• UK Export Finance signs up to net-zero 2050 target

    The pledge to reach carbon neutrality is the centrepiece of its 2021-24 climate change strategy, launched today (22 September) just weeks ahead of the UK’s presidency at Cop26, to be held in Glasgow. It coincides with a speech made by the Prime Minister Boris Johnson to the UN General Assembly, putting forward the case that climate mitigation and economic growth are not mutually exclusive but vital for each other’s success. UKEF has a capacity of £50bn to support UK exports through loans, insurance and guarantees; last year, it issued £12.3bn to businesses in financial support. In line with its new target, its capacity must reach carbon neutrality by 2050. Its climate change strategy has five elements: it aims to increase support for green exports; reduce greenhouse gas emissions from its…

  • Entirely new materials unearthed with AI tool

    The new tool has already led to the discovery of four new materials including a new family of solid state materials that conduct lithium. Such solid electrolytes will be key to the development of solid state batteries offering longer range and increased safety for electric vehicles. Further promising materials are in development. The University of Liverpool research team created a collaborative AI tool designed to reduce the time and effort required to discover truly new materials. The tool brings together artificial intelligence with human knowledge to prioritise those parts of unexplored chemical space where new functional materials are most likely to be found. Discovering new functional materials is a high-risk, complex and often long journey as there is an infinite space of possible…

  • Nasa astronauts to take cues from AR goggles

    Communications delays between International Space Station (ISS) crews and the ground are nearly unnoticeable, thanks to being routed between tracking and data relay satellites to reach the spacecraft just 250 miles above Earth’s surface. However, as Nasa prepares for a return to the Moon (240,000 miles from Earth) and eventually Mars (250 million miles), it will face ever longer communications delays. The space agency is thus considering tools to increase astronaut autonomy for operating spacecraft and systems. The T2AR project demonstrates how station crew can inspect and maintain scientific and exercise equipment on board without assistance from ground teams. Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Soichi Noguchi kicked off T2AR activities on the ISS, using the tool to perform maintenance…

  • Addison Lee pledges to go all-electric from 2023

    Addison Lee said it is investing £160m in switching its 4,000 cars to EVs. This will require rolling out an average of 200 Volkswagen ID.4s – the company having already partnered with the German automaker – every month from this coming November. The commitment marks the single largest order of EVs in the UK’s private hire industry, the company said. At present, it has 650 zero-emission taxis in its fleet, having purchased ComCab earlier this year. Today, we’re announcing that our passenger car fleet will become fully electric by 2023 with a total investment of £160 million. We begin that journey with a partnership with @Volkswagen and the roll out of their ID.4s To find out more, visit https://t.co/Ra1L6mvg4m pic.twitter.com/aURth1v75v — Addison Lee (@AddisonLeeCabs) September 21, 2021…

  • Surging gas prices force Government to quell fears over energy price cap rises

    In a joint statement, energy regulator Ofgem and Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng admitted the high gas prices are “a cause of concern” for consumers. But they added that supply wasn’t the issue, merely the high cost of gas in the current wholesale market. Gas prices have reached record highs due to a number of factors. Global demand has risen significantly as economies open up due to the ease in Covid-19 restrictions and a cold winter last year, means the gas market is facing reduced capacity. This, in combination with lower than usual gas supply from Russia and the rescheduling of maintenance projects from 2020 to this year have caused wholesale gas prices to shoot up by 250 per cent since January, according to industry group Oil & Gas UK. “This morning [Monday 20 September] we hosted…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Over half of UK households now have access to gigabit broadband

    The 2019 Conservative manifesto promised the installation of full-fibre, gigabit-capable broadband in every home and business across the UK by 2025. This pledge was later downgraded to just 85 per cent of premises in the UK, with MPs questioning whether even this target was achievable considering the current speed of the rollout. Thinkbroadband said the country reached the 50.23 per cent milestone on the morning of 17 September following the switch on of the Virgin Media O2 Gig1 option in Blaydon and Dundee. In the few days since, various other full fibre roll-outs are being tracked by the firm including those from Openreach, Swish Fibre, Netomnia, CityFibre, Hyperoptic, Community Fibre, toob, FWNetworks and others. The gigabit infrastructure boost marks a significant increase from just…

