• £58bn electricity grid revamp urgently needed to support renewables, operator says

    A £58bn revamp of the UK’s energy grid is needed to connect a raft of new offshore wind facilities to be built off the Scottish coast, the regulator has said. National Grid’s Electricity System Operator (ESO) anticipates that Britain’s electricity needs will rise by nearly 65% by 2035 as heat and transport are increasingly electrified in a bid to decarbonise the grid. But the current infrastructure is reaching its capacity and is unable to transport much more electricity without reinforcing the network. Investment in renewable energy generation has exceeded investment in transmission capacity over the past decade, resulting in bottlenecks in the electricity network. The grid’s current capacity was largely set in the 1950s with the development of the ‘supergrid’. This once-in-a-generation…

  • The age of the flying taxi is nigh with the UK government’s new action plan

    Drone technology will transform our skies by the end of the decade, according to the Department of Transport’s Future of Flight action plan. Aviation projects have been under way for some time to demonstrate the feasibility of using drones in urban environments, including electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. What was once conjecture is to become reality. With the government and industry’s joint Future of Flight action plan we may see flying taxis, crime-fighting drones and critical care deliveries in our skies by 2030. Indeed, visitors to this summer’s Olympic Games in Paris will be able to fly to venues using air taxis for the first time. Air travel companies are planning to equip Olympic venues with eVTOL landing systems to transport visitors from the airport to…

  • World’s first dedicated centre for floating offshore wind opens in Aberdeen

    Scotland’s first minister Humza Yousaf today unveiled the £9m National Floating Wind Innovation Centre (FLOWIC) in Aberdeen’s energy transition zone. Delivered by Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult in collaboration with Energy Transition Zone (ETZ) Ltd, a private sector-led, not-for-profit company, and with funding from both the Scottish government and Innovate UK, FLOWIC has been designed to boost the development of floating offshore wind technology in the UK. According to Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult, floating offshore wind off the north coast of Scotland is not only a huge economic opportunity but will also contribute to decarbonising North Sea energy production. While conventional offshore wind turbines are fixed to the seabed, floating wind turbines are deployed…

  • Heat pump uptake must ramp up to reach government targets, spending watchdog warns

    The National Audit Office (NAO) has published a report that finds government is not meeting its planned projections for heat pump installations, which is a key component of reducing emissions from home heating. Home heating accounts for 18% of UK greenhouse gas emissions. With the net zero by 2050 target looming on the horizon, the government is keen for us to switch from our current carbon-emitting heating systems to low-carbon alternatives such as heat pumps. To decarbonise the UK’s 28 million homes, the government wants to see 600,000 heat pumps installed per year by 2028. This is an elevenfold increase on 55,000 heat pumps installed in 2022. Even with the government’s £450m Boiler Upgrade Scheme, in which homeowners can receive grants of £5,000 for an installation, only 18,900 heat…

  • Scientists unveil ‘world’s fastest AI chip’ set to power AI supercomputers

    California-based Cerebras Systems has launched the Wafer Scale Engine 3 (WSE-3), an AI chip that delivers twice the performance of its 2021 predecessor the WSE-2. The 5nm-based, 4 trillion transistor WSE-3 chip includes 900,000 AI optimised compute cores and is composed of a silicon wafer measuring 8.5 by 8.5 inches. This third-generation chip will be used to power the Cerebras CS-3 AI supercomputer, delivering 125 petaflops of peak AI performance and training AI models up to 24 trillion parameters. According to Cerebras, these 24 trillion parameter models can be stored in a single logical memory space without partitioning or refactoring, dramatically simplifying training workflow and accelerating developer productivity. It claims that training a one trillion parameter model on the CS…

  • Nasa lights beacon on the Moon to help astronauts land in the right spot

    Nasa has lit a beacon on the Moon for 30 minutes as part of a test for a positioning system designed to make it safer for future astronauts to establish a permanent human presence on the lunar surface. The Lunar Node 1 demonstrator, or LN-1, was tested during Intuitive Machines’ IM-1 mission, which delivered six Nasa instruments to the Moon as part of the space agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services programme. The autonomous navigation system is intended to provide a real-time communications network on the Moon that could link orbiters, landers and even astronauts on the surface. It could also be used as a location tool, allowing explorer to gauge their position relative to other networked spacecraft, ground stations, or rovers on the move. Nasa researchers said the system would be…

  • Bad data from a single flight caused August’s air traffic control meltdown, report finds

    The meltdown of the UK’s air traffic control system last August, which impacted over 700,000 passengers, was originally caused by the failure to process flight plan data from just a single flight from Los Angeles to Paris. The UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) appointed an Independent Review Panel to produce an interim report into the incident. During the investigation, it was found that it took around 90 minutes for an engineer to arrive on-site to perform the necessary restart of the air traffic control system, further compounding the delays faced by passengers. As it was a bank holiday, the engineers were working from home and were not permitted to perform the restart remotely. Airlines planning to operate flights through controlled airspace are routinely required to file a flight plan…

