• Feeding cattle with seaweed shown to cut methane emissions by 40%

    Feeding cattle with seaweed helps to reduce their methane emissions by nearly 40% without affecting their health or weight, a study has found. Livestock accounts for 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, with the largest portion coming from methane that cattle release when they burp. Grazing cattle also produce more methane than feedlot cattle or dairy cows because they eat more fibre from grass. In the US, there are nine million dairy cows and over 64 million beef cattle. Researchers at the University of California, Davis, found that feeding grazing beef cattle a seaweed supplement in pellet form reduced their methane emissions by almost 40%. While this is the first study to test seaweed on grazing beef cattle, it follows research that showed seaweed can cut methane emissions 82% in…

  • ‘World’s largest’ seawater heat pump starts operations in Denmark

    An industrial-scale seawater heat pump from MAN Energy Solutions located at the port of Esbjerg in Denmark, has started delivering sustainable heating to 25,000 households. The Swiss company has developed a 70MW heat pump plant to help Denmark in its transition away from fossil fuel reliance. The plant will replace Esbjerg’s coal-fired power plant, which has ceased operations, and help the city achieve the goal of being carbon neutral by 2030. Operated by multi-utility company DIN Forsyning, the plant is set to supply approximately 280,000MWh of heat, enough to cover the heating needs of 25,000 households in Esbjerg and the neighbouring town of Varde. Utilising renewable energy from nearby wind farms and seawater as a heat source, MAN Energy Solutions estimates that the plant will reduce…

  • E+T Off The Page: E+T Podcast: Episode 8 | Trump's America - what does it mean for the global tech sector?

    Few modern day politicians are as divisive as Donal Trump - but what does his forthcoming presidency mean for the tech sector, both in the US and around the world? Will import tariffs kill trade and result in hyper inflation? Or will they stimulate the tech manufacturing sector within the USA? Will removing red tape help innovation, particularly in areas such as AI, where a tech race is on with China? And will the climate change process take a hit if Trump pulls America out of the Paris Agreement. Regulars Tim Fryer and Tanya Weaver form the E+T editorial team discussed all this with Paul Dempsey, long-time American correspondent and geopolitical expert on the technology and engineering sector.

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Welsh semiconductor industry given a boost with further £51m in Newport Wafer Fab

    US semiconductor manufacturer Vishay Intertechnology is investing £51m in Newport Wafer Fab, the UK’s largest semiconductor facility. The wafer fabrication facility based in Newport, Wales, has had a turbulent past in terms of ownership. Built in 1982 by British semiconductor company Inneos, the facility has been bought and sold numerous times over the intervening years. Located on 28 acres, the 200mm semiconductor wafer fab has a capacity to produce more than 30,000 wafers per month. Most controversially, in 2021 Dutch chip firm Nexperia, which is wholly owned by Shanghai-based Wingtech, confirmed plans to acquire the production facility in a deal valued at £63m. However, in May 2022 this acquisition was called in for a full national security assessment by the UK government. MPs had…

  • Will online voting make the UK more democratic?

    Only 52% of people voted in the UK general election this year. Is that enough in a democracy, and – if not – is online voting the answer to making Britain’s voting system more democratic? Nothing stirs a nation like an election, and for most of 2024 – in over 60 countries – politicians, political parties and their supporters have been at loggerheads as unprecedented numbers of people headed to the polls. Internationalists have faced off against nationalists, liberals against conservatives, confederates against unionists, and wokesters against bigots. In the UK, Keir Starmer’s new Labour government is frequently derided by an enraged far right for being too liberal, while ardent socialists say Starmer is too conservative. In the US, the new President is either a villain or a warmonger, depending…

  • Norway postpones controversial deep-sea mining plan amid environmental backlash

    Norway has suspended plans to open up its seabed and start giving licences for deep-sea mining in 2025. ‘Green technologies’ – including wind, solar and electric vehicle batteries – require critical minerals and metals. These include manganese, nickel and cobalt. While these metal deposits can be extracted from the earth, many can be found on the deep ocean floor, having built up into nodules over millions of years. As such, commercial interest in deep sea mining – which involves the use of gigantic machines to scoop deposits from the sea floor – has been gaining increasing support. Norway, with its vast hydrocarbon reserves, took a lead role in the global race to mine the ocean floor for metals. Its government announced in June 2023 that it was proposing to open up an area of its waters…

