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£266m worth of copper in UK’s unused or binned electrical items – new research

UK households should go ‘urban mining’ and recycle unused cables, phone chargers and other old tech to help stave off a looming shortage of copper, says the Recycle Your Electricals campaign. Copper mines are struggling to produce enough of the red metal to meet growing global demand. Analysis from Bloomberg Intelligence shows an increasing gap between the amount of copper produced and demand for the raw product. It estimates that globally there will be a 6.5 million tonnes gap by 2033. However, the same report also identifies that better recycling of copper could potentially meet the additional demand. A recent study by Recycle Your Electricals, a UK-wide campaign from independent not-for-profit organisation Material Focus, shows that if UK households had to look in their ‘drawer of…

E+T Magazine in Recycling
Risk of winter blackouts in the UK drops to lowest level since Ukraine conflict

This winter the UK will have the lowest risk of electricity blackouts in four years despite the recent closure of the nation’s last coal-fired power plant and delays to the upcoming Hinkley Point C power plant. The National Energy System Operator (NESO) said that energy margins this season will be “adequate”, assuming that energy demand peaks around 60GW during the worst cold spell, and is more confident than it was in advance of the 2023/2024 winter. It said the higher year-on-year margin is driven by a new interconnection, growth in battery storage capacity and an increase in generation connected to the distribution networks. In April, National Grid turned on the Viking Link – the longest land and subsea cable in the world – that links the Danish electricity system with the UK. NESO…

E+T Magazine in Business Planning
Lab-grown meat approval process boosted by £1.6m funding for food regulator

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) is to ensure that cell-cultivated products, including lab-grown steak, beef, chicken and foie gras, are safe to eat before being sold to UK consumers. The UK is one of the largest potential markets for cell-cultivated products (CCPs) in Europe but currently none are approved for human consumption. The FSA, in collaboration with Food Standards Scotland (FSS), has been awarded £1.6m from the government’s Engineering Biology Sandbox Fund to develop an efficient safety assessment process for CCPs. Demand for alternatives to regular meat is surging because of concerns about health, animal welfare and the environment. Meat and dairy farming contribute to a rise in the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide. However, in most parts of the world, CCPs, which are…

E+T Magazine in Biotechnology
Former North Sea gas terminals could be repurposed as geothermal energy facilities

Former gas terminals could be repurposed as geothermal energy facilities as the world moves away from fossil fuels. According to Andreas Busch, professor of earth sciences at Heriot-Watt University, the North Sea harbours easily exploitable geothermal energy in the form of heat that could be used to generate zero-carbon electricity. The North Sea oil basin is currently in decline, and production in 2023 was the lowest since the 1970s. With Britain looking to eliminate its carbon emissions by 2050, hundreds of wells will need to be decommissioned every year as more oil and gas fields shut down. According to Busch, repurposing the existing infrastructure for geothermal energy offers a “multitude of advantages” – largely because it’s much more cost-effective and has a lower environmental…

E+T Magazine in Research and Innovation
Starlink activates satellite service early for areas hit by Hurricane Helene to aid relief efforts

Starlink has made its direct-to-cell satellite service available in areas hit by Hurricane Helene prior to its official launch. SpaceX offers internet connectivity via its Starlink satellite constellation. It is the world’s largest satellite constellation, with over 5,000 satellites in orbit at present. The firm, founded by Elon Musk, started launching satellites capable of providing a direct mobile connection to phones in January. It provides satellite internet coverage to dozens of countries, and is in the process of expanding mobile coverage into ‘dead zones’ impractical or impossible to reach with terrestrial network coverage, including more than half a million square miles of the US. Direct-to-cell is expected to launch with just text services later this year, with voice, data and…

E+T Magazine in Satellites
EU votes for hefty tariffs on Chinese EV imports

EU countries have voted in favour of imposing up to 45% on China-made electric vehicles (EVs) for five years. Just over a year ago, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission (EC), announced that Brussels was to investigate the imposing of import duties on battery electric vehicles (BEVs) coming from China to the EU. Von der Leyen said the decision to do so was due to “growing evidence-based concerns about the recent and rapid rise in low-priced exports of EVs from China”. In July 2024, the EC announced that following the investigation it had concluded that the booming Chinese sector benefits from “unfair subsidisation” by Beijing which is causing a “threat of economic injury to EU BEV producers”. The EC proposed a provisional measure that included anti-subsidy tariffs…

