Browse the May/June 2025 issue of E+T Magazine
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The gaming sector has always resided at the cutting-edge of computer technology as advancements in graphics and compute power bring new creative possibilities to ever-more complex worlds. Just as the necessities of space travel inspired inventions that are now commonplace, such as vacuum-sealed food or LED technology, discoveries originally made with gaming in mind have also left an indelible mark on technological progress. Cryptocurrencies are mined with graphics processing units (GPUs), voice recognition systems were made for hands-free commands in games, and multiplayer games of the late 1990s could be considered as some of the earliest social networks. Between 1990 and 2010, gaming tech progressed in leaps and bounds, from games reliant on 2D sprites and side-on, simplistic perspectives…
The UK energy infrastructure is pulling on local resources to balance demand – progress is slow, but it is happening. On the side streets of Bacup, Lancashire, UK, in two-up two-downs nestled around a former mill, work began in January to convert the first properties as part of a new project. It could be indicative of methods to bring low-cost green heating to millions of homes that otherwise seem to be locked out of the planned transition to net zero. Rossendale Valley Energy’s Net Zero Terrace Streets (NZTS) project is an attempt to find a way to fit often bulky heat pumps in homes with little free space. A householder in a more suburban setting is more likely to be able to live the net zero ‘Good Life’, in an echo of the suburban self-sufficiency enthusiasts at the centre of the sitcom…
President Donald Trump’s cuts to the US clean energy industry have led to significant job losses and threatened almost $70bn in project investments, according to a Climate Power report. On Donald Trump’s election campaign trail last year, he pledged to boost oil and gas production in the US with a promise to “drill, baby, drill”. Indeed, his day one executive orders honoured this promise. Just hours after taking office, Trump pulled the US out of the Paris Agreement. He also announced a “national energy emergency” that allowed him to swiftly reverse many Biden-era regulations that aimed to curtail the oil and gas sector, including shutting down construction on the Keystone Pipeline. In April, he also signed a series of executive orders designed to reinvigorate the US coal industry. At…
Visa has unveiled a new AI service that lets consumers browse, select and purchase products on their behalf. The AI agents in its Visa Intelligent Commerce service will be limited to products that have been pre-selected by the consumer, and spending limits can also be imposed. The card processor is working with AI industry leaders such as Anthropic, IBM, Microsoft, OpenAI and Samsung on the service that will build a picture of a consumer’s spending habits based on prior purchases. “Soon people will have AI agents browse, select, purchase and manage on their behalf,” said Visa’s chief product officer Jack Forestell. “These agents will need to be trusted with payments, not only by users, but by banks and sellers as well. “Just like the shift from physical shopping to online, and from…
The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) has launched a consultation to expand the range of low-carbon technologies homeowners can claim under the Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS). Heat pumps are seen by the government as a vital tool in cutting the carbon emissions from people heating their homes. To enable more people to benefit from this as well as other low-carbon technologies and to enable the switch from fossil fuel-based heating systems, BUS was introduced in April 2022. In 2023, the government’s £450m BUS was recently extended until 2028, offering grants of £7,500 towards the cost of a new heat pump. Home heating accounts for 18% of UK greenhouse gas emissions, despite the government having introduced the BUS Nesta report last year showing that uptake of low-carbon…
London St Pancras Highspeed has announced it will invest £300m in infrastructure renewals over the next five years, from April 2025 to March 2030. The funding for this five-year control period 4 (CP4) aims to maintain and enhance the UK’s 109km high-speed line, which runs from London St Pancras to the Eurotunnel at Folkestone. London St Pancras Highspeed, which operates this line, says the CP4 renewal programme includes £4m that will go towards research and development. This will help support the trial of innovative technologies to improve asset renewal efficiency and monitoring, including systems for remote condition surveillance. Ahead of each new control period, the condition and performance of railway assets are assessed in detail. The results of these help inform strategies for asset…
This article has been provided by Mark Patrick, director of technical content at Mouser Electronics. Although quantum technology is still very much in its infancy, its commercial applications are already available. As the race to build more powerful quantum computers heats up, the concept of quantum supremacy gets closer to reality. The quantum supremacy milestone will severely compromise our existing digital security mechanisms, so another race is on to build secure solutions that are resistant to quantum computing. Currently, one of the main risks to the evolution of quantum technology is a severe shortage of the skills required to bring scalable solutions to market. This article looks at the recent advancements in the field of quantum computing, discussing existing practical applications…
The government’s climate advisers warn that progress on climate change is “either too slow, has stalled, or is heading in the wrong direction”. The past year has seen our environment ravaged by extreme weather conditions, from flooding and droughts to wildfires and hurricanes. Scientists argue that these extreme weather events are made even more likely as the result of human-driven climate change. Speaking at the COP29 climate conference at the end of last year, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said his government “recognises that the world stands at a critical juncture in the climate crisis” and that the UK “has a critical role to play”. However, a new report from the UK government’s climate watchdog, the Climate Change Committee (CCC), reveals that the government is not appropriately prepared…
