IET EngX

Grid

List

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…

E+T Magazine in Renewable Energy
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…

E+T Magazine in Renewable Energy
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 Magazine in Space
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
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…

E+T Magazine in Artificial Intelligence
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…

E+T Magazine in Climate Change
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…

E+T Magazine in Ethical Aspects
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…

E+T Magazine in Power Conversion
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.” …

E+T Magazine in Fossil Fuels
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…

E+T Magazine in STEM Education and Skills
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…

E+T Magazine in Research and Innovation
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…

E+T Magazine in Research and Innovation
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…

E+T Magazine in Space
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…

E+T Magazine in Space
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…

E+T Magazine in Research and Innovation
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,…

E+T Magazine in Waste Management
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 Magazine in Biotechnology
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…

E+T Magazine in Business Planning
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…

E+T Magazine in Ethical Aspects
Oxford Street pedestrianisation finally gets the green light, London’s mayor confirms

London’s Oxford Street is set to be pedestrianised, years after it was first attempted, mayor Sadiq Khan has announced. The pedestrianisation plan was first announced in 2017 and would have seen extra seating installed for shoppers and a new 800-metre-long work of public art for the length of the carriageway. But Westminster Council vetoed the plan over concerns from local residents about the impact the plan would have on their transport options. Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner is now expected to sign off on the scheme that would give the mayor powers to override the council. Khan said the plan would help increase visitor numbers to the area and create new jobs. More than 500,000 people visit Oxford Street every day, which generates approximately 5% of the capital’s economic output…

E+T Magazine in Ethical Aspects
UK government announces £88m fund to boost zero-emission vehicle tech

A joint industry and government fund will award £88m across 46 projects that are developing a range of green vehicle technologies. The funding, with £44.5m coming from government and £43.5m from the automotive industry, has been awarded through the Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC). This non-profit organisation facilitates funding to UK-based research and development projects developing net-zero-emission technologies. Two of the biggest recipients of the £88m fund include Protean Electric and Gordon Murray Group. The total investment in these two projects is £22.5m, including £11m through the APC’s collaborative R&D competition announced last year. Protean is a Surrey-based automotive technology company working to bring to market power-electronics products, including in-wheel motors to…

E+T Magazine in Business Planning
Google backs satellite constellation that detects wildfires before they get out of control

Google has invested in satellites that can detect wildfires from space soon after they begin. The first satellite in the FireSat programme is expected to launch early next year, although once complete, the constellation will consist of over 50. Google, which is providing $13m to the initiative led by the Earth Fire Alliance, said it will be able to “detect and track wildfires the size of a classroom within 20 minutes”. Wildfires are becoming increasingly common due to hotter and drier climates around the world. Firefighters typically have to rely on satellite imagery that is either low resolution or only updated a few times a day, making it difficult to detect fires until they’ve grown significantly larger, which makes them harder to combat. The satellites use a set of custom infrared…

E+T Magazine in Satellites
Researchers genetically engineer ‘golden lettuce’ with high levels of beta-carotene

Spanish scientists have used a biotech technique to significantly multiply the beta-carotene content of a lettuce, giving the leaves a nourishing boost as well as a golden hue. Lettuce does not pack an overly nutritious punch. Mostly containing cellulose and water, it has very few phytonutrients compared to other vegetables. A research group at the Research Institute for Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology (IBMCP), a joint centre of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV), has developed a method to significantly increase the phytonutrients in leafy green vegetables such as lettuce. This includes the phytonutrient beta-carotene, a red-orange pigment found naturally in some plants that contain antioxidant properties that converts to…

E+T Magazine in Biotechnology
Rise of data centres and AI to further exacerbate global copper demand, warns miner BHP

BHP, the world’s largest mining company, expects global copper demand to rise to 52.5 million tonnes a year by 2050, a 72% increase from 2021. According to GlobalData, more than 709 copper mines are in operation globally, with the largest being the Escondida mine in Chile, which produced an estimated 882,100 tonnes of copper in 2023. While this may sound like a lot, the red metal is expected to be in short supply over the coming decades given demand growth from green energy sectors such as offshore wind and solar farms and electric vehicle batteries, not to mention the copper required for upgrades to the electricity grid. BHP, which operates and owns just under 60% of the Escondida mine, has said that the world would need to double the amount of copper produced over the next 30 years…

E+T Magazine in Artificial Intelligence

Join us to get the best from IET EngX.

Community Rules & Guidelines