E+T Magazine in Electric Vehicles
UK’s £22bn bet on carbon capture will ‘lock the nation into fossil fuel dependence for decades’

Scientists and environmental campaigners have criticised the government’s investment in carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects, saying the technology is unproven and will only extend our reliance on fossil fuels. On Friday (4 October), the UK government announced it would invest nearly £22bn in CCS projects over the next 25 years. CCS technology concentrates carbon emissions before they reach the atmosphere and stores them beneath the seabed. It is seen as a way to rapidly tackle existing carbon-intensive industrial sectors. While it may sound like a viable solution to simply bury carbon emissions underground, the technology does have strong opposition, especially from many scientists and environmental campaigners. Writing in The Conversation, Mark Maslin, professor of natural sciences…

E+T Magazine in Ethical Aspects
Teardown: Surface Laptop 7 and Surface Pro 11

New Microsoft models harness Snapdragon X power to quash repairability and speed issues, but do they represent a generational leap forward? In 2020, Apple left the laptop market reeling with the release of its M1 MacBook Air, which finally saw the firm begin its transition to ARM-powered CPUs replacing Intel and its x86 architecture. ARM CPUs had long been used for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets due to their superior battery life, but had not been considered powerful enough to run laptops. With the release of the M1 chip in 2020, Apple showed that ARM could be utilised very effectively to run a fully-fledged desktop while maintaining its battery life and portability benefits. The Surface Pro 11 battery is relatively easy to remove Qualcomm, the manufacturer behind the…

E+T Magazine in Electronics Design
BAE Systems launches latest Royal Navy attack submarine from its shipbuilding base in Cumbria

Agamemnon, named after the ancient Greek king, is the sixth of seven Astute Class submarines to emerge from BAE’s shipyard at Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria. The nuclear-powered craft weighs 7,400 tonnes and is 97 metres long. Having entered the water for the first time, Agamemnon will now begin the next phase of its test and commissioning programme before leaving Barrow for sea trials with the Royal Navy. The Astute Class boats are the largest and most advanced attack submarines ever built for the Royal Navy. Equipped with state-of-the-art nuclear technology, they never need to be refuelled. As they manufacture their own oxygen and drinking water for 98 crew members, they are also able to circumnavigate the globe without surfacing. Steve Timms, managing director of BAE Systems Submarines…

E+T Magazine in Aerospace
Emergency distress signal system to ensure astronaut safety on the Moon

Scientists are designing a communication system for the Moon that will allow future astronauts to send emergency distress signals and geolocate their positions. The project, which is led by the University of South Australia (UniSA), proposes building a satellite constellation based on the COSPAS-SARSAT technology already used for search and rescue on Earth, but adapted for lunar conditions. With its Artemis program, Nasa is aiming to establish a long-term human presence on the Moon. This could leave astronauts exposed to high-risk situations in remote areas such as the lunar south pole. Dr Mark Rice, a UniSA researcher, says the distress system could allow continuous communication with astronauts for up to 10 hours, even in the most challenging terrain, such as craters or mountains. …

E+T Magazine in Space
UK EV market not growing fast enough to meet government-mandated targets

Automotive trade association the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) and major car makers are calling on the government to introduce electric vehicle (EV) subsidies to stimulate demand. UK electric car sales hit a record high in September, according to the latest figures from the trade association, which represents the UK’s automotive industry. Over 56,300 EVs were sold during the month – the highest on record – achieving a 20.5% share of overall car sales. This is up from 16.6% a year ago. The fleet sector drove much of this growth, making up 75.9% of EV registrations. While private EV demand rose by 3.6%, SMMT says it is not rising fast enough to meet the government’s zero emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate. Under the ZEV mandate, which aims to phase out new petrol and…

E+T Magazine in Electric Vehicles
Can we cut the Earth in half like a watermelon?