Robot vacuum cleaners could be reprogrammed to perform helpful tasks around the house such as playing with a pet, watering the plants and carrying groceries to the kitchen. University of Bath researchers identified 100 functions that domestic cleaning robots could perform with some fine tuning during idle periods. They took a Roomba, one of the most popular robot vacuum cleaner models, and altered its programming to perform the following four functions: Mobile wireless charger: the robot, fitted with a holder, charged a phone, navigating the home to find the phone user when mobile charging was needed. Workout projector: equipped with a projector, the robot displayed workout videos on a wall. When it was time for floor exercises, it shifted the projection to the ceiling, ensuring uninterrupted…
As the UK pushes to fully decarbonise its energy grid by 2030, a new report compares the costs and characteristics of overground, underground and subsea power transmission. The UK government has set itself the lofty goal of entirely decarbonising the UK’s energy grid by 2030. However, this requires the country’s electricity infrastructure to be significantly expanded and upgraded. A report last year suggested that the grid was not ready for the major influx of green energy coming online in the next few years. BloombergNEF data suggested that for every pound invested in renewable energy, the UK should be investing at least £1 in the grid, but the current ratio is more like 25p to every £1. National Grid’s Electricity System Operator estimates that Britain’s electricity needs will rise…
The nationwide blackout of Spain’s electricity network highlights the vulnerability of grids on peninsulas and islands such as the UK, an energy expert has said. Yesterday, a major incident saw millions of households and businesses across Spain, Portgual and southern France lose power in what was the largest power cut in Europe’s recent history. While power has now been restored to more than 99% of affected areas, the cause of the blackout has not yet been identified. Various explanations have been offered, including cyber attacks on the grid and atmospheric phenomena across Spain. Portuguese grid operator REN said “extreme variations” in Spain’s temperature caused the power failure, though Spanish transmission system operator Red Eléctrica has so far given no reason for the outage. …
China’s State Council has approved the construction of 10 new nuclear reactors, as reported by Bloomberg. While it was recently revealed that the world’s largest energy consumer plans to keep building coal-fired power plants through to 2027, it is also ramping up its renewables development. In July 2024, the Global Energy Monitor found that China was building almost twice as much wind and solar energy capacity as every other country in the world combined, with 180GW of utility-scale solar and 159GW of wind power already under construction. Bloomberg has now reported that China is also ramping up nuclear power with the approval of at least 10 new nuclear reactors, the fourth consecutive year that number has been endorsed. With 30 nuclear reactors currently under construction, nearly…
The government is giving a team of British scientists £50m to research techniques to dim the sun in order to tackle the worst consequences of climate change. Geoengineering methods have been proposed that aim to reduce or counteract global warming by reflecting sunlight away from the Earth through techniques including stratospheric aerosol injection and cloud brightening. Global temperatures in the first quarter of 2025 were the second warmest on record, extending a run of exceptional warmth that began in July 2023. Now a team at the University of Cambridge are looking at whether geoengineering techniques could reverse this process – and whether they would be safe to deploy on a large scale. A series of outdoor experiments are set to take place with £56.8m in funding from the government…
European airline emissions are almost back to where they were in 2019, and flights within Europe are already exceeding pre-pandemic levels, a new study finds. Environmental group Transport & Environment (T&E) found that in 2024 the European aviation sector had almost fully bounced back to pre-Covid levels, reaching 96% of 2019 flight numbers and 98% of emissions. Over 8.4 million flights departed from European airports, generating 187.6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (Mt CO₂). T&E’s study showed that 10 airlines were responsible for 40% of all European aviation emissions, with the top polluters being Ryanair (16 Mt CO₂), Lufthansa (10 Mt CO₂) and British Airways (9 Mt CO₂). Krisztina Hencz, aviation policy manager at T&E, said: “Aviation emissions are spiralling out of control…
Gatwick Airport has said it will accept terms proposed by the government to implement local noise restrictions if it is granted consent to operate its additional runway. Transport minister Heidi Alexander said earlier this year that she would likely approve the expansion but is not expected to make the final decision until October. The airport currently has a northern runway that runs parallel to the main one, but they cannot be used at the same time as they are too close together. Gatwick wants to shift the runway 12 metres further away to allow both to operate simultaneously. The move should open up Britain’s skies to an additional 100,000 flights per year while creating an estimated 14,000 jobs. In its latest response, Gatwick said it would accept stricter limits on aircraft noise…
