northern Ireland Protocol, a vital part of the Brexit agreement that governs trade between the region and mainland Britain. Last week, VP of the European Commission, Maroš Šefčovič, said that the EU would respond “with all measures at its disposal” if the UK goes ahead with a bill to disapply elements of the protocol. An official letter seen by Politico stated the EU's intention to use the Horizon programme as a way of pressing the…

  • Google and UK Power Networks develop digital map of electricity cables

    Google's DeepMind and UK Power Networks want to transform the global utility industry with the creation of digital maps of electricity cables. Until now, no artificial intelligence (AI) software has been able to recognise hand-drawn straight lines and recreate them as fully interactive digital files. Google’s DeepMind promises to change that. The company's engineers have partnered with UK Power Networks, which delivers electricity across London, to use new image-recognition software to scan thousands of maps – some of which date back decades – and automatically remaster them into a digital format.  The team aims to create digital versions of maps covering more than 180,000km of electricity cables. Currently, utility firms have to manually scan maps of underground equipment in order to…

  • Offshore energy firms claim that windfall tax will damage investor confidence

    Chancellor Rishi Sunak is reportedly considering a windfall tax on offshore energy firms who have made huge profits in recent months due to sharp increases in the price of oil and gas. The money raised could then be used to help to help households struggling with soaring food and energy costs. But 31 companies working in the offshore energy supply chain have written an open letter to Sunak and Prime Minister Boris Johnson saying that such a move would amount to a “blunt short-term response which could undermine the levers to long-term solutions”. “Our companies, still recovering from the last downturn, today help support some 200,000 jobs and contribute billions to local economies across the UK. As an already fragile supply chain supporting these producers, any further risks to future activity…

  • London’s Elizabeth Line: inside the new Farringdon station

    Say hello to the Elizabeth Line, London’s latest tube extension which Andy Byford, Transport for London’s (TfL) commissioner, has said is “truly transformative and fully accessible”, and has “incredibly quick journey times” and “beautiful, spacious, modern surroundings”. In construction for over a decade, TfL has finally launched the passenger service which travels between 10 new London stations from Paddington to Abbey Wood. The service uses Class 345 trains, that traverse the new tunnels under central London, with 24 trains per hour currently operating. Farringdon, one of the ten newly built stations, is expected to be the UK’s busiest and became the first Crossrail station to be handed over to TfL back in March 2021. It connects the London Underground with Thameslink to provide links…

  • View from India: Cloud is a strategic business imperative

    Digital transformation is the key reason for cloud integration into various sectors and companies. It is not just something fanciful for a handful of elite companies to latch on to. At a recent NASSCOM-EY webinar, Nitin Sawant, India cloud leader at EY, said that a survey conducted earlier in the year had revealed that companies rely on cloud for business transformation, rather than it being a cost reduction initiative. “Big organisations are joined by mid-size companies and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) which are also into cloud-based applications for collaboration, enterprise resource management (ERM), customer relationship management (CRM) and security,” he said. Cloud adoption is cutting across sectors. IT-ITes are joined by banking, financial services and insurance (BSFI) and…

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    E+T Magazine

  • Soft robots autonomously navigate mazes using ambient heat energy

    “These soft robots demonstrate a concept called ‘physical intelligence,’ meaning that structural design and smart materials are what allow the soft robot to navigate various situations, as opposed to computational intelligence,” said corresponding author of the study, Jie Yin. The soft robots are made of liquid crystal elastomers in the shape of a twisted ribbon, resembling translucent rotini. When the ribbon is placed on a surface that is at least 55°C, which is hotter than the ambient air, the portion of the ribbon touching the surface contracts, while the portion of the ribbon exposed to the air does not. This induces a rolling motion in the ribbon: the warmer the surface, the faster it rolls. “This has been done before with smooth-sided rods, but that shape has a drawback…

