• Governments ‘doubling down’ on fossil fuels despite climate change goals

    The major new report from the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and other climate bodies found that 2030 production levels are 69 per cent more than what would be consistent with a less ambitious 2°C warming scenario. 151 national governments have pledged to achieve net zero emissions. The latest forecasts suggest that global coal, oil and gas demand will peak this decade, even without new policies. Despite this, current government plans would lead to an increase in global coal production until 2030, and in global oil and gas production until at least 2050. The Production Gap Report 2023 profiles 20 major fossil-fuel-producing countries including China, Germany, India, Saudi Arabia and the UK. It finds there are “uncertainties” around the viability…

  • Indonesia launches South-east Asia’s largest floating solar farm

    Indonesia has opened a $108m (£88m) floating solar plant in a significant renewable energy milestone for the country.  The project was developed by PLN Nusantara Power and the renewable energy company Masdar from the United Arab Emirates (UAE).  The plant was built on Cirata reservoir, 108km (67 miles) south-east of the capital Jakarta. It is the third-largest floating solar plant in the world and could be expanded up to 1,000MWp, PLN chief executive Darmawan Prasodjo said. The 13 arrays installed so far only occupy 4 per cent of the reservoir’s surface. “Today is a historical day, because our big dream to build a renewable energy plant on a big scale is finally achieved,” President Joko Widodo said. “ We managed to build the largest floating solar farm in South-east Asia, and the third…

  • Smartphone sensors able to detect alcohol intoxication with high accuracy

    Researchers at Stanford Medicine and the University of Toronto conducted a small study of 18 adults aged 21 or over. Participants were given a weight-based dose of alcohol and randomly assigned a series of tongue twisters – one before drinking, and one each hour up to seven hours after drinking. The participants were asked to read the tongue twister aloud, and a smartphone was placed on a table 1-2ft away to record their voices. Researchers also measured their breath alcohol concentration at the beginning of the study and every 30 minutes for up to seven hours. They used digital programs to isolate the speaker’s voices, broke them into one-second increments and analysed measures such as frequency and pitch. When checked against breath alcohol results, changes in the participants’ voice…

  • Ofcom unveils new rules to protect children online

    UK telecoms regulator Ofcom has published guidelines on how tech firms can comply with the long-awaited legislation and protect children from coming into contact with harmful content online. The guidance is part of the  first set of draft codes of practice under the OSA. This one focuses on how user-to-user (U2U) services – including social media platforms, online games and search engines – will be expected to respond to different types of illegal content.  OSA has been described as a “landmark” legislation , aimed at preventing the spread of child sexual abuse material, terrorism content and fraud. According to Ofcom,  its first priority will be protecting children. The codes recommend that platforms avoid presenting children with lists of suggested friends or allowing children to appear…

  • New legislation to hold carmakers responsible for self-driving vehicle crashes

    A new safety framework is to be introduced that will ensure companies producing self-driving vehicles are responsible for how their cars behave on the road. Every authorised self-driving vehicle will be given a corresponding ‘entity’ – often the manufacturer – which will be responsible for the car’s behaviour during operation. Companies will also have obligations to keep their vehicles safe and ensure that they continue to drive in accordance with UK laws.  Over the last decade, progress has stalled on autonomous vehicles on both sides of the Atlantic, despite predictions that they would be commonplace by now. While the technology already exists for autonomous vehicles to drive relatively safely on UK roads, legislation has held it back from hitting the mainstream. Some studies suggests…

  • Australia investigates network outage that left millions without internet

    The Australian government has launched an investigation into the nationwide communications outage that left residents without access to the internet for 12 hours on Wednesday 9 November. “It is critical that industry and governments take stock following large-scale outages, given no network is immune,” said communications minister Michelle Rowland, calling the failure “particularly concerning”.  Optus said a “configuration issue” may have been the cause of the outage, and stressed there was no evidence of a cyber attack. The outage disrupted countless services, including business transactions, phone lines used by emergency services and transport links such as t rain services in the state of Victoria. The Federal Department of Education, the Royal Melbourne Hospital and CommBank were…