The UK faces a daily shortfall of 5 billion litres of fresh water by 2050 due to poor quality infrastructure, the National Audit Office (NAO) has said. In a report, the public spending watchdog found that the government and regulators have failed to drive sufficient investment in the water sector, which now needs to build 30 new projects at a cost of £52bn to meet future water demand. In England and Wales, 16 companies manage water supply – with 11 also handling wastewater services – that fall under regulatory oversight to protect public and environmental interests. But while the UK has one of the highest standards of drinking water in the world, performance has not improved for almost a decade in key measures, including mains bursts, supply interruptions and pollution incidents, the…
A British satellite that will map the world’s forests in 3D to keep track of climate change will be launched into space next week. Tree coverage plays an important role in tracking climate change, with deforestation activities releasing stored carbon dioxide into the atmosphere while fresh forest growth captures atmospheric CO2. Data from the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii recently showed that atmospheric CO2 levels surged faster than expected in 2024 because of deforestation activities and a series of unprecedented wildfires. The satellite, called Biomass, will create a 3D map of tropical forests after 17 months, then new (non-3D) maps every nine months for the rest of its five-year mission. It is hoped the data will provide unique insights normally hidden from human sight because of…
Unite has urged the government to “put their money where their mouth is” and make its final investment decision on the Sizewell C nuclear plant. The government has expressed strong support for nuclear power as one of the main forms of baseload energy in a low-carbon grid. But with the nation’s finances currently tight – and recent reports suggesting that the total cost of Sizewell C could be double the initial estimates – it has been reluctant to make the final decision. Although groundwork for the upcoming plant already started over a year ago in Suffolk, the full funding package has yet to be agreed. Unite said that, once built, Sizewell C would create up to 10,000 jobs and become a key part of the energy strategy for achieving net zero by 2050. Unite general secretary Sharon Graham…
Boeing is scrambling to find buyers for as many as 50 planes that have been sent back to the company by Chinese airlines following tariff hikes by the Trump administration. In response to US President Donald Trump’s recent 145% tariff rates, China imposed its own 125% rate on US imports – effectively making trade between the two countries prohibitively expensive. In an earnings call with investors, Kelly Ortberg, Boeing’s chief executive, said he hoped the tariffs would be resolved “over time”, but warned that as things stand “many of our customers in China have indicated they are not taking delivery”. The firm is preparing to look for alternative buyers for the jets as it already has a long order book to fill, but China is one of its largest buyers. “It’s an unfortunate situation,…
This article is provided by Julia Pyke, joint managing director of Sizewell C. As fears over its safety have subsided over time, coupled with the need for cleaner energy, nuclear energy has taken on a pivotal role in providing base power generation in the UK. But how are we getting on in building capacity? Britain is entering a new age of clean electricity as the foundation of our energy system, said Ed Miliband, energy secretary, at the end of 2024. And crucial to powering that clean energy future, he said, is nuclear. This ‘new age’ has been a long time coming. Next year will be the 60th anniversary of the start of construction at Dungeness B power station in Kent – the first of the advanced gas-cooled reactor (AGR) nuclear power stations. This was the last time Britain embarked on…
Glasses equipped with night-vision capabilities could be made a reality thanks to new ultra-thin ‘skins’ of electronic material developed by MIT engineers. As a demonstration, the team fabricated a 10nm-thin membrane of pyroelectric material that produces an electric current in response to changes in temperature. The film was shown to be highly sensitive to heat and radiation across the far-infrared spectrum and could enable lighter, more portable and highly accurate sensing devices. Night-vision goggles and scopes are at present heavy and bulky because far-infrared sensors require large cooling elements. They are based on photodetector materials, in which a change in temperature induces the material’s electrons to jump in energy and briefly cross an energy ‘band gap’, before settling back…
Tanya Weaver looks back at a father and son’s engineering marvel, 20th-century speed limits and the video that launched a platform. 200 years ago What a steel This year sees the 200th anniversary of work beginning on the Thames Tunnel in London – the world’s first tunnel built underneath a navigable river. Connecting Rotherhithe and Wapping, the 400-metre long tunnel was built by Marc Brunel, assisted by a large team of miners, bricklayers, draughtsmen – and his son, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Attempted twice before, all previous tunnels had ended in disaster. However, Brunel had a cunning plan to ensure its success – a rectangular tunnelling shield he had recently invented. This protective structure that supports the soft earth while tunnelling ensures the tunnel can be safely excavated…
Chinese manufacturer CATL has unveiled a new electric vehicle (EV) battery that can charge in record time, adding an estimated 2.5km of range per second of charging. Its second-generation Shenxing Superfast Charging Battery can charge from 5% to 80% in just 15 minutes, which is 100% faster than the industry’s highest current charging level, the firm said. Nevertheless, to achieve those speeds, vehicles will need to be hooked up to 1MW fast chargers, which are currently a rarity. Tesla Superchargers, for example, only offer maximum charging rates of up to 250kW. CATL supplies batteries for a wide range of car brands including Tesla, BMW, Volkswagen and Ford, and is the world’s largest supplier with an estimated 38% of the global market. Gao Huan, the firm’s chief technology officer, said…