• Forest tress absorb nanoplastics, research finds

    A research study by the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest Snow and Landscape Research WSL published in iForest has found evidence that forests can absorb plastic articles The impact of this on the food chain is still unclear. It has been estimated that humans ingest about five grams of plastic every week, equivalent to about half a rice bowl, according to Reuters. However, this new data might alter those calculations. Plastic waste is now polluting all of the world's ecosystems, even those located far from civilisation. The increase in use of single-use plastics to reduce Covid-19 infection rates alone has generated an estimated 8.4 million tonnes of plastic waste generated from 193 countries since the start of the pandemic. Plastic is extremely slow to decompose. According to the…

  • None of Sainsbury’s flexible plastic recycled in the UK

    Meanwhile, the UK’s largest supermarket chain, Tesco, has announced it is carrying out an audit of the waste exporter employed by both supermarkets to recycle this plastic waste - following an E&T investigation. E&T revealed in February that the firm in question, Eurokey, had its export  accreditation suspended  last year after mislabelling the type of plastic it exported to Turkey. In its suspension notice, the Environment Agency (EA) said for at least four months last year Eurokey had exported plastic waste to Turkish sites that were not authorised to process the material. The soft plastics initiative, which has been adopted by most of the major UK supermarkets, aims to provide a route for the recycling of hard-to-recycle flexible plastic packaging, which includes items such as soft plastic…

  • Global coal plant capacity shrinking slower than needed to meet climate goals

    A new report from Global Energy Monitor (GEM) reports that after rising in 2020 for the first time since 2015, total coal power capacity under development declined last year from 525 GW to 457 GW, a record low. But some 34 countries were still found to have new coal plants under consideration, albeit down from 41 countries in January 2021. The world currently has more than 2,400 coal-fired power plants operating in 79 countries, for a total of nearly 2,100 GW of capacity. An additional 176 GW of coal capacity is under construction at more than 189 plants, and 280 GW is in pre-construction at 296 plants. China is the most significant financial backer of coal-fired energy plants, and has been ramping up investment in its domestic sector despite committing to a 2060 net-zero target. However…

  • Elon Musk buys Twitter for £35bn, provoking speculation about the platform’s future

    Twitter's board has unanimously accepted the offer from Tesla co-founder and multi-billionaire Elon Musk to acquire the company in a $44bn (£34.5bn) all-cash deal, the largest such acquisition to take a company private in at least two decades. Musk made the shock bid less than two weeks ago, just days after it was announced that he would not be joining the social media platform’s board of directors . The world's richest man said Twitter has "tremendous potential" that he would unlock. The firm initially rebuffed Musk's bid to buy the social media platform for $54.20 (about £42.20) per share, a 38 per cent premium over the share price, but it will now ask shareholders to vote to approve the deal. Twitter founder Jack Dorsey has celebrated the acquisition as a way of taking the platform into…

  • Sponsored: A framework to achieve net zero, environmentally sustainable data centres

    Growing concern about the effects of climate change has placed much pressure on the data centre and digital infrastructure sectors. Today data centres are predicted to account for around 1%-2% of global electricity consumption and emit the same level of carbon as the airline sector. Unsurprisingly, given their importance to the digital economy, the industry is coming under closer scrutiny, not only because of the growing demands it places on power generation and energy consumption, but because of its influence on other areas that affect environmental sustainability. Those which include the appropriation of land and water, the use of renewable energy, and the disposal of hazardous waste material. Forces influencing the move toward sustainable data centres include a combination of government…

  • Nasa to order its OSIRIS-REx spacecraft to chase another asteroid

    The probe began its two-year trip back to Earth from the 101955 Bennu asteroid last May. It is believed to be carrying a sample of Bennu weighing up to 1kg. But Nasa has now decided to extend its mission, which will be renamed OSIRIS-APEX (short for OSIRIS-Apophis Explorer), to study the near-Earth asteroid Apophis for 18 months. Apophis will make a close approach to Earth in 2029. The University of Arizona will lead the mission, which will make its first manoeuvre toward Apophis 30 days after the spacecraft delivers the sample it collected from Bennu. The extension adds another $200m (£153m) to the mission cost cap. The mission team did an exhaustive search for potential asteroid targets. The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft was built for what’s called a rendezvous mission, meaning instead of making…