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    E+T Magazine

  • View from India: Biotechnology’s potential unleashed by pandemic demand

    Prior to the pandemic, innovation in biotechnology was somewhat limited. The pandemic has extended the frontiers of innovation in relatively new areas such as gene therapy and vaccine therapy. The vaccine industry has been scaled up to cater to the Indian population. “Now the time has come to build on the vaccine production. The vaccine industry may have to prepare for forthcoming requirements like reuse-ables. It’s time to look at the entire chain including the various components, re-agents and enzymes that go into the making of diagnostics,” said Dr Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, executive chairperson and founder, Biocon, speaking at the CII Life Sciences Conclave 2021. Such aspects probably need to be indigenised in order to maintain the flow of the supply chain. Pre-pandemic, the thrust was towards…

  • How Covid-19 has sown the seeds of change for a post-pandemic world

    The Covid-19 pandemic rooted itself as a tripartite of economic, societal and - fundamentally - human challenges. Its lasting effects are still unknown, but amongst all the grief and despair beams of optimism have emerged. Governments have played their part, stepping up to protect economies and businesses, with digital innovation supporting businesses and keeping vital services running. Most notably, people have looked after each other - and the planet - in many different ways. The past 18 months have been challenging, but there’s cause for optimism as we continue to navigate the post-Covid world. There are three positive trends that I believe are already taking shape. Working from home will be a catalyst for community spirit and technological innovation It’s no secret that Covid-19 rapidly…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • AR spiders cut the creeps for arachnophobes

    Arachnophobia is among the most common phobias and can have upsetting consequences, from panic attacks to arachnophobes avoiding everyday occasions due to fear of encountering a spider. A well-established treatment for arachnophobia and similar phobias is exposure therapy, in which patients are guided by a therapist through more and more stimulating or realistic exposures to their fear. For instance, the patient may begin by looking at a cartoon spider and progress to handling a tarantula. Arachnophobes can be reluctant to partake in exposure therapy, however, due to fear of exposing themselves to real spiders towards the end of treatment. Hoping to reassure arachnophobes, the Basel team developed an AR app, Phobys, based on established principles of exposure therapy: “It’s easier for people…

  • F-18 fighter planes made quieter with new nozzle design

    The nozzles, which have been shown to work on 1/28 th -scale jet engines, feature triangular fins like rows of shark teeth which significantly reduced jet engine noise in lab tests. “They’re simple attachments that change the behaviour of the flow coming out of the engine with minimal effect on its performance,” said professor Ephraim Gutmark, a researcher on the project. UC’s lab tests showed the new nozzle could reduce engine noise by five to eight decibels, a significant decrease considering decibels are measured logarithmically. “Typically, engine companies are happy even getting a half-decibel improvement,” Gutmark said. Hearing loss and tinnitus are the leading causes of military disability claims in the US, affecting more than 2.6 million former service members, according to…

  • Shell sets sights on two million tonnes of SAF by 2025

    Aviation, which accounts for 3 per cent of CO 2 emissions, is considered a hard-to-abate sector due to a lack of technologically mature alternatives to jet-fuelled engines. With electric and hydrogen aircraft still relatively limited, short- and medium-term decarbonisation efforts are focused on efficiency measures and lowering the carbon emissions of jet fuel by mixing conventional fuel with SAF. A 50:50 mix can generally be used without changing aircraft engines. Shell plans to produce SAF at scale by 2025, in order to give airlines an opportunity to reduce their CO 2 emissions this decade. It hopes to boost global output of SAF tenfold to reach two million tonnes by 2025. Shell does not yet supply its own SAF, sourcing it from others such as Finland-based refiner Neste. Shell said…

  • Remotely controlled robot used to assess patients living with Alzheimer’s

    The new project from Heriot-Watt University is designed to reduce the cost of diagnosis as well as allow for more regular monitoring and health assessments. It is thought it could be particularly useful for those living with conditions like Alzheimer’s disease and other cognitive impairments. The technology has been developed at the University’s National Robotarium, a research facility that has been supported by £21m from the UK government. Dr Mauro Dragone from the National Robotarium: “With gaps between assessments lengthening, the care and support that is being prescribed to assist vulnerable people may become unsuitable as an individual’s physical and cognitive abilities change over time. “Our prototype makes use of machine learning and artificial-intelligence techniques to monitor…

