• 1.5°C global warming limit still possible due to renewables growth, according to study

    The Paris Agreement, which was signed in 2015, saw delegates from 196 countries meet to agree to cap global warming at “well below 2°C”, with a view to limiting this figure to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. The IEA’s 2023 Net Zero Roadmap update finds there have been “significant” changes to the energy landscape in the past two years, including “extraordinary growth” in some clean energy technologies. Nevertheless, it also finds that increased investment in fossil fuels is keeping emissions stubbornly high. Record growth in solar power capacity and electric car sales since 2021 are in line with a net zero emissions pathway by mid-century, as are industry plans for the roll-out of new manufacturing capacity for them. Those two technologies alone are estimated to deliver around one-third…

  • Water companies to pay back £114m for missing performance targets

    The water industry regulator has accused the majority of water companies of “falling short” on the 2020-25 performance measures.  According to Ofwat's latest company performance report, seven companies are said to be are “lagging” on their targets: Anglian Water, Dŵr Cymru, Southern Water, Thames Water, Yorkshire Water, Bristol Water and South East Water. In addition, 10 companies were placed in the “average” category, with none able to achieve the “leading” stage.  The report is published annually by Ofwat and judges the companies’ performance in relation to a series of metrics, including pollution incidents, customer service and leakage.  As a result of the poor performance, companies have been ordered to pay £114m back to customers. The money will be discounted from household bills…

  • Rolls-Royce nozzle breakthrough brings hydrogen plane engines closer to reality

    The firm is working with partner easyJet to develop hydrogen combustion engine technology capable of powering a range of aircraft from the mid-2030s onwards. It said it completed tests on a full annular combustor of a Pearl 700 engine, which was running solely on hydrogen fuel. The test proves that the fuel can be combusted at conditions needed to achieve maximum take-off thrust. The engine used newly developed fuel spray nozzles to allow for precise control over the combustion process. “This involved overcoming significant engineering challenges as hydrogen burns far hotter and more rapidly than kerosene,” Rolls-Royce said. The nozzles, which were tested at Loughborough University’s recently upgraded National Centre for Combustion and Aerothermal Technology ( NCCAT), were able to control…

  • Amazon to invest up to $4bn in ChatGPT rival

    Anthropic’s rival version of ChatGPT, called Claude, could help Amazon keep pace with other big tech companies such as Microsoft and Google in the AI race.  Under the terms of the agreement, Amazon will invest  an initial $1.25bn (£1.02bn) for a minority stake in San Francisco-based Anthropic, which could increase to as much as $4bn (£3.3bn). Anthropic plans to raise as much as $5bn (£4.01bn) over the next two years, according to TechCrunch. The company was founded in 2021 by former research executives from ChatGPT developer OpenAI.  As part of the agreement, Anthropic will use Amazon Web Services as a primary cloud provider for mission-critical workloads, including safety research and future foundation model development. The company is also expected to use AWS’s Trainium and Inferentia…

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  • Nasa capsule brings back the largest asteroid sample ever collected

    Nasa has made history once again by obtaining soil samples from the “most dangerous known rock in the Solar System”. The capsule carrying the samples landed at 8.52am MDT in the selected area of the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range near Salt Lake City.  The mission was designed by Nasa’s Osiris-Rex  (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security – Regolith Explorer) team, which aimed to obtain the third and largest sample ever collected from an asteroid. “We heard, ‘main chute detected,’ and I literally broke into tears,” Dante Lauretta, a University of Arizona scientist who has been involved in the project since its origin, told a press conference. Tim Prizer, a Lockheed Martin engineer on the project, said: “We touched down as soft as a…

  • Government ditches energy efficiency taskforce six months in

    Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, has decided to scrap the home energy efficiency taskforce that his government established six months ago.  The group was set up by Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, to boost uptake of insulation and boiler upgrades, with a view towards reducing the country’s energy use by 15 per cent in the next seven years. The taskforce’s members included leading experts such as the chair of the National Infrastructure Commission Sir John Armitt. The group was chaired by the energy efficiency minister Lord Callanan and Dame Alison Rose, former chief executive of NatWest. However, Rose resigned from the position – and her role within the bank – in July following a  row over the closure of Nigel Farage's account.  Since its founding in March, the group met four times but was…