  • 2023 set to become the warmest year on record, scientists say

    Copernicus, the Earth observation agency, has warned that last month was the hottest October on record globally, with temperatures 1.7°C above late-1800s levels. This paves the way for 2023 to become the warmest year since records began. “We can say with near certainty that 2023 will be the warmest year on record, and is currently 1.43°C above the pre-industrial average,” said Samantha Burgess, deputy director of Copernicus Climate Change Service. “The sense of urgency for ambitious climate action going into COP28  has never been higher.” The EU agency said that g lobal average air temperatures in October 2023 were 0.4°C warmer than the previous high of October 2019. The rise in global temperatures was described as a result of increasing carbon emissions and an El Niño weather event. …

  • London to use waste heat from data centres to warm nearby buildings

    Waste heat from data centres will be pumped into a new district heat network in London that is designed to warm nearby buildings. The government’s Green Heat Network Fund (GHNF) has awarded £36m to the project that will see a heat network being built in a new development area around Old Oak Common Station and deliver more than 9,000 homes and 250,000m 2 of commercial development. The scheme will be run by the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation (OPDC) in three London boroughs: Hammersmith and Fulham, Brent and Ealing. Data centres typically consume huge amounts of energy – a significant proportion of which is used to cool the enormous amount of waste heat generated during computation. This predictable supply of ‘low-grade heat’ (between 20°C and 35°C) is often wasted, with…

  • ‘Digital divide’ between urban and rural areas widening, report shows

    The report Connecting the Countryside, which has been carried out by WPI Economics on behalf of the operator, claims that close to a million (838,000) people are living in areas that would significantly benefit from access to 5G Standalone. Currently, the UK’s 5G networks are non-standalone, meaning that the core of the network is largely the same as it was during the days of 4G. With 5G Standalone, the entire network package has been upgraded with 5G-era technology, which should bring higher download and upload speeds. Most 5G in the UK is using non-standalone because it is cheaper and quicker to roll out. According to Vodafone, Scotland, Wales, East Anglia, Cumbria and the South-West are the worst-performing areas of Britain for connectivity. Vodafone said it “pledged” to close the…

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  • North Sea oil and gas licences to be awarded annually

    Until this week, the UK had no fixed period between the awarding of oil and gas licensing rounds. But Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has introduced a scheme that would require the North Sea Transition Authority to invite applications for new production licences annually. The announcement was made in the King’s Speech that marked the opening of Parliament. The new bill was described as helping the country transition to net zero in a “pragmatic, proportionate and realistic way”.  “This bill will support the future licensing of new oil and gas fields, helping the country to transition to net zero by 2050 without adding undue burdens on households,” the King said, adding it would help “reduce reliance on volatile international energy markets and hostile foreign regimes”. The government has also…

  • British Steel’s decarbonisation plan puts 2,000 jobs at risk

    Its ambitious decarbonisation plan could put thousands of jobs at risk.  The company – owned by China-based Jingye –  has announced its intention of closing down the blast furnaces as part of a £1.25bn effort to shift to electric steelmaking operations, which would make British Steel “a clean, green and sustainable business”.  The firm’s green plan includes the building of two EAFs located in Scunthorpe and Teesside, as well as the shutting of its polluting coal-fired blast furnaces. The EAFs are expected to reduce British Steel’s carbon dioxide emissions by 75 per cent. They could be in operation by late 2025, the company said. Chief executive Xijun Cao said the move was necessary in order to meet the company’s environmental commitments. “We have engaged extensively with the public…

  • 20GW of green energy projects fast-tracked for grid connection

    The new energy infrastructure will start with 19 battery projects amounting to around 10GW that will be given the option of connecting to the grid about four years earlier than they otherwise would have done. A further 10GW will be unlocked in the Midlands, South West of England and South Wales, which includes a raft of low-carbon technology projects, bringing forward some ‘shovel ready’ schemes by up to five years. National Grid said the accelerated 20GW of projects equates to the capacity of six Hinkley Point C nuclear power stations. Developers looking to connect renewable energy projects have previously told E+T that they face delays of up to 15 years to connect to the electricity grid. In June there were around 220 projects due to connect to the national transmission system before…

  • First transatlantic flight powered by sustainable aviation fuel given green light