  • Undersea cable failures cause internet outages across Africa

    Widespread internet outages have hit multiple African countries, with the cause presumed to be undersea cable failures. Many people living in countries across Africa woke up this morning to no internet. The disruption is believed to be due to multiple undersea cable failures in the region. Based on data from Cloudflare Radar, which reports real-time global internet trends, 11 African countries were impacted, from The Gambia to Ivory Coast, including a major network in South Africa (Vodacom). The data showed a pattern of disruptions from the north to the south of West Africa starting in the south of Senegal at around 05:00 UTC. A recent post by Cloudflare Radar on X (formerly Twitter) said that the disruptions are still ongoing in many countries. News outlets in these countries are…

  • India cuts import tax on EVs to attract foreign manufacturing investment

    In a bid to attract global electric vehicle (EV) manufacturers into the Indian market and set up local manufacturing facilities, the Indian government has approved a new policy that will cut import taxes. Key to the new policy is the lowering of import taxes on certain electric vehicles for companies committing to invest at least $500m in the country. These manufacturers will have three years to establish local EV manufacturing facilities and start commercial production, with at least 25% of components sourced domestically, increasing to 50% by the fifth year. India currently levies a tax of 70–100% on imported cars depending on their value. EV manufacturers who now invest in EV manufacturing in the country will be allowed to import 8,000 EVs a year at a 15% import duty for five years on…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Green spaces and infrastructure ‘under serious threat’ in the UK

    The UK’s green spaces and infrastructure are “under serious threat”, and “urgent action is needed” to reverse their decline, MPs on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee have said. In a letter, the committee called on the government to prioritise green spaces and encourage more investment into green infrastructure. It found there was “strong evidence” linking urban green spaces to a host of environmental and health benefits, but there is at present no statutory duty for councils to provide them. With many councils facing severe financial constraints, green spaces are increasingly being underfunded as all available cash is spent on meeting their statutory responsibilities. In a letter to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), the committee said there…

  • EU signs law to crack down on ‘high risk’ AI

    The European Parliament has approved new laws governing artificial intelligence (AI) to reduce risk and improve transparency in a rapidly growing industry that could have significant impacts on business and society. The Artificial Intelligence Act aims to protect “fundamental rights, democracy, the rule of law and environmental sustainability” from “high-risk” AI, the body said. It also includes limits on the use of biometric identification systems by law enforcement, bans on social scoring and the use of AI to exploit users. Member states negotiated the wording of the Act in December 2023 – and MEPs broadly endorsed it – with 523 votes in favour, 46 against and 49 abstentions. The new rules ban AI applications that “threaten citizens’ rights”, including biometric categorisation systems…

  • US government proposes a 30% cryptocurrency mining tax to reduce its environmental impact

    The Joe Biden administration has proposed a 30% tax on the electricity used for cryptocurrency mining operations in its budget for 2025. The computers that secure cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin consume large amounts of power. Known as mining, this process involves intense computation and, as a result, consumes significant electricity. This not only has implications for climate change, but can also contribute to rising energy prices. According to analyses by tech nonprofit WattTime and energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie, Texas will see a nearly 5% increase in electricity prices by mid-2023 due to industrial-scale cryptocurrency mining. With many other cryptocurrency mining operations across the US, President Joe Biden’s proposed budget for the fiscal year 2025 includes a proposal to impose…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Record-high methane emissions must be cut, warns IEA

    Methane emissions from the energy sector are still far too high to meet climate targets. But implementing existing pledges on methane could soon put these emissions in decline, says the International Energy Agency (IEA). Leaks of methane cause plumes of potent greenhouse gas to escape into our atmosphere, and as the IEA highlighted in a report published last year, slashing it is imperative to limit global warming. In the latest update of its Global Methane Tracker, a comprehensive assessment of global methane emissions since last December’s COP28 climate summit, the IEA found that methane emissions from the energy sector remained at a near record high in 2023. The production and use of fossil fuels resulted in close to 120m tonnes of methane emissions in 2023, a small rise compared with…

  • Stereovision system enables driverless capabilities on off-road vehicles

    A vision-based system that allows off-road vehicles to drive autonomously has been developed by a team at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI). The technology is being positioned as a useful tool for the military, as well as space and agriculture clients. The system pairs stereo cameras with algorithms to eliminate the need for lidar and active sensors, which are typically used on autonomous vehicles meant for roads. “We reflected on the toughest machine vision challenges and then focused on achieving dense, robust modelling for off-road navigation,” said research engineer Abe Garza. The engineers developed a suite of tools known as the Vision for Off-Road Autonomy (VORA), which can perceive objects and model environments in real time to navigate. Though highly reliable, lidar sensors…

  • Government plan to ensure the UK is resilient to climate risks is ‘falling far short’, advisers warn