  • Drone transitions from air to water in less than a second

    A new drone design could pave the way for ultrafast transitions between air and water.  The robot, designed by scientists from Beihang University, Imperial College London and Empa, is capable of switching from an underwater drone to an aerial vehicle in less than one second. This capability could allow it to make great advances in biological and environmental monitoring in marine ecosystems, such as surveying ocean pollution in the open sea. The drone's suction disc was inspired by the remora fish – a family of species known for their adhesive discs, which help them catch a ride on marine creatures including whales and sharks. This enables the drone to hitchhike on wet or dry moving objects to significantly reduce its power consumption, the scientists have explained in a new study published…

  • Net-zero investments could ‘level up’ underperforming parts of the UK

    The Climate Change Committee has forecast that net-zero investment will need to rise from £13.5bn this year to £50bn by 2030 and that around 85 per cent of decarbonisation between 2020 and 2035 will involve low-carbon technologies, either alone or with behavioural change. While the UK is not yet a “green tech superpower”, the report states, it does have a comparative advantage over other advanced economies in several key technologies such as tidal power, offshore wind, and carbon capture and storage. The report finds that areas outside London and the South East also have the greatest potential for a green expansion of the economy, with the areas with the highest share of green patents being the Tees Valley and Durham, and Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. These areas underperform, productivity…

  • Neural network estimates forest height using satellite imagery

    A neural network could size up trees from satellite images, according to new research.  From environmental scientists to civil engineers and wood industry workers, there are many people who require accurate estimates of forest tree size. This information is vital for understanding how much atmospheric carbon dioxide the trees are capturing, whether there’s risk of them damaging power lines, and how much timber is available for logging. Currently, these estimates are obtained from satellite images as well as multiple cameras spanning several bands of infrared radiation, as drone technology is ineffective in large and hard to reach regions. However, this multispectral data is scarce and expensive to acquire. Researchers from Moscow-based research institute Skoltech may have found the perfect…

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    E+T Magazine

  • Clearview AI fined £7.5m for illegally collecting UK citizen's data

    Controversial facial-recognition firm Clearview AI received a multimillion-pound fine for building a database of more than 20 billion images without informing people or gaining their consent. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) found the company did not have a lawful reason for collecting people’s information and failed to adequately inform UK residents over the use of their personal data. As a result, Clearview AI has been fined £7,552,800 and ordered to delete all data gathered from people in the UK. Clearview AI first came under fire in 2020 after its database - built from scraping billions of publicly available images from social media - suffered a security breach. However, privacy advocates have long condemned the company's business model , based on allowing its clients to…

  • Sponsored: Transforming existing hotels to net zero carbon

    This white paper, produced in collaboration with Arup, Gleeds and IHG, tackles the operational net-zero carbon challenge for existing hotels using a real-life case study to demonstrate the impact of each stage in the journey. It sets out a high-level framework, prioritising different interventions throughout the lifecycle with the goal of achieving net-zero carbon in an existing hotel by 2050 in order to meet new regulatory requirements. The study focuses on reducing operational energy to achieve net-zero carbon; also considered is the embodied carbon impact of interventions, and how that compares to building new. Key Learning Points: Reduce operational energy to achieve net-zero carbon Consider the embodied carbon impact of interventions Transform existing buildings to net zero,…

  • Autonomous underwater drones used to maintain offshore wind turbines

    With the amount of UK offshore infrastructure increasing due to the expansion of wind turbines and oil and gas facilities, the need for frequent inspection and maintenance is greater than ever. Conventionally, such tasks are performed by remotely operated vehicles (ROV), which are expensive and require support vessels and skilled crew. The new drone system, developed by researchers from Edinburgh and Heriot-Watt Universities, can perform much of the prior manual work autonomously. It has been tested out on three turbines owned by EDF at the Blyth wind farm off Northumberland. The system can generate data about the facilities including correct scale detailed 3D models that can be analysed to determine what maintenance work may be needed. While some personnel are still required for more…