  • Backlash builds over possible scrapping of HS2 Manchester link

    The government is facing criticism from politicians, industry groups and two former Conservative prime ministers over concerns it could decide to cancel the Northern link of the High Speed 2 ( HS2) line. The news was first reported by The Independent, which claimed the government had already spent £2.3bn on stage two of the high-speed  railway, and was looking into the possibility of either scrapping its second stage to save up to £34bn or delaying the northern phase of HS2 by up to seven years.  Sunak has refused to comment on the claims, stating that he remains “absolutely committed to levelling up and spreading opportunity around the country”. However, cabinet minister Grant Shapps told Sky News there could be a change to the “sequencing” and “pace” of HS2 due to the cost concerns. …

  • Green hydrogen sector hampered by high costs and lack of support – report

    There are two approaches to producing hydrogen: blue hydrogen (made by splitting natural gas into hydrogen and carbon dioxide) and green hydrogen (produced by splitting water via electrolysis into hydrogen and oxygen). Green hydrogen requires a large energy input from a renewable source to be considered carbon neutral, but blue hydrogen cannot be described as a zero-emission fuel source unless coupled with significant carbon-capture efforts. One study showed that hydrogen derived from fossil fuels can actually be more carbon intensive than using gas. Some 95 per cent of today’s commercially produced product is blue hydrogen made by steam-methane reforming using natural gas feedstock. The number of announced projects for low-emissions hydrogen continues to expand rapidly while more than…

  • Carmakers urge the EU to delay 10 per cent tax on British cars

    Because of Brexit, new tariffs will be imposed upon all cars made in the UK where at least 45 per cent of their components do not originate in the UK or EU. This quota is as high as 60 per cent for some components, such as the battery. A 10 per cent tax will be applied to all vehicles being sold across the English Channel not conforming to these specifications. The tariff is due to be enforced from January, but carmakers in the UK and EU want to delay its introduction by at least three years. The European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA), which represents BMW, Ford and VW, said the new taxes could cost EU vehicle makers €4.3bn over the next three years, potentially reducing electric vehicle production by some 480,000 units, the equivalent output of two average-size car factories…

  • Climate change contributed to Libya’s devastating floods, study finds

    The research team found that c limate change, civil war and international sanctions all contributed to the devastation caused by the destruction of two dams that released  an estimated 30 million cubic metres of water into the city of Derna.  A team of researchers at World Weather Attribution raced to understand the causes of the disaster. Their report found that climate change  made the levels of rainfall that devastated the Mediterranean in early September up to 50 times more likely in  Libya and up to 10 times more likely in Greece. The team also stressed that Derna residents were made more vulnerable due to factors such as building homes on floodplains, chopping down trees and not maintaining dams. “The interaction of these factors, and the very heavy rain that was worsened by climate…

  • UK council’s trial smart street lamps equipped with 5G and EV chargers

    The £4m pilot study will receive £1.3m in central government funding alongside extra money from local authorities including Cambridgeshire, Tees Valley, Kingston upon Thames, Westminster, Oxfordshire and North Ayrshire. In addition to connectivity and EV charging, the lampposts can be equipped with technology to monitor air quality and display public information. The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) said that by trialling different uses across the participating areas, the pilot will be able to demonstrate how the technology could become an integral part of UK infrastructure in the future. The system could be particularly useful for expanding 5G networks, as far more cell towers are needed to provide full coverage than previous generation networks. The central government…

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  • Microsoft's reworked Activision deal gets preliminary UK approval

    Microsoft's $68.7bn (£55bn) acquisition of Activision Blizzard is one step closer to being finalised in the UK after the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) gave preliminary approval to the amended deal.  The UK watchdog had blocked the acquisition  over worries it would “alter the future of the fast-growing cloud gaming market”, leading to reduced innovation and fewer choices for UK gamers. In response, the company reworked the agreement, offering to sell  Activision’s non-European streaming rights to Ubisoft Entertainment as a way to assuage the regulator's concerns. Microsoft said its new proposal was a “substantially different transaction” to the one proposed in 2022.  The revised transaction would allow Ubisoft to commercialise these rights to other cloud gaming services providers…