    The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said it had carried out technical assessments of Virgin’s plans, including undertaking ground testing with Rolls-Royce on a Trent 1000 engine running on 100 per cent SAF. SAFs are typically derived by combining jet fuel with alternatives such as biofuels or recycled oils from industrial food facilities to achieve carbon savings of up to 70 per cent. They are often considered to be the most carbon-efficient option for aviation given the limits of current technology, which leaves electric and hydrogen planes in the prototype stage for now. Currently, SAF is approved for use in all aircraft, but only in blends of up to 50 per cent with conventional jet fuel. Virgin Atlantic was awarded up to £1m of UK government funding in December 2022, following a challenge…

  • WeWork valued at just $50m as it files for bankruptcy

    The story of the meteoric rise and fall of WeWork has come to an end, as the SoftBank Group-backed start-up has filed for bankruptcy in the US as a means of grappling with debts of billions of dollars. With its provision of shared working space, WeWork was once seen as the future of the workplace. The company, once valued at $47bn (£38bn), is now worth less than $50m (£41m), based on its latest share price. The filing is expected to give the company protection from its creditors and landlords as it restructures its vast debts.  A WeWork spokesperson said about 92 per cent of the company's lenders had agreed to convert their secured debt into equity under a restructuring support agreement.  WeWork has more than 700 sites around the world and around 730,000 members, but the bankruptcy filing…

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  • Sizewell C to build desalination plant to meet its water needs

    With the UK’s ageing fleet of eight nuclear power stations needing to be replaced, and only EDF’s Hinkley Point C undergoing construction, Sizewell C will play an important role in backing up renewable energy in the switch away from fossil fuels. The project is expected to be finished by 2036 at the latest and will provide 7 per cent of the UK’s electricity needs. Desalination is expected to become an important future technology in the UK as the effects of climate change put greater strain on water supplies in rivers and reservoirs. To reduce the impact of the plant on the environment, Sizewell C is in discussions with EDF Energy Nuclear Generation to agree on a supply of zero-carbon electricity from the neighbouring power station Sizewell B. This will reduce the need to run the desalination…

  • FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried found guilty of fraud and money laundering

    A jury found the founder of FTX guilty on seven counts of criminal fraud, closing a chapter on one of the most publicised trials of the cryptocurrency world.  The jury delivered the verdict after less than five hours of deliberations, leaving the judge to decide on a sentence that could send Bankman-Fried to prison for as many as 115 years. The former billionaire, 31, was arrested in the Bahamas and extradited to the US after FTX went bankrupt last year. The downfall of the crypto exchange and its sister hedge fund Alameda Research rattled financial markets and caused Bankman-Fried to lose his estimated $26bn (£21bn) fortune.  “Sam Bankman-Fried thought that he was above the law,” said attorney-general Merrick Garland. “Today’s verdict proves he was wrong.” The ‘crypto king’ was accused…

  • Europe’s ‘first operational orbital spaceport’ built on remote Norwegian island

    Andøya Spaceport will be used to launch satellites from European commercial space company Isar Aerospace (IA). When fully constructed, the facility will host several launch pads, with IA gaining exclusive access to the first launch site, which was built to its specifications. It includes a launch pad, payload integration facilities and a mission control centre. The launch site will support the two-stage launch vehicle Spectrum, which is set to carry out final stage testing by IA. While the designs have been completed, the vehicle is currently in the production phase, including construction on the flight engines. The rocket stages will then have to undergo a series of tests that will verify that the systems meet all necessary requirements for flight. Image credit: Isar…

  • UK and US launch AI safety institutes

    The announcements took place during the inaugural AI safety summit, a meeting of w orld leaders, computer scientists and tech executives held this week at Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire – the home of codebreaking and computing .  The UK’s AI institute has been presented as an evolution of the Frontier AI Taskforce created in June, with a similar leadership, as Ian Hogarth has agreed to continue in his role as chair . Celebrated AI researcher Yoshuo Bengio will be taking the lead on the production of the institute’s first report. The institute will “help spur international collaboration on AI’s safe development” by forming partnerships with research bodies such as the Alan Turing Institute, leading AI companies such as Google DeepMind, and nations including Singapore and the US. Sunak…

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  • Thousands of Port Talbot jobs at risk as Tata Steel announces net loss