  • Sponsored: Step outside with the ABS601 reliable power supply series

    The rise in outdoor signage is just one example of the increased use of outdoor power supplies. Today, digital signage is used in transport hubs, bus, train and tram stops for passenger information; information points in the same transport hubs; in municipal areas or areas of interest to provide information; and there are increasing levels of interactive digital advertising displays in the high street and on main traffic routes. Another driver is the use of 5G services which brings faster, richer mobile networks with low latency, higher capacity and faster upload and download speeds to deliver connectivity for smart cities and smart buildings as well as telecommunications, security, satellite and radio services. These applications rely on reliable power supplies which are able to withstand…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Royal Mail trials ‘micro’ EVs for letters and small parcels

    The vehicles are approximately the size of a quad bike or golf buggy and have been specially designed for routine deliveries of letters and small parcels. Despite their size, the vehicles can easily accommodate an average daily round’s worth of letters and smaller packages. The EVs are charged using a standard three-pin plug. Micro in size, big on delivery! Delivering small parcels, letters, and zero CO2 emissions, twelve fully electric ‘micro’ vehicles join our fleet on a six-month trial as we continue to further reduce our emissions and deliver a cleaner future. pic.twitter.com/QTHzIuo8zy — Royal Mail (@RoyalMail) September 20, 2021 They will be trialled in residential areas as a potential low-carbon alternative to larger vans. The EVs will be seen operating in Edinburgh, Crewe…

  • London Underground adds two new stations as part of £1.1bn extension

    Major construction on the 3km twin-tunnel railway between Kennington and Battersea Power Station, via Nine Elms, began in 2015. Despite the challenges of the pandemic, the construction project has stayed on track for an autumn opening. There is an initial peak-time service of six trains per hour on the extension, which runs from Kennington station on the Charing Cross branch, increasing to 12 trains per hour by mid-2022. There will be five trains per hour during off-peak times, doubling to 10 trains per hour next year. TfL said it managed to deliver the Northern Line Extension £160m under budget, bringing its estimated final total cost to £1.1bn. This is a far cry from the Crossrail project, which has repeatedly exceeded its budget with recent warnings that it does not have enough funds…

  • The eccentric engineer: the ups and downs of military aerial reconnaissance

    ‘When the balloon goes up’ has become a stock phrase for the beginning of a war. This got me wondering who first decided to make use of balloons in a conflict. Ballooning had begun with the Montgolfier brothers in 1783 but their interest in floating through the air was entirely peaceful. However, it did not take long for the military to realise that this engineering marvel might have other uses. In 1792, the leaders of Revolutionary France were having difficulty getting on with their neighbouring monarchs and this animosity soon erupted into all-out war. Flash forward two years and, in June 1794, the 70,000-strong French army of the Sambre-Meuse under the command of Jean-Baptiste Jourdan had just taken the surrender of the garrison at Charleroi, much to the annoyance of Prince Frederick Josias…

  • How will artificial intelligence power the cities of tomorrow?

    Artificial intelligence is taking the stage as smart cities become not just an idea for the future, but a present reality. Advanced technologies are at the forefront of this change, driving valuable strategies and optimising the industry across all operations. These technologies are quickly becoming the solution for fulfilling smart city and clean city initiatives, as well as net-zero commitments. AI is becoming well integrated with the development of smart cities. A 2018 Gartner report https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/3870008/three-rules-when-using-ai-to-add-value-to-your-iot-smart0 forecast that AI would become a critical feature of 30 per cent of smart city applications by 2020, up from just 5 per cent a few years previously. Implementation of AI is rapidly being recognised as the…

  • The measure of: +Pool

    The +Pool project (pronounced ‘pluspool’), will see a public swimming pool feature on a floating island in the East River, New York. Layers of filtration membranes will make the water safe for swimming while simultaneously cleaning the surrounding river, according to project organisers, who say the pool will clean 600,000 US gallons (2,300m3) of river water every day. The pool will be shaped like a plus sign, where its four arms will serve different purposes: a children’s pool, a sports pool, a lap pool, and a lounge pool. It will accommodate up to 300 people at a time, with a proposed daily capacity of 1,800 visitors, its developers have said. Image credit: . Birthed in 2010, the project is a collaboration between design firm PlayLab and the co-founders of the…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Mars: the story so far