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  • Comment: Why technological transformation matters in manufacturing

    As Wales Tech Week draws closer, visitors can expect digital transformation in manufacturing to be one of the main focuses. I spoke to experts in the industry to see how manufacturing businesses stand to reap huge benefits from tech advances including digital transformation. The nature of the factory floor and supply chains continues to evolve, hailing a new era of efficiency and agility driven by automation, data analytics, and interconnected systems. Innovative technologies have the potential to revolutionise every aspect of the value chain. From product design and production processes to sales, supply chain management and customer engagement, digital transformation is enabling manufacturers to drive improved productivity, innovation, sustainability, and skills development. ‘It doesn…

  • Nasa’s plan to bring back Mars samples is not 'credible’, says review

    The Mars Perseverance rover, which landed on the planet in 2021, has already been tasked with collecting samples of rock, regolith and atmosphere that will ultimately be sent back with Nasa’s sample retrieval lander (SRL). Expected to launch in 2028, the plan is to land the SRL on Mars where it will remain in place to receive the collection of samples collected by Perseverance. The lander would be the first to bring along a rocket and two helicopters that will be designed to send the samples into Mars’ orbit to meet the earth return orbiter, which would then take the samples the rest of the way home. But the review board identified a number of issues with the current plan that could hamper efforts to retrieve the samples unless a thorough revamp of the project is carried out. It said…

  • US proposes strict space junk rules for private firms to cut collision risk

    It requires commercial space operators to choose from among five options to dispose of the upper stages of launch vehicles, including conducting a controlled re-entry moving the upper stage to a ‘graveyard orbit’ that lies away from common operational orbits sending the upper stage on an Earth escape orbit retrieving the upper stage within five years performing an uncontrolled atmospheric disposal. The last option would give firms 25 years for the upper stage to burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere. “Given that the entire mission lifetime of upper stages and their components is quite short, and spent upper stages pose a significant risk of debris propagation the longer they are in orbit, it may be appropriate to have a shorter disposal timeline of five years or another time period…

  • Scotland signs ‘blueprint’ deal with onshore wind industry

    The Onshore Wind Sector Deal has been hailed as providing a “blueprint” for the rest of the UK.  The goal of the agreement is to support the Scottish government in reaching its target of 20GW onshore wind by 2030, a figure more than double Scotland’s current operational capacity of 9.3GW. The deal sets out how both parties will work together to deliver onshore wind farms quickly, sustainably and to the benefit of both local communities.  Measures include ensuring the time onshore wind farms take to go through planning is halved to just 12 months and engaging with local communities to agree a package of community benefits. The deal also committed signatories to creating a sustainable solution for the recycling,  refurbishing and repurposing of decommissioned wind turbine component…

  • George RR Martin, John Grisham, Jodi Picoult and other authors sue ChatGPT owner

    The author of the Game of Thrones series of books is among a group of 17 writers who have filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against OpenAI, accusing the Microsoft-backed company of using their copyrighted novels to train its popular artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot.    The proposed class-action lawsuit was filed late on Tuesday by the Authors Guild representing 17 writers, including Jodi Picault, Jonathan Franzen, John Grisham and George RR Martin. In the filing, the authors said OpenAI copied their works “wholesale, without permission or consideration” and fed them into its chatbot. In doing so, they claim OpenAI endangered their ability to make a living off their work, as ChatGPT allows anyone to generate texts that they “would otherwise pay writers to create”.  “These algorithms…

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  • Automakers slam Sunak's decision to delay petrol car ban

    The British automative industry, which has spent billions of pounds on transitioning to electric vehicle (EV) production, has criticised the government's policy U-turn, saying that the change of plans would disrupt supply chains and slow down the electrification of the industry. Following widespread speculation , Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Wednesday he would push back the ban on the sale of new petrol cars from 2030 to 2035, with the aim of easing the financial burden on households. “We seem to have defaulted to an approach which will impose unacceptable costs on hard-pressed British families,” Sunak said, stressing that maintaining the targets would have risked “losing the consent of the British people”. The 2030 ban was introduced by Boris Johnson's Conservative government,…

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  • Hunterston B defuelling marks end of an era for UK’s second-generation nuclear plants