  • Organic crystals might serve as smart engineering materials

    Organic crystals might be the key to meeting the energy conversion needs of advanced technologies.  While these dynamic materials were previously thought to be fragile, a team of researchers at the NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) Smart Materials Lab have discovered that some organic crystals are mechanically very robust, and able to serve as efficient and sustainable energy conversion materials for robotics and electronics. In the article published by the journal Nature Communications , the team led by NYUAD Professor of Chemistry Panče Naumov explains the process of developing a record-breaking material, which can change shape without losing its ordered structure. This new organic crystalline material can expand and contract over half of its length (51 per cent) repeatedly, over thousands of cycles…

  • High-street retailers paying 755 per cent more in rates than online rivals

    Last Friday (20 May), the UK government closed a consultation into the possible introduction of a tax on ecommerce as a potential measure to fund a reduction in business rates, the property tax that shops, pubs and restaurants are obliged to pay. Bosses at Sainsbury’s urged the government to launch the new online sales tax, accusing the current business rates system of “destroying high streets up and down the country”. However, retail rival Marks & Spencer said an additional tax on retailers would mean they will “cut their cloth accordingly.” New analysis by real-estate advisory firm Altus Group shows that for every £100 earned by large retailers in Great Britain, excluding non-store sales and fuel, £2.91 is owed to local councils in business rates. However, for large online-only retailers…

  • Underwater telecoms cable repurposed as earthquake sensor with new technique

    Today, seas and oceans remain mostly unmonitored with only a handful of permanent ocean-floor sensors existing globally. This is due to the difficulty in installing and maintaining them, which can be prohibitively expensive. But it leaves a huge gap in geophysical data, limiting understanding of the Earth’s structure and its dynamic behaviour – datasets that can be used to predict earthquakes and monitor the impact of climate change among other phenomena. A new method has been developed that can be used to convert these cables into an array of sensors. It has already been tested on a 5,860 km-long intercontinental submarine optical-fibre link between the UK and Canada. The cable, provided by EXA Infrastructure, is the largest dedicated digital infrastructure platform connecting Europe and…

  • Mathematical model can help paramedics treat injuries on-site

    Coventry University has developed a model to help paramedics save lives. A team of researchers has created a detailed database of pedestrian injuries which, used alongside a new mathematical model, can produce first-hand virtual CT scans from simple photographs of a patient’s injuries and the vehicle involved. The resulting data could provide paramedics with crucial and potentially life-saving assistance when treating pedestrians hurt in road accidents.  Virtual CT scans of the body can inform paramedics, in seconds, about the victim’s potential internal injuries, enabling the correct treatment at the scene. The information could also be sent to a hospital, speeding up triage and improving treatment on arrival at accident and emergency units.  “The mathematical model, with the help of…

  • The eccentric engineer: Iceland’s journey to the centre of the Earth

    When the first Viking settlers of Iceland arrived over 1,100 years ago they found a land in some ways very familiar, but also rather odd. The icy mountains, fjords and glaciers were all reminders of their Scandinavian home, but some parts of the country were surprisingly warm. As they sailed towards what would one day become their capital, they noticed steam rising from the ground and named the place ‘Smoky Bay’ – or Reykjavík in Old Norse. They didn’t know then that this ‘smoke’ would one day make this the most energy self-sufficient country on Earth. Initially the geysers, hot springs and regular volcanic eruptions weren’t exactly welcomed by the settlers, whose hay crops were often ruined by the sudden emergence of hot springs on their land, but that didn’t prevent them finding a way to…

  • Hands-on gadget review: Miele Boost CX1

    German high-end electrical brand Miele has long made highly respected vacuum cleaners but it only boarded the bagless bandwagon six years ago with the Blizzard CX1. We tested it when it launched. It was high-tech but heavier than its bagged predecessors, thanks to its mono-cyclone tech and 1200W power. This new bagless model is Miele’s smallest-ever vacuum cleaner. Again it’s corded, but with a 1m shorter power cable (6.5m), resulting in a slightly shorter operating radius of 10m from a power socket. This is still long enough for any non-palatial home. The 890W motor produces a vortex with air speeds of up to 80kph. The smaller capacity of the dust container (it’s halved from 2 litres to 1 litre) is more of a pain: you’ll need to empty it twice as often. Specs had to be shaved because the…

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    E+T Magazine

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