  • Recycled glass could be renewable solution 3D-printing is waiting for

    Researchers from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) have developed the capability to use recycled glass in 3D-printing, opening doors to a more environmentally sustainable construction industry. Glass is one material that can be 100 per cent recycled with no reduction in quality, yet it is one of the least recycled waste types. According to the latest data by the National Environment Agency of Singapore, only 13 per cent of the 74,000 tonnes of glass waste generated in the country was recycled in 2021. Glass is made up of silicon dioxide, or silica, which is a major component of sand and, therefore, it offers significant untapped potential to be recycled into other products. At the same time, growing populations, urbanisation and infrastructure development have…

  • Pathogens hitch ride on microplastics to reach oceans

    The study by researchers at the University of California, Davis, is the first to connect microplastics in the ocean with land-based pathogens. It found that microplastics can make it easier for disease-causing pathogens to concentrate in plastic-contaminated areas of the ocean. According to the team, pathogens such as toxoplasma (T) gondii, cryptosporidium (Crypto), and giardia can infect both humans and animals. The World Health Organisation recognises these pathogens as underestimated causes of illness from shellfish consumption and are found throughout the ocean. “It’s easy for people to dismiss plastic problems as something that doesn’t matter to them, like, ‘I’m not a turtle in the ocean; I won’t choke on this thing,’” said Karen Shapiro, an associate professor in the UC Davis School…

  • View from Washington: Be careful what you wish for, Elon

    After a few weeks of ‘Will he buy it?’, we are now at the ‘Should he (be allowed to) buy it?’ stage – and that is not as much of a done deal as you might think. But we seem to be going through Elon Musk’s plan to buy Twitter without any real reference to ‘What is he actually going to do with it?’ We know what Musk wants from Twitter philosophically. The world’s richest man is a “free speech absolutist”. He wants the social media platform to be even more of a free-for-all than, say, Hyde Park’s Speakers’ Corner – the digital “public square”. We also know a few of the changes he wants to make: an edit button, time-outs for egregious behaviour, a bot clean-out, and some type of subscription option. I’m not sure how the last one dovetails with the idea of a public square, but we’ll come to…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • View from India: Research is the bedrock of innovation

    Challenges abound in areas like healthcare, education, linguistics and location, but the very same challenges uncover opportunities. The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) discussed these opportunities recently at an event held in collaboration with Indo-British Scholars’ Association (IBSA) and Imperial College London.  “The complexity of issues has urged people to think, and think beyond the obvious. India has attempted to and has rapidly made significant change to motivate start-ups through efficient funding mechanisms. India is the world’s third largest start-up ecosystem, with several unicorns to its credit,” said Sunil Kant Munjal, CII past president, chairman of the CII National Start-up Council and chairman, Hero Enterprises. The problems emerging from the sheer size and scale…

  • UK could cut carbon emissions by adding rock dust to agricultural soil, study finds

    In a new study, they demonstrated that the practice could remove between 6 and 30 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere annually by 2050. The cost of carbon dioxide removal is currently estimated to be around £200 per tonne with expectations that this will fall to half that by 2050. This makes the rock dust solution highly competitive relative to other removal options. The research also finds other benefits including the mitigation of nitrous oxide, the third most important greenhouse gas, and widespread reversal of soil acidification caused by intensification of agriculture. It can also be used as a substitute for expensive imported fertilisers in many cases. By reducing demand for imported fertilisers, using rock dust avoids carbon emissions and offsets costs of deployment…

  • Cheap hydrogen fuel cells use iron instead of pricey platinum

    Hydrogen fuel cells convert hydrogen to electricity with water vapour as the only by-product, making them an attractive green alternative for portable power, particularly for vehicles. However, their widespread use has been hampered in part by the cost of one of the primary components. To facilitate the reaction that produces the electricity, the fuel cells rely on a catalyst made of platinum, which is expensive and scarce. Now, a European team led by Imperial College London researchers has created a catalyst using only iron, carbon, and nitrogen – materials that are cheap and readily available – and shown that it can be used to operate a fuel cell at high power. Lead researcher professor Anthony Kucernak said: “Currently, around 60 per cent of the cost of a single fuel cell is the platinum…