  • Nuclear clampdown after Chernobyl increased global carbon emissions by 6% – report

    The global rejection of nuclear power in the wake of the Chernobyl disaster has led to carbon emissions that are 6% higher than they otherwise would have been, the Tony Blair Institute (TBI) has said. The 1986 incident had a significant impact on the construction of new nuclear power plants worldwide as it heightened public fears about the safety of nuclear energy and led to increased scrutiny and criticism of nuclear power plant designs and procedures. As a result, many countries became more cautious about building new nuclear plants, and some even decided to phase out existing ones. The think tank estimates that global carbon emissions would have been 6% lower if energy grids had not instead opted to run on higher-carbon forms of energy generation like natural gas. It said that was roughly…

  • Comment: Industrial metaverse adoption grows as manufacturers invest in a digital future

    Is the industrial metaverse proving to be more than just a promising concept? Tom Cash, director of industrial parts supplier Foxmere, explains the current state of play. 81 per cent of industrial companies globally are using, testing or planning to adopt industrial metaverse technologies. That’s according to a survey by S&P Global Market Intelligence’s 451 Research in partnership with Siemens, involving 900 respondents from 16 industries in seven countries. Siemens remains a major driver of this evolution of the metaverse. In July of last year, Siemens invested €500M in a new technology campus in Erlangen, Germany, to help develop its vision of the industrial metaverse. The company intended to create a blueprint for the future — a real-time, photorealistic virtual representation of the…

  • Car tyres shed a quarter of all microplastics in the environment, research reveals

    With 2 billion tyres produced globally every year, research is calling for urgent action to be taken to tackle tyre pollution. Tyre wear creates airborne particulate matter that can have negative health impacts on humans. As tyres degrade, they release a range of particles, from visible pieces of tyre rubber to nanoparticles. Every year, billions of vehicles worldwide shed an estimated six million tonnes of tyre-wear particles. These tiny flakes of plastic, generated by the wear and tear of normal driving, eventually accumulate in the soil, in rivers and lakes, and even in our food. In London alone, 2.6 million vehicles emit around nine thousand tonnes of tyre-wear particles annually. Many researchers have been carrying out studies into the scale of the problem, including a recent international…

  • UK car making continues to falter as firms struggle with transition to EVs

    UK car manufacturing output has fallen for the eighth month in a row as firms continue to struggle with the shift to electric vehicles (EVs). The latest figures published by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) showed that 77,484 units left factory gates in October – 14,037 fewer than in the same month the previous year. The body, which represents the UK’s manufacturers, said the sector collectively announced £20bn of investment last year to drive their transition to EV production. But weak markets for new cars in the UK and EU are continuing to take their toll, with total output for 2024 expected to be around a third down from pre-pandemic levels. “If planned UK zero emission model launches stay on track and consumer demand improves, there is potential to get above one…

  • ChatGPT consumes one 500ml bottle of water per 100-word request, according to research

    Large Language Models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, consume just over one 500ml bottle of water per 100-word request, research by the IET has found. ChatGPT has turned two. On 30 November 2022, OpenAI released a statement on its website saying “we’ve trained a model called ChatGPT, which interacts in a conversational way”. The chatbot quickly garnered attention for its detailed responses and articulate answers across many domains of knowledge. Two years on and the IET has carried out research to uncover just how many people are using this AI tool. The study found that almost half of the UK public surveyed (49%) use it casually, with two in five (39%) using it regularly at work. The findings show that on average we use it once a week for tasks including writing emails (50%), creating presentations…

  • Reintroducing trams in UK cities would cut the carbon cost of transport, campaigners say

    The government has been urged to prioritise the reintroduction of trams in the UK’s towns and cities by introducing planning reforms and devolving the approval process to elected mayors. While trams were commonplace at the beginning of the twentieth century, by the 1960s they were considered outdated. Many of the routes were shuttered as part of the post-war push to modernise the UK’s transportation systems. However, in recent years, cities across Europe have started returning to trams as an affordable mass transit solution that fits into efforts to lower the carbon impact of transportation. However, despite their advantages, only a handful of cities have been able to introduce trams in the last 25 years. One of the main barriers to installing more tram systems in Britain is the cost…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • IET comment: Will GB Energy deliver?

