• £3.5bn Mersey Tidal Power scheme reaches two planning milestones

    Planning and public consultations for the Mersey Tidal Power scheme, a major new link between Wirral and Liverpool, are about to get under way. Liverpool City Region Combined Authority said that the £3.5bn Mersey Tidal Power scheme had entered the formal planning process, with the submission of a scoping report to the Planning Inspectorate. It also announced that a six-week public consultation on the scheme would begin on 1 October 2024, offering local people and organisations the opportunity to comment on initial proposals for the scheme. The 700MW Mersey Tidal Power scheme is a ‘first of a kind’ project in the UK, building a barrage across the River Mersey with turbines, sluices and marine navigation locks. The 28 turbines will generate power by turning with the tide. The barrage…

  • Graphene-enhanced asphalt trialled on British roads to boost durability and sustainability

    A new type of asphalt that has been imbued with graphene to improve its resilience is being trialled on British roads by National Highways. The new surfacing material incorporates a graphene-enhanced polymeric additive called Gipave. Graphene is the strongest compound discovered (100-300 times stronger than steel) and acts as a reinforcement to the bitumen film surrounding aggregates in asphalt. The trial surfacing took place on the A12 between Hatfield Peverel and Witham and contained 40% reclaimed asphalt. Previous studies have shown Gipave has improved stiffness and resistance to deformation compared to conventional asphalt while improving its long-term endurance. National Highways plans to monitor the performance of the material on the A12 over several years before considering whether…

  • Engineering nature: How biotech innovations are reshaping the fight against climate change

    From bioengineering large natural systems and tinkering with genes to redesign biology, to copying natural processes with an engineering twist – the world is finding new ways to cut emissions and clean up dirty industries. Can nature, enhanced by human ingenuity, save us from climate change? Bioscientists are scouring the living world for solutions to meet urgent climate goals. Natural carbon sinks already absorb about half the áá in the atmosphere. Estimates vary but by 2050, á agreed targets will depend on removing and storing around 10 gigatonnes of carbon every year. Marian Krueger heads a not-for-profit carbon removal accelerator, Remove. “The scale of the challenge is so vast there’s no single solution that will get us there” she says. “Our task is to use biology as efficiently as…

  • Aviation can achieve net zero by 2050 if immediate action is taken, says report

    Cambridge University has published a report outlining a five-year roadmap to help the aviation sector achieve net zero by 2050. 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, as well as the low scale-up of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production. Despite industry pledges and government action, such as the UK government’s sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) mandate, the Aviation Impact Accelerator (AIA) argues that the aviation sector still remains significantly off-course in its efforts to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. The AIA, a project led by the University of Cambridge and hosted by the university’s Whittle Laboratory…

  • Autonomous robot inspects fusion facility, paving way for safer, cheaper maintenance

    An autonomous robot has been used to inspect the inside of a fusion energy facility for the first time as part of efforts to make maintenance more cost-efficient and safer for humans. The 35-day trial took place at the UK Atomic Energy Authority’s Joint European Torus (JET) facility, which until its recent scientific operational shutdown was one of the largest and most powerful fusion research machines in the world. Researchers said the JET facility provided the ideal opportunity to test the ‘AutoInspect’ platform developed by the Oxford Robotics Institute. It used a robot developed by Boston Dynamics called ‘Spot’ to investigate an environment still hazardous after two high-powered deuterium-tritium experiments in the space of three years. The facility consists of a tokamak fusion system…

  • Comment: Labour’s ambitious planning reforms set the stage for Britain’s green energy revamp

    Longest King’s speech in decades sets ambitious planning reforms for a greener future. This summer’s King’s speech in the UK ran to 1,223 words: the longest at a parliamentary state opening since 2005. It included a mammoth 40 bills – a lot, but not unexpected for the first Labour-led administration since 2010. The Planning and Infrastructure Bill – arguably one of the most significant pieces of legislation outlined – aims to streamline the process for approving critical infrastructure and overhaul rules on the compulsory purchase of land. Ultimately, the need to reform the UK’s planning regime is driven by the government’s climate change goals, with energy infrastructure and housebuilding being the most obvious beneficiaries of the bill. In its manifesto, Labour set itself a lofty…