    AGRs were the second generation of nuclear reactors to be built in the UK – the first being Magnox reactors. They use carbon dioxide as coolant and have been the backbone of the UK’s nuclear power fleet since the 1980s. Seven AGR stations comprised of fourteen reactors (two at each station) were built between the 1960s and 1980s – Hunterston B, Hinkley Point B, Dungeness B, Heysham 1, Hartlepool, Heysham 2 and Torness. But there are now just four reactors still operating, which are all expected to be closed by the end of the decade. In 2020, EDF announced it would close Hunterston B the following year, two years earlier than planned, after various fractures were found in about 10 per cent of the graphite bricks in the reactor core. The defuelling of Hunterston B’s Reactor 3 took around…

  • Unmodified smartphone makes first-ever call using satellite-based 5G

    Texas-based start-up AST SpaceMobile has been building the first space-based cellular broadband network designed to be accessible by standard smartphones in a bid to provide consistent coverage everywhere on the planet, including at sea and in flight. Earlier this month, the firm successfully tested the technology by placing a 5G phone call from Hawaii in the US to a Vodafone engineer in Madrid, Spain, using AT&T spectrum and AST SpaceMobile’s BlueWalker 3 test satellite. The call was placed on September 8 from an unmodified Samsung Galaxy S22 smartphone located near Hana, Hawaii, in a wireless dead zone. In a separate test, the company broke its previous space-based cellular broadband data session record by achieving a download rate of approximately 14mbps. In June, AST SpaceMobile…

  • Major methane leak detected from space

    A major UK methane leak has been mitigated after being spotted from space. The leak occurred over three months at a gas main operated by Wales and West Utilities. It  was found by researchers from the University of Leeds in September 2022 using data from satellites. The team was  studying the ability of sensors mounted on telecommunication towers to measure greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, when they identified an unusually large source of methane emissions near a landfill site close to Cheltenham.  The team alerted researchers from R oyal Holloway , University of London, who visited the site and confirmed the leak. The site was releasing methane at a rate of over 200kg/hr. After the leak was confirmed, researchers alerted the pipe owner, who took immediate action to mitigate it. The repair…

  • Volvo to make its last diesel vehicle in ‘early 2024’

    The announcement makes it one of the first legacy car makers to take this step. It has already announced plans to sell only fully electric cars by 2030 ahead of aims to become carbon neutral by 2040. Last year, Volvo said it would cease development of new combustion engines in a bid to shift R&D spend towards EVs. “Electric powertrains are our future and superior to combustion engines: they generate less noise, less vibration, less servicing costs for our customers and zero tailpipe emissions,” said Jim Rowan, chief executive at Volvo Cars. “We’re fully focused on creating a broad portfolio of premium, fully electric cars that deliver on everything our customers expect from a Volvo – and are a key part of our response to climate change.” It was recently reported that the Prime Minister…

  • Comment: How can we cope when volatility becomes the norm?

    It’s always been the case that we’ve needed to adapt during volatile times. But more recently it seems that volatility has become a permanent state of being - whether it’s driven by the climate crisis, geopolitical tensions or a global pandemic.  While upheavals can be disruptive, the pressure to change the way we do things can also bring out the best in us. Benjamin Franklin was once accredited with saying “out of adversity comes opportunity”, so we could say with equal measure that volatility breeds innovation.  A recent study by McKinsey found that business leaders believe 50 per cent of all revenue generated over the next three years is expected to come from products and services that are not in existence today. They put this down to significant technological change and increasing demand…

  • Edinburgh tram project suffered ‘litany of avoidable failures’, inquiry finds

    Transport Initiatives Edinburgh (Tie), the delivery company set up and wholly owned by City of Edinburgh Council, has been accused of incurring a “litany of avoidable failures”, which caused delays and increased the costs of building Edinburgh’s tram.  The tram line runs an 8.7 mile (14km) route from Edinburgh Airport to the city centre. The line opened in 2014, five years later than planned and £400m over budget.  The delays and cost increases of the line triggered the launch of an inquiry, which has been looking into the scheme for the past nine years. The concluding   inquiry report highlights the principal causes of the project’s failure, including a departure from the initial procurement strategy; a failure to work collaboratively with the council and other partners; delays in design…

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