Why dividing Earth into two separate hemispheres is even harder than one might assume . Dear Evil Engineer, We hope you are able to receive this message, which we are transmitting from a communications outpost located a few light-years from Earth. Our observations suggest that your planet remains unaware of the ongoing scramble for the planets of the Orion Arm between ourselves and our rival empires. Territorial claims have largely been settled with limited planetary destruction – however, the planet Earth, with its rich resources of water, oxygen and coffee beans, remains subject to competing claims. We have therefore signed a treaty agreeing to the partition of Earth between ourselves and those cretins from Scutum-Centaurus. We will decide afterwards who will take the northern hemisphere…

E+T Magazine
UK to invest £22bn in broad roll-out of carbon capture and storage

The government will invest nearly £22bn in carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects as it looks to curtail the UK’s carbon emissions. According to the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), the projects will create “thousands of jobs” while attracting around £8bn in private investment. CCS technology concentrates carbon emissions before it reaches the atmosphere and stores it beneath the seabed. The full £21.7bn investment will be made available in stages over the next 25 years as the UK looks to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050. Initial investment will be focused on two “carbon capture clusters” in Teesside and Merseyside, while the announcement also sees funding allocated to build the UK’s first large-scale hydrogen production plant. Prime Minister Keir Starmer…

E+T Magazine in Business Planning
Toyota to delay production of first US-made EV to 2026

Toyota is pushing back the start date for electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing at its Kentucky-based assembly plant in the US to 2026. The Japanese carmaker initially targeted late 2025 to begin output of its first EV model at the Kentucky plant. However, Japan’s The Nikkei newspaper has reported that this date is now being pushed back to 2026. Earlier this year, Toyota had announced it was investing $1.3bn in the Kentucky factory to build a three-row electric sport utility vehicle (SUV). According to the Nikkei article, along with this delay Toyota has also cancelled plans to produce a Lexus brand SUV in North America by 2030, opting to ship completed vehicles to the US from Japan instead. However, it still expects the North American EV market to grow over the long term and plans to…

E+T Magazine in Electric Vehicles
Rail manufacturing plant opens in Goole to build Piccadilly Line trains

Transport secretary Louise Haigh will be at the inauguration ceremony for the new £200m Siemens plant that will support 700 high-skilled jobs. Siemens’ Rail Village will be responsible for manufacturing and assembling almost 100 new Piccadilly Line trains. The new facility complements Siemens’ existing operations, comprising some 450 trains in service and eight purpose-built maintenance facilities, plus wider activities in electrification, signalling and train control technologies. The rail village is Siemens’ second investment in East Yorkshire, following a £300m wind turbine blade plant that was opened in 2016 in Hull. Haigh said she wanted to end the ‘boom and bust’ approach to rail manufacturing by delivering a long-term industrial strategy for rolling stock. “This impressive, world…

E+T Magazine in Railways
UK faces infrastructure spending shortfall of £700bn by 2040, says report

The UK is heading towards an infrastructure spending shortfall of £700bn by 2040, with £1.6tn of projects currently unfunded, according to a report by EY-Parthenon, EY’s global strategy consulting arm. The report – Mind the (investment) gap: funding and delivering capital projects amidst fiscal constraints – attributes the funding shortfall to a combination of economic headwinds. It finds that persistently high levels of inflation, rising cost of capital and expanding government balance sheets following Covid-19 have significantly increased the cost of capital projects while leaving many governments with less money to spend. In the UK, for example, there are £1.6tn of unfunded programmes and projects up to 2040. According to EY analysis, only around £900bn of these will be covered by…

E+T Magazine in Built Environment Technologies
Voyager 2 plasma instrument shuttered to preserve power as probe nears 50 years in space

Nasa scientists have turned off one of the instruments on the near 50-year-old Voyager 2 space probe as its electrical power supply continues to decline. Voyager 2 was launched in 1977 and has travelled more than 20 billion kilometres from Earth. It continues to use four science instruments to study the region outside the solar system’s heliosphere, the protective bubble of particles and magnetic fields created by the Sun. While mission engineers have been trying to avoid turning off any of its key instruments for as long as possible, they recently made the decision to shut down the plasma science instrument that is designed to measure the flow of charged atoms in the space surrounding the craft. It has only managed to collect limited data in recent years because of its orientation relative…

E+T Magazine in Space
Factory of the future: manufacturers harness AI to revolutionise the assembly line

Comment: Why do manufacturers invest in technologies such as robotics, cloud computing and AI? What are the main barriers to adopting new tech? And how do these manufacturers plan to invest in the future? Anders Billesø Beck, vice president for strategy and innovation at Universal Robots, provides some answers. Prioritising the evolving needs of end customers is essential for any business. To gain a deeper understanding of what these needs are, Universal Robotics, a Danish manufacturer of collaborative robot arms (cobots), carried out a survey of 1,200 manufacturers in Europe and North America. The focus of the survey was to find out how these manufacturers are using technology now and how they plan to invest in the future. The four key takeaways from the survey include: 1. AI: From…