  • Major UK businesses call for energy market reform to ‘drive faster grid decarbonisation’

    Major UK companies have published a report with recommendations to reform the government’s Renewable Energy Guarantees of Origin (REGO) scheme to ensure it supports grid decarbonisation by 2030. Led by international nonprofit organisation Climate Group, the group consists of BT Group, British Land, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners, EnergyTag, Good Energy, Google, Pearson, Unilever, Unite Students, Vodafone UK and Virgin Media O2. These signatories have published a report – Unlocking corporate investment in UK renewables – that lays out recommendations to reform the REGO scheme to ensure it more effectively supports the mission of grid decarbonisation. The REGO scheme was designed to provide transparency to consumers about the proportion of electricity that suppliers source from renewable…

  • Starlink’s new satellites have been ‘blinding’ radio telescopes, study reveals

    Radio telescopes could be practically “blinded” by unintended radio waves emitted from the vast constellation of satellites operated by Elon Musk’s Starlink, researchers have said. Starlink can offer broadband internet services to almost any location on Earth using signals beamed down from one of its 6,281 low earth orbit (LEO) satellites. It plans to add thousands more to make the service more robust. Netherlands researchers made observations with the LOFAR (Low Frequency Array) radio telescope last year that showed that first generation Starlink satellites emit unintended radio waves that can hinder astronomical observations. However, new observations show that the second-generation ’V2-mini’ Starlink satellites emit up to 32 times brighter unintended radio waves than satellites from…

  • E+T Off The Page: Biotechnology was going to change the world - but has it delivered?

    Biotechnology was going to change the world - but has it delivered?

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Researchers find no evidence that AI-generated content impacted recent European elections

    AI-generated disinformation and deepfakes did not meaningfully impact election results in the UK, France and the European Parliament this year, according to research by The Alan Turing Institute. When the UK and France both announced snap elections for July 2024 (the month after the planned European Parliament election), concerns were raised over the potential role of generative AI in interfering with voting processes and spreading disinformation. The Alan Turing Institute, the UK’s national institute for data science and AI, conducted an evidence-based analysis of the influence of generative AI during these elections throughout June and July 2024. Researchers from the Centre for Emerging Technology and Security (CETaS) at The Alan Turing Institute identified just 16 confirmed viral cases…

  • India’s coal mining ambitions risk ‘profound’ short-term global warming, report warns

    India’s plan to ramp up coal mining by 2030 could significantly increase its methane emissions, which may significantly exacerbate climate change, a report has found. The energy think tank Ember has called on India to urgently develop a robust national policy to address methane emissions from coal mines. Methane is a greenhouse gas thought to have a global warming effect more than 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide. It is thought to be responsible for 20% to 30% of climate warming since the Industrial Revolution, although it dissipates much faster in the atmosphere – only around 12 years compared to centuries for carbon dioxide. While India has been ramping up its solar power generation at an impressive rate, unprecedented increases in electricity demand are still outpacing the…

  • Google wins appeal against €1.5bn EU anti-competitive fine

    The EU’s General Court has annulled a €1.5bn penalty against Google that was targeted at its online advertising business. The European Commission (EC) launched the action against Google in 2019 for imposing anti-competitive restrictions on third-party websites for a decade between 2006 and 2016. The ruling applied to Google’s Adsense platform and was triggered by a complaint from Microsoft in 2010. Regulators accused Google of inserting exclusivity clauses in its contracts that barred web businesses from running similarly placed ads sold by Google’s rivals. At the time of issuing the penalty, the EC said that Google’s behaviour resulted in advertisers and website owners having less choice and probably facing higher prices that would be passed on to consumers. However, when the case…

  • Growing demand for batteries not matched by UK’s gigafactory ambitions, report warns