    Tata Steel workers have been left at a standstill as the company cancelled a scheduled press conference at the last minute, in which it was expected to reveal its decision to close the two Port Talbot blast furnaces, employing 4,000 people. The company had even held a meeting with union representatives earlier that day, in which the plans were framed within the company’s decarbonisation and cost-cutting push. However, the board meeting ended with no official confirmation from the group. That same day, Tata Steel published its financial results, revealing the firm suffered a £135m loss in the last quarter of the year.  The company said it was “not in a position to make a formal announcement about any proposals for a transition to a decarbonised future for Tata Steel UK” and said it hoped…

  • Disney to buy Comcast’s Hulu stakes for at least $8.6bn

    Disney has announced its plans to buy the part of the Hulu streaming service it does not already own from  TV giant Comcast for an estimated $8.6bn (£7bn).  The offer deadline expires on 1 December 2023, kicking off what are expected to be heated negotiations between the two entertainment conglomerates. If accepted, the deal would value Hulu at $27.5bn (£22.5bn), despite Comcast chief executive Brian Roberts recently stating he believes the streaming service is a “scarce kingmaker asset” worth $60bn (£49bn). The agreement would give Disney full control over Hulu’s content, allowing the company to integrate it into its own streaming service Disney+ and “further Disney’s streaming objectives,” the company said in a statement.  Disney gained a controlling interest in Hulu as part of its…

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    E+T Magazine

  • Moon base astronauts could use 3D printers to convert lunar dust into equipment

    Extended missions in space require the on-site manufacture of crucial materials and equipment, rather than transporting those items from Earth. Students at West Virginia University have been researching how 3D printing works in a weightless environment as a way to make that happen. They looked at how a microgravity environment affects 3D printing using titania foam, a material with potential applications ranging from ultraviolet (UV) light-blocking to water purification. “Transporting even a kilogramme of material in space is expensive and storage is limited, so we’re looking into what is called ‘in situ resource utilisation’,” said associate professor Konstantinos Sierros. The Moon contains deposits of minerals very similar to the titanium dioxide used in titania foam, which means the…

  • Offshore wind farms can ‘steal’ the capacity of other farms up to 50km away

    According to a researcher from the University of Bergen in Norway, efficiency can be reduced by up to 20 per cent from this distance due to wake loss. PhD candidate Eirik Finserås said that current regulations are “ambiguous” and should be developed to accommodate the proliferation of offshore wind development in the North Sea in order to maximise efficiency. “The incentive to develop an offshore wind farm can diminish with just a five per cent reduction in capacity, based on economic considerations,” he said. The Norwegian government is currently planning the development of offshore wind farms in Sørlige Nordsjø II. The field is located approximately 22km southeast of the planned Danish offshore wind park Nordsren III. “The Norwegian offshore wind farm in Sørlige Nordsjø II will likely…

  • UK makes U-turn over deep-sea mining moratorium

    The UK has changed its position on deep-sea mining, deciding to add its name to the list of countries calling for a moratorium on new mining licences proposed by the International Seabed Authority (ISA). Deep-sea mining is a highly controversial activity that seeks to obtain minerals such as lithium, copper and cobalt from the ocean floor. Despite the importance of securing these minerals to power green technologies, environmentalists have warned of the “catastrophic” impact that deep-sea mining could have on the world’s marine ecosystems. “Deep-sea mining poses an existential threat to some of the most vulnerable, least explored habitats on the planet,” said Clare Brooke, chief executive of the Blue Marine Foundation. “It is vital that we exercise the precautionary principle and find ways…

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    E+T Magazine

  • Countries sign ‘world first’ AI declaration at Bletchley Park summit

    World leaders, computer scientists and tech executives are currently meeting at Bletchley Park – the home of codebreaking and computing – for the first AI summit in history.  The UK has marked the event by publishing the Bletchley Declaration, described as a “landmark achievement” that signals a starting point in the conversations around the risks of AI technologies. The document has been signed by representatives from the European Union and 28 countries, including the US and China.   The agreement is expected to “lay the foundations” for the discussions that will take place during the summit, and describes the need to address the risks that AIs could pose to society as “the only way to safely unlock the extraordinary opportunities”, according to UK t echnology secretary Michelle Donelan…

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