    Professor Peter Bannister, chair of the IET Sustainability and Net Zero Policy Centre, says Labour has bold plans for the energy sector but they must be part of an integrated climate change strategy. We want to see government accelerate the delivery of renewables infrastructure, meet the UK’s net zero targets, and strengthen energy security and resilience. The £8.3bn GB Energy investment can contribute to that if it is underpinned by a collaborative whole-systems approach to climate change. That approach must consider generation and transmission infrastructure, energy demand, regulation, skills and the future effects of climate change. This will require delivering substantial changes to how the UK approaches the energy system as well as close work with local, regional and devolved governments…

  • Reddit overtakes X in the UK, while Gen Z women spend longer online than men

    Reddit is now more popular than X (formerly Twitter) in the UK, while Gen Z women (aged (18-24) are spending over an hour longer each day online than men of the same age, new data from Ofcom has shown. In its annual report into the nation’s digital habits, the regulator found that Reddit had become the fastest-growing large social media platform in the UK, reaching more than half of online adults by June 2024. The news aggregation platform experienced a 47% year-on-year increase in its number of users, overtaking both X and LinkedIn to become the fifth highest-reaching social media service among adults. The report showed that while X remains the highest-reaching microblogging service, its average monthly adult reach continues to decline, from 27.9 million in 2021 to 26.5 million in 2022…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Nasa’s Europa Clipper deploys first instruments on 1.8bn-mile journey to Jupiter’s icy moon

    Nasa has reported that all is going to plan with its Europa Clipper mission, which launched on 14 October 2024 to study Jupiter’s icy moon Europa. Scientists think Europa has a salty ocean beneath its icy crust, which may have existed for the entirety of our Solar System’s history – approximately four billion years. Where there is ocean, there is often life. Europa Clipper’s mission is to find whether this internal ocean does harbour organic compounds, which are essential chemical building blocks for life. Europa Clipper, the largest spacecraft Nasa has ever developed for a planetary mission, lifted off from Nasa’s Kennedy Space Centre atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket on 14 October 2024. Soon after launch it deployed its massive solar arrays, which will help power the spacecraft on…

  • China and Bolivia sign $1bn deal to build two production plants in the ‘Lithium Triangle’

    Bolivia has signed a $1bn deal with Chinese consortium CBC to build two lithium carbonate production plants in the country’s largest salt lake. In recent years, demand for lithium has skyrocketed following the growth in electric vehicle (EV) production. Often dubbed ‘white gold’, this lightweight metal plays a key role in the cathodes of the lithium-ion batteries that power EVs. Ramping up production of EVs means there also needs to be an increase in lithium extraction.Lithium is extracted in two ways: the lithium found in brines underground is pumped to the surface where the water evaporates, leaving lithium behind; or, more traditionally, it is pit mined. Lithium-rich brines are typically found in Argentina, Bolivia and Chile, in an area known as the ‘Lithium Triangle’. These brine…

  • Partnership to boost development of floating nuclear power plants using microreactors

    Westinghouse Electric Company and Core Power are joining forces to design and develop a floating nuclear power plant (FNPP) using microreactor technology. If energy is required at sea for islands, ports, coastal communities or offshore oil and gas activities, it is generally provided via fossil-fuelled generators. However, with the world turning towards low-carbon alternatives to energy generation, one means to provide energy is through the use of FNPPs. These floating power stations derive their energy from small modular reactors installed on floating barges, platforms or ships. The advantage of such power plants is that they can be centrally manufactured, are easily transported to operation sites and deliver in-situ, reliable electric power on demand. In a collaboration between…

  • Stellantis blames EV mandate as it shifts UK manufacturing plant, putting 1,100 jobs at risk

    Vauxhall Motors owner Stellantis plans to shift its UK production hub from Luton to a plant at Ellesmere Port in Cheshire, putting around 1,100 jobs at risk. The move is part of the firm’s shift to producing electric vehicles (EVs) as part of the government’s ZEV (zero-emission vehicles) mandate. The mandate is a series of targets set by the government to ramp up the number of ZEVs produced annually until manufacturing of traditional internal combustion engine vehicles is ditched entirely by 2035. But mounting pressure from the car industry has led the government to announce it will launch a fast-track consultation on the mandate as producers are concerned that targets will be difficult to meet. Despite this, Stellantis has said the “stringent” targets necessitate a consolidation of its…