E+T Magazine in Artificial Intelligence
IBM opens first European quantum data centre in Germany

US firm IBM has opened its first quantum data centre outside of the US near Stuttgart in Germany, enabling European companies and research institutes to access its quantum computing systems. The new European IBM Quantum Data Center includes two utility-scale IBM Quantum Eagle-based systems. IBM claims these systems are capable of performing computations beyond the brute-force simulation capabilities of classical computers. The centre will also soon feature a new IBM Quantum Heron-based system. First introduced at the end of last year, IBM Heron is the company’s highest performing quantum chip. It offers reduced error rates, 16 times better performance and a 25-fold increase in speed over 2022 IBM quantum systems. The Quantum advantage, which companies like IBM refer to, is the point at…

E+T Magazine in Quantum Engineering
China’s $100bn cleantech investment turbocharging global energy transition

China’s unprecedented “tsunami” of foreign investment in renewable energy and transport electrification projects since 2023 is turbocharging the global energy transition, according to a report. The Green capital tsunami report from Climate Energy Finance (CEF), a Sydney-based research group, outlines how China is leading the decarbonisation race. The report findings reveal how China is leading the world in every aspect of decarbonisation – in R&D, investment, innovation, manufacturing, installation and exports of key clean energy technologies spanning solar, wind, batteries, new energy vehicles, grids, hydro and green hydrogen. Its domestic cleantech investment is double that of the EU and the US. Based on investments currently proposed and confirmed, the report calculates that Chinese…

E+T Magazine in Business Planning
Engineering and the art of the prompt

The creative abilities of GenAI can appear impressive, but depend on the user being able to tell it precisely what they want. Are engineers poised to benefit from increasing demand for this skill? When generative AI (GenAI) makes headlines, it’s often for negative reasons. That could be its ability to create images that are realistic but misleading, or output that reflects racial and gender prejudices inherent in the material it has been trained on. Regardless of its potential weaknesses, businesses of all kinds are recognising GenAI’s potential, with plans to use it in a range of ways. Increasingly, though, awareness is growing of the importance of the human element not just to check AI’s output, but to make sure it is being asked the right questions in the first place. Image credit…

E+T Magazine in Business Planning
A more strategic approach is essential to skilling the UK’s workforce, says report

A report published by EngineeringUK has highlighted how a comprehensive STEM education and skills strategy is essential to skilling the UK’s workforce. The report – Advancing STEM careers provision in England: Key lessons and opportunities – looks at what is working well in careers education in schools and colleges, and what requires urgent attention. With a rising and pressing demand for engineering and technology roles, primarily driven by the UK’s net zero goals and the increasing prominence of green jobs, there urgently needs to be a skilled workforce to fill those roles. The report calls for a more strategic approach to careers provision in England and for greater investment in the careers system and infrastructure. Dr Hilary Leevers, CEO of EngineeringUK, said: “We welcome the…

E+T Magazine in STEM Education and Skills
What’s in store for Advanced Engineering attendees?

Advanced Engineering, the UK’s premier annual event for the engineering and manufacturing sectors, has announced this year’s keynote speakers. The six industry leaders — and 150 plus other speakers — will share their expertise and insights on critical industry issues during talks across several different forums. The two-day show will take place at the NEC in Birmingham on October 30 and 31, 2024. The first of this year’s keynote speakers, Brian Holliday, is a leading figure in industrial technology and digital manufacturing. As the head of Siemens Digital Industries for the UK and Ireland, he oversees advanced automation, industry software, systems integration and R&D. He is an expert on productivity, digital manufacturing and industrial strategy, often contributing to media discussions.…

E+T Magazine
IET and E+T magazine win multiple awards at the annual Memcom Excellence Awards

E+T magazine and the IET won awards in numerous categories at the recent Memcom Excellence Awards, including Best Magazine, Best Website, Best Venue and Best Strategy for Member Engagement or Recruitment. The Memcom Awards are an annual awards ceremony for professional membership organisations. It celebrates innovation, creativity and impact in the membership sector. Earlier this year, E+T magazine was shortlisted in three categories: Best Website, Best Digital Transformation and Best Magazine (circulation more than 20,000). On the night, E+T walked away as winners of Best Magazine and was highly commended in the Best Website category. For the Best Magazine win, the judges said: “Impressive innovative and engaging content that is circulated to 156,000 members in 148 countries. The multimedia…

E+T Magazine

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