    The UK needs to rapidly increase investment in domestic battery production to help keep up the predicted increase in demand for electric vehicles (EVs) and full-scale grid storage, according to a report from the Faraday Institution. The report states that the UK will need the equivalent of six gigafactories by 2030 – each producing 20GWh per year of batteries. By 2040, the demand could rise to the equivalent of 10 gigafactories. “The UK is making progress but not moving fast enough compared to its European competitors,” the body said. Since the beginning of the year, Tata Group has confirmed it would build a £4bn gigafactory to produce EV batteries in Somerset and the UK Infrastructure Bank has announced a £200m loan to support the development of a facility by AESC in north-east England…

  • End of an era – UK’s last coal-fired power plant will shut for good on 30 September

    Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in Nottinghamshire will close at the end of September after nearly 60 years. It dominates the East Midlands skyline for miles around with its eight cooling towers and 199-metre-tall chimney. The power station began generating electricity in 1968 with a capacity of 2,000MW, enough to power two million homes. Now, 56 years later, decommissioning will begin in two weeks, signalling the end to polluting coal-powered electricity in the UK. It also signals the end of an era to those residents who live close to it. Talking to news agency AFP, David Reynolds remembered the site being built as a child. “It'll seem very strange because it has always been there,” he said. “When I was younger you could go down certain parts and you saw nothing but coal pits.” …

  • Editor's comment: Engineers are our best hope for solving the world’s biggest problems

    Let’s be honest, the world is not without its challenges at the moment: climate change, war, pollution, disease and much, much more. Typically these problems hit us almost overnight, while the solutions to them often take time to unfold. Those solutions largely result from dedication in the laboratories, workplaces and minds of scientists, engineers and technologists. Politicians play an important role of course, particularly when it comes to conflict, or the commitment to finance. But the mental heavy-lifting generally comes from the technology sector. So how are we getting on in solving these big societal issues? Well, not that brilliantly, it appears. Back in 2021 E+T started a project called Critical Targets in which we looked at seven global challenges. In each category we selected…

  • Autonomous pothole prevention could revolutionise road repairs

    Climate change, tight budgets and increasing traffic are making it hard to keep roads damage-free. Now technology is being used to find sustainable ways to tackle the problem. The Hertfordshire town of Potters Bar, in the commuter belt just north of London, isn’t the sort of place you would expect to come across robot technology being tested that could help solve a problem plaguing urban infrastructure across the world. Earlier this year, however, it hosted trials of an autonomous road-mending vehicle, which could soon be patrolling city streets and finding and fixing defects before they develop into potentially lethal fissures. The state of British roads was mentioned in all party manifestos at this year’s general election, reflecting how preoccupied the public is with it. Pothole fury…

  • EV production requires triple the workforce compared to traditional ICE vehicles

    US car manufacturers that have switched to making electric vehicles (EVs) have had to employ at least three times more employees, bucking expectations that the shift would require fewer workers, according to research. In theory, EVs should be easier to manufacture than internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles because they have fewer moving parts and simpler powertrains. Unlike ICE vehicles, which require complex engines, transmissions and exhaust systems, EVs primarily consist of an electric motor, a battery pack and a simpler transmission system. But researchers at the University of Michigan have shown that plants in the ramp-up stages of transitioning to full-scale EV production required 10 times more workers to assemble every vehicle. At one plant, which has been producing EVs for over…

  • Race for the moon: Lunar ventures surge as £120bn space economy emerges

    There is money to be made on the Moon, but you must hurry – the Earth’s natural satellite is getting a little crowded. In the clean rooms of satellite manufacturer SSTL, based in Guildford, Surrey, a unique spacecraft is just coming together. The Lunar Pathfinder will be one of the first communications satellites built to make money on the Moon. The spacecraft, dreamed up by the pioneering British small satellite manufacturer in the mid-2000s, will be about as big as a fridge, weighing 300kg and orbiting the Earth’s natural companion in an elliptical orbit that will take it over the lunar poles. While the satellite will zip over the north pole in a few minutes only several hundreds of kilometres above the crater-riddled surface, it will linger for hours over the south pole during the distant…