  • China expected to hit peak coal consumption in 2025 as push for clean energy intensifies

    With a boom in solar and wind installations over recent years, a new report predicts that China's coal consumption could peak by 2025. China, the world’s biggest polluter, is heavily reliant on coal. In 2023, the country’s global operating coal capacity grew by 2% in 2023 to 2,130GW. But there are signs the world’s second-largest economy may be weaning itself off the fossil fuel. Not only did coal power permits fall 83% in the first half of this year but China is also leading the way in renewables development with 180GW of utility-scale solar and 159GW of wind power already under construction. A new report – China’s climate transition: outlook 2024 – by think tanks Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) and the International Society for Energy Transition Studies (ISETS) assessed…

  • Scientists issue warning over legacy plastic waste as UN looks to cut production by 2040

    Legacy plastic production will continue to contaminate the environment – posing risks to humans and animals – even if UN targets to reduce new plastic production are met, scientists have said. The UN is meeting this week to finalise the Global Plastics Treaty – a legally binding agreement that aims to end plastic pollution by 2040 that will introduce new rules to regulate how plastic is produced and consumed. But researchers from the University of Cambridge, GNS Science in New Zealand and The Ocean Cleanup in the Netherlands have said that even if global production and pollution of new plastic is drastically reduced, the billions of tonnes of legacy plastic waste already in the environment will continue to break down into tiny particles called microplastics for decades or centuries. These…

  • Mercedes-Benz 'solar paint' will be used to charge its future EV models

    Mercedes-Benz has released details about its research projects that will “shape the mobility of tomorrow” – including solar paint. Among the new technologies being researched, and discussed at a series of workshops in Stuttgart, Germany, are sustainable materials. The carmaker’s R&D department has set a technology challenge of reducing the environmental impact of every component and material as far as possible. Everything is being scrutinised to reduce CO₂ emissions, increase the use of recycled materials and enable a circular economy. For instance, one material being researched is a highly realistic leather alternative made from recycled plastic and biotechnology-based materials. The firm is also working on a new kind of ‘solar paint’ that could generate enough electricity for more than…

  • Aviation firms ordered to cut jet fuel use as government launches ‘Jet Zero Taskforce’

    Aviation firms will soon be obliged to replace more than a fifth of their jet fuel with sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) as the government launches a revamped ‘Jet Zero Taskforce’ looking at how the sector can cut its carbon emissions. Building on the previous Jet Zero Council, which was set up under the Conservatives in 2020, transport secretary Louise Haigh has introduced the taskforce. It will see the government regularly meeting with senior figures in the sector such as the CEOs of major airlines and airports, as well as fuel producers, trade bodies and universities. Aviation, which accounts for approximately 3% of total CO2 emissions worldwide, is considered a hard-to-abate sector because of a lack of technologically mature alternatives to traditional jet-fuelled engines such as electric…

  • Grid decarbonisation efforts threatened by climate change impact on hydropower

    Changes in water availability caused by climate change could decrease the ability of hydropower facilities to generate energy, making grid decarbonisation efforts more difficult, researchers have said. A team from University of California San Diego estimated that in the Western US hydropower generation could decline by up to 23% by the year 2050, even as electricity demand rises by 2%. Hydropower accounts for more than 22% of all electricity generation in the Western US – primarily from states including California, Oregon and Washington. As the energy produced is zero carbon, it is considered one of the key ways to wean the US off fossil fuels for its power. But the researchers estimated that an additional 139 gigawatts of power capacity would need to be built between 2030 and 2050 –…

  • Supersonic test flight achieves Mach 0.82 as it paves the way for commercial supersonic travel

    Colorado-based Boom Supersonic has successfully completed the eighth test flight of its supersonic Colorado XB-1 demonstrator, with the aim of achieving Mach 1 by the end of the year. The XB-1 demonstrator’s test programme began in March 2024, when it took to the skies for the first time. The company says that the flight test programme, consisting of a series of 10 supersonic flights, is to confirm the aircraft’s performance and handling qualities before it reaches supersonic speeds. The company recently completed its eighth test flight on its path to achieving Mach 1 by the end of the year. Mach 1, the speed of sound, is around 767 miles per hour (1,234 km/h). This eighth flight, which took place from California’s Mojave Air and Space Port, lasted about 54 minutes and saw the XB-1…

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