  • China boosts coal production capacity, setting back carbon-neutrality targets

    China is promoting coal-fired power as the ruling Communist Party tries to revive a sluggish economy. After economic growth plunged last year, shortages caused blackouts and factory shutdowns in several areas of the country. Moreover, Russia’s attack on Ukraine has added to anxiety that foreign oil and coal supplies might be disrupted. Chinese officials plan a call for boosting coal production capacity by 300 million tonnes this year, according to news reports. That is equal to 7 per cent of last year’s output of 4.1 billion tonnes, an increase of 5.7 per cent over 2020. “This mentality of ensuring energy security has become dominant, trumping carbon neutrality," said Li Shuo, a senior global policy adviser for Greenpeace. "We are moving into a relatively unfavourable time period for…

  • UK’s ‘biggest train upgrade’ launches today with upgraded Pendolinos

    The £117m refurbishment will initially benefit passengers travelling on Avanti’s West Coast line from Manchester Piccadilly to London Euston. The operator said they will “look and feel like new trains”, with more comfortable seats, a redesigned shop and better on-board information. The tilting, electric powered Pendolinos, or ‘Pendos’, were originally introduced nearly two decades ago in July 2002 and could travel at faster speeds on curved tracks due to their unique design. Customers onboard Monday’s 05:05 Manchester Piccadilly to London service were the first to travel on the upgraded Pendolino after which it made a round trip to Liverpool before coming into Euston for its launch ceremony. It will visit other destinations such as Birmingham, the Lakes, Glasgow and Edinburgh during its…

  • Germany pursues idea of European 'battery passport'

    Germany's Ministry of Economy has announced the plans of a group of companies within the country's automotive industry to develop a 'passport' that traces the environmental impact of European batteries. BMW, Umicore and BASF are some of the organisations involved in this effort.  The consortium of 11 partners received €8.2m (about £6.9m) of funding to develop a common taxonomy and set of standards for gathering and disclosing this data, something that could soon become mandatory under European Union (EU) regulations. Later this year, the European Commission is set to discuss a proposal to ensure that battery producers disclose the carbon footprint and content of recycled materials of all rechargeable electric vehicle, light transport and industrial batteries sold in Europe from 2024, and…

  • Stability of renewables can now be tested with mobile energy grid simulator

    Many countries are moving towards rapid expansion of renewable facilities in a bid to cut carbon emissions, but their inconsistent energy generation can stress the electricity grid they are connected to. The newly-developed system has been designed to enable testing of the growing number of offshore wind turbines that are pushing current test facilities and procedures to their limits. The simulator has the flexibility to be used in the field or on test benches to simulate both dynamic and steady-state grid conditions, said the developers at Fraunhofer IWES, a Germany-based research and testing institute. The test programme will verify that a renewable project connecting to a public power network is fully compliant with stringent local grid codes and will not compromise grid performance…

  • Sponsored: The Energy Blind Spots, are UK hi-tech manufacturers obtaining maximum benefit from their critical plant and equipment data?

    CIM, a leading Data Analytics Platform, recently surveyed FMs in the Manufacturing sector in the UK to understand what issues were facing them as they drive towards sustainability, energy efficiency and net zero targets. The findings revealed slower-than-expected progress and a strong requirement for a smarter approach to Building management and data. The research uncovered low C-suite prioritisation, CAPEX restrictions and reactive operations for the majority of respondents. Does this fit with your operation too? Key Learning Points: What issues currently exist for FMs as they operate under looming NetZero and sustainability targets? Is technology holding them back, and are they getting the benefits they should? How can data and digitisation support Manufacturers and FMs in their…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Scotland drives innovation with UK’s first full-sized autonomous bus

    The UK's first fully sized autonomous vehicle of its kind has taken to the Scottish roads.  Stagecoach will be carrying out on-road testing of five full-sized driverless buses from Monday, as the company prepares to launch a passenger service later this summer. “This is a major step forward in our journey to fully launch the UK’s first full-sized autonomous bus service and will provide easy access to a brand-new bus route in the heart of Scotland,” said Sam Greer, regional director of the company in Scotland. The CAVForth pilot will take place over the Forth Road Bridge between Ferrytoll Park and Ride in Fife and the Edinburgh Park train and tram interchange. Once the service is live, the buses are expected to provide a service capable of carrying up to 36 passengers 14 miles across…