  • Intuitive Machines wins $4.8bn Nasa contract to support missions in near space

    Nasa has awarded Intuitive Machines a $4.8bn contract to support its future missions in the near space region, which extends from Earth’s surface to beyond the Moon. The five-year contract with the Houston-based space exploration company forms part of Nasa’s plans to deploy lunar relay capabilities and navigation services for its Artemis programme. Artemis will send commercial robot landers to the Moon on science scouting missions, place astronauts on the lunar surface and, in the long-term, establish a permanent base to facilitate human missions to Mars. According to Nasa, the extended coverage offered by lunar relays will play a crucial role in helping it establish a long-term presence on the Moon. Without them, landing opportunities at the Moon’s south pole will be significantly limited…

  • Algorithms boost real-world quantum applications

    Developing new quantum algorithms could help us model the batteries and chemicals of the future. It’s a hard pill for some industries to swallow, but our energy and manufacturing status quo is no longer fit for purpose. Our reliance on fossil fuels is driving up carbon emissions, climate change and global warming. Our increasing demand for technology and digital services is depleting some of our rarest resources. Our laboured adoption of renewable energy and sustainable manufacturing is creating economical and societal risks. There is a solution in sight: quantum computers promise to speed up material modelling in a way that helps us discover and commercialise new materials for batteries, solar panels, chemicals and more. By using quantum mechanics to solve problems that are unsolvable…

  • Could plastic-eating microbes solve the world's waste problem?

    Using microbes to recycle plastic waste back into its constituents offers great promise – especially as the first commercial facility has just begun construction. Plastic pollution is a huge problem, but one that society – and industry – is determined to solve. While most plastics can be mechanically recycled through cleaning, shredding and remelting, recycling rates remain low. The process also affects physical properties, which limits the amount of recyclate that can be used in a new product. New techniques are emerging to overcome this limitation. Chemical recycling, for instance, uses high heat to break plastics into their original monomers, which can be repolymerised. But a more sophisticated approach – using plastic-degrading enzymes – could do this more efficiently. What’s more,…

  • Biotech’s broken promises: Why the biofuel revolution never happened

    It seemed at one stage, a decade or two ago, that biotech was going to be the next big thing in all sorts of fields – fuel, medicine, materials. But it has proved to be more difficult than at first thought. It’s easy to see why there is such enthusiasm for biosynthesis. Jean-François Bobier, partner and vice president of deep tech at Boston Consulting Group (BCG), points to the bioethanol industry as an example of how agriculture combined with industrial processing has reached the government-mandated 10% of the US car-fuel supply at near parity with the price of gasoline. To get there, farmers used crops that have received some genetic engineering and intensive breeding strategies. When the US introduced its renewable fuel standard programme almost 20 years ago, proponents of synthetic…

  • E+T Critical Targets: Is the technology sector on target?

    What progress are we making in solving the world’s greatest engineering challenges? Three years ago, E+T undertook a project called Critical Targets during the 150th anniversary celebrations of the IET. The idea was to draw a line in the sand with some of the greatest challenges facing society and the planet – more specifically, areas in which the engineering and technology sector is providing the foundations for resolving those problems. In this article, we look at those Critical Targets in the company of ‘champions’ for each one – often the same champions from 2021. Three years is not that long, yet it has been a tumultuous spell in our history, with a pandemic stagnating economies and altering the way we live and work, conflicts with far-reaching economic consequences – such as in Ukraine…

  • UK risks ‘digital Windrush scandal’ as eVisa system comes into force, campaigners warn

    The UK government’s eVisa scheme risks a “digital Windrush scandal” when it comes into effect early next year, according to the Open Rights Group (ORG). The scheme, which was first announced in 2021, is a digital system that replaces physical immigration documents with an online record of an individual’s immigration status. The eVisa allows users to prove their right to work, rent or stay in the UK without needing a physical document. It aims to streamline the immigration process and make it more secure by reducing the risk of lost or stolen documents, but ORG has said it could lead to a scenario where people who have the right to be in the UK are unable to prove it. The campaign group has called for the scheme to be stopped before it comes into effect on 1 January 2025. Migrants from…

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