    “I don’t gloss over the controversies and don’t pretend that we know more than we do about Mars,” says Simon Morden. “But we know enough to tell a story about how Mars started and how it may well end.” In between these bookends of geological time, he says, “the most intriguing thing is that the planet we all thought we knew as a dead, cold, dry place is only like that sometimes”. By which he means that because of Mars’s orbital eccentricities, today “we could simply be looking at Mars while it is asleep. And the chances that it will wake up are genuinely high.” He says the fact that we’re not recording active volcanoes or seeing vast expanses of water on the surface is a function of the era we live in and the moment at which we’re observing it. Morden’s latest book – ‘The Red Planet:…

  • Teardown: OnePlus Watch

    OnePlus has built a reputation by matching good smartphone performance with sleek industrial design at an affordable price. But its most recent launch, the OnePlus Watch, has received mixed and even dismissive reviews since its launch. By mid-August, OnePlus itself was no longer hosting press releases or photography on its website and the wearable was described as ‘coming soon’. However, that last message may refer to a cobalt-case premium version set to launch alongside the standard stainless-steel model. Orders for the standard model are being taken by the company and vendors on Amazon’s UK site. It is all a little confusing, particularly given that marketing has historically been one of OnePlus’s strengths. So, is this a cautionary tale or have we all just got our wires crossed? Certainly…

  • Cheap, efficient electrocatalyst a ‘gamechanger’ for green hydrogen

    Hydrogen has the potential to be a zero-carbon fuel source which produces just heat and water when burned or used in fuel cells. This makes it a highly attractive alternative to fossil fuels in heating and transport. A pillar of the UK government’s decarbonisation plan is a huge expansion of hydrogen to 5GW capacity by 2030. As hydrogen is currently much more expensive to produce than the fuels it could replace, the government is considering providing subsidies to bridge the gap, controversially supporting both green and blue hydrogen (the latter of which can be more polluting than coal ). While blue hydrogen is produced from natural gas, green hydrogen is produced by splitting water via electrolysis into hydrogen and oxygen. While green hydrogen is the preferred option given its potential…

  • Home computing pioneer Sir Clive Sinclair dies, aged 81

    He later moved into computing, and in 1980 launched the UK’s first mass-market home computer for less than £100, the Sinclair ZX80. This was about one fifth the cost of other home computers at the time and sold around 50,000 units. This was later succeeded by the Sinclair Research, the ZX81 and ZX Spectrum. He was awarded a knighthood in 1983. Sinclair's company became the first in the world to sell more than a million computers, making the entrepreneur a household name. His computers were also used for early computer games which came on audio tape and later, 3” floppy disks. On Twitter, Tesla founder Elon Musk called Sinclair the father of the ZX Spectrum: “RIP, Sir Sinclair. I loved that computer,” he added. Despite his penchant for invention, Sinclair never made use of his own gadgets…

  • Back story: Jenna Tiwana, ‘We need to change the pigeonholes’

    Shini Somara: With all your studies in aerospace engineering, did you ever want to be an astronaut? Jenna Tiwana: I’ve always been curious about it, but I’m also pulled by the desire to have a family. And this is one subject that is not talked about enough – namely, especially for women, that if you do want to become an astronaut, what are the potential trade-offs you need to think about? I’ve always thought about being an astronaut, although engineering and pushing the space industry forward from Earth has always been at the forefront for me. But even now, I’m just not clear on what that means, in terms of what I can and cannot do that are important to me in my life. I’m 27 years old and I’ve thought about it for most of my life and it’s still not clear how I tackle this. SS: What has…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • UK firm wins contract for communications satellite that covers far side of the Moon

    The Lunar Pathfinder satellite is set to launch in 2024 with a particular emphasis on covering the far side of the Moon. For prospecting, exploring, and ultimately using the far side of the Moon, Lunar Pathfinder’s communications relay service will provide a vital communications bridge between Earth and the lunar surface. Exploring the far side of the Moon, particularly the South Pole Aitkin Basin, is a key area for future robotic and human exploration due to its chemical and mineral composition. The far side and polar regions of the Moon are a particular area of interest to space agencies as a potential source of resources for water, fuel and oxygen. The stable elliptical orbit of Lunar Pathfinder will allow for long duration visibility of the Southern Lunar Hemisphere each day, with…

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