  • Europe needs to rapidly ramp up rare metals supply to meet climate goals

    The energy transition will also require far greater annual supplies of aluminium (equivalent to 30 per cent of what Europe already uses today), copper (35 per cent), silicon (45 per cent), nickel (100 per cent), and cobalt (330 per cent), researchers from KU Leuven University in Belgium have said. The resources are all essential to Europe’s plans for producing the electric vehicles and batteries, renewable wind, solar and hydrogen energy technologies, and the grid infrastructure needed to achieve climate neutrality. The study also finds that by 2050, 40 to 75 per cent of Europe’s clean energy metal needs could be met through local recycling if Europe invests heavily now and fixes bottlenecks. But the researches warn that the continent faces critical shortfalls in the next 15 years without…

  • Large Hadron Collider restarts after three-year pause

    Situated in Geneva, Switzerland, and operated by the European research facility CERN (its name derived from the French, Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire), the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)  is the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator. The restart today (22 April) follows more than three years of upgrade work. At 12:16 CEST, two beams of protons circulated in opposite directions around the Large Hadron Collider’s 27km ring at their injection energy of 450 billion electronvolts (450 GeV). “These beams circulated at injection energy and contained a relatively small number of protons. High-intensity, high-energy collisions are a couple of months away,” said Rhodri Jones, the head of CERN’s Beams department, “but first beams represent the successful restart of the…

  • ‘Radical, transformative changes’ needed to protect UK’s natural habitats

    But in its Protected Areas and Nature Recovery report, it warned that this ambitious pledge will fail if the UK does not make “radical, transformative changes”. While 27 per cent of UK land and 38 per cent of UK seas already enjoy some level of environmental protection, the report finds that many protected areas are not delivering for nature and are in poor ecological condition. It therefore urges caution over what should count towards the government’s 2030 targets and provides recommendations for what protected areas, and the surrounding environment, need in order to be effective in restoring nature. Dr Joseph Bailey at York St John University and lead author of the report said: “Designating an area of land or sea does not automatically make it an effective protected area. “Designation…

  • South Korean stalwart bets on hydrogen drones to revive company fortunes

    The 126-year-old South Korean conglomerate is making a large investment on hydrogen-powered technology as a means to recover its fortune, according to a Bloomberg report. Its initial focus will be on drones, but the company also has high ambitions for other uses for hydrogen technology in the long-term. “Our long-term vision is to provide fuel cells for various kinds of mobile applications, like robots, starting with hydrogen drones,” said Doosoon Lee, chief executive officer of unit Doosan Mobility Innovation. “We will also play a crucial role in the South Korean government’s goal to build a multi-seat unmanned aerial vehicle.” Hydrogen is increasingly becoming a popular alternative to standard lithium-ion batteries, as it allows drones to overcome power limitations and fly higher and…

  • Central America drives forward earthquake early-warning technology

    Public tests of an earthquake early-warning system are currently taking place in Nicaragua. The tests are latest steps in a collaborative initiative to build a warning system for four countries in the region. The project, known as Alerta Temprana de Terremotos en América Central (ATTAC), was presented at the Seismological Society of America’s Annual Meeting. It is a collaboration between the national seismic networks in Guatemala (INSIVUMEH), El Salvador (MARN), Nicaragua (INETER) and Costa Rica (OVSICORI-UNA) and the Swiss Seismological Service at ETH Zürich, with funding from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. Central America is one of the highest-risk areas in the world for earthquakes due to being a large subduction zone. In the past 24 hours, the area was shaken by…

  • 12.8GW of coal energy halted after China pulls out of overseas energy projects

    President Xi Jinping announced to the United Nations General Assembly in September last year that his country would end overseas coal projects as part of its contribution to the global effort to cut climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions. The projects identified by CREA, which have all been shelved or cancelled since that announcement, had already received either financial backing, equipment, or procurement and construction support from Chinese firms. The cancellations represent a big dent in global energy production from coal. As a point of comparison, Germany, which is the largest coal-fired energy producer in Europe, had about 40GW of generation capacity in total at 84 plants across the country in 2019. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a non-profit attempting to reduce…

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