    The UK’s Climate Change Committee (CCC) says that far more needs to be done by the government to ensure the UK can deal with the rising threat of climate change risks, including flooding, heatwaves and drought. February 2024 was the warmest February on record globally. In the UK, it was the fourth wettest February ever recorded. Flooding wreaked havoc in many areas across the country, making roads impassable and affecting journey times. The cause is climate change, and it will only get worse if we continue as we are. The European Environment Agency (EEA) announced this week that Europe is not prepared for a barrage of climate change risks. These include the threat of flooding, heatwaves and drought, all of which the UK has experienced in recent years. In summer 2022, the UK’s extreme…

  • UK government should abandon ‘unrealistic’ carbon capture plans, think tank says

    The government’s reliance on carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology is “outdated and unrealistic” and could leave the UK reliant on fossil fuels when better technologies are available, financial think tank Carbon Tracker has said. In December, the UK unveiled a plan to make the CCS sector a competitive market by 2035, with domestic firms selling their carbon capture services to global firms. This strategy was based on the recommendations of the Climate Change Committee, published in the Sixth Carbon Budget in December 2020. However, since then, cost estimates for deploying the technology have more than doubled, leading to a shift in focus to reduce emissions at source rather than abate them once emitted. The rapid growth of renewables and battery storage has also lowered estimates…

  • US steel unions urge Joe Biden to stop China’s domination of global shipbuilding

    The United Steelworkers union (USW) will ask US President Joe Biden to open a trade investigation into alleged Chinese unfair economic practices in the shipbuilding and maritime logistics sectors. In an article published in The Financial Times, USW and other unions are reported to be filing a petition with the US Trade Representative outlining alleged discriminatory practices that have helped China dominate global shipbuilding. According to USW president David McCall, the US was once a leader in the commercial shipbuilding industry, but over the past two decades China has made huge investments in shipbuilding and engaged in predatory trade practices. According to Clarksons Research, a maritime consultancy, in the last 20 years China has gone from producing roughly 12% of global commercial…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • PM ‘will not gamble with our energy security’ amid plan to fire up new gas power plants

    Prime Minister Rishi Sunak says the UK needs to build new gas-fired power stations to back up renewables and “keep the lights on”. In 2019, the UK government made a commitment to cutting carbon emissions to net zero by 2050. In July 2022, it introduced new measures in the energy sector designed to boost green technologies, including extra support for the deployment of low-carbon technologies at scale such as carbon capture, usage and storage. Following the announcement today, it seems there has been some back-pedalling. In what the UK energy secretary Clare Coutinho calls a “common-sense decision”, the government will now support the building of new gas power stations to maintain a safe and reliable energy source as the nation transitions to net zero. The government claims this plan keeps…

  • ‘Huge environmental damage’ from UK’s failure to tackle e-waste tsunami, MPs say

    Over the last four years, the government has made little progress in tackling the UK’s electronic waste (e-waste) crisis, MPs on the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) have said. An EAC report from November 2020 outlined the “huge human and environmental damage” that the extraction of raw materials needed for their production causes. E-waste, when not properly treated, can release toxic chemicals that damage human and animal health. At the time, the government accepted or partly accepted many of the recommendations made in the report, but a recent assessment has shown that little progress has been made in the intervening years. Research from Material Focus showed that the UK threw away nearly half a billion cheap electrical items such as headphones, cables, decorative lights and mini…

  • Europe unprepared for barrage of climate change risks, EU agency warns

    Europe is not prepared for a barrage of climate change risks, says the European Environment Agency (EEA). Potential catastrophes including extreme heat, drought, wildfires and flooding threaten the stability of Europe’s energy and food security, ecosystems, infrastructure, water resources, financial stability and people’s health. Previous research from the World Meteorological Organization has found that Europe is the fastest-warming continent in the world, which leaves it particularly exposed to climate risks. The new assessment found that many of the risks have already reached “critical levels” and could become catastrophic without “urgent and decisive action”. It said that Europe’s policies and adaptation actions were not keeping pace with the growing risks. In many cases, incremental…

  • 10 tech innovations to grow the UK tidal industry – report

    The Tidal Stream Technology Roadmap report, published by the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult, demonstrates how costs can be reduced through 10 technology innovations, and lead to significant growth in the UK tidal industry. The Marine Energy Council (MEC), the representative body for the UK’s tidal stream and wave energy industries, has set a target for UK wave and tidal stream energy capacity to reach 1GW by 2035. To reach this ambitious target, tidal technology innovations need to become a commercial reality. The 10 innovations include subsea hubs, anchors for floating devices, controllers to optimise lifetime turbine performance, cable monitoring and tidal array optimisation. The report also demonstrates how cost reduction is crucial in enabling an accelerated growth trajectory…

  • Unmanned, hypersonic aircraft completes test flight before planned ocean crash

    Stratolaunch has completed the first powered flight of its unmanned, hypersonic test aircraft dubbed Talon-A. Hypersonic refers to aircraft that can achieve speeds of at least five times the speed of sound, or 3,836mph. The privately funded firm wanted to test various capabilities of its reusable aircraft including engine ignition, acceleration, sustained climb in altitude and a controlled water landing. Talon-A, which is powered by a liquid-fuel rocket engine, ended its flight by descending into the ocean as planned. While the aircraft was considered expendable in this testing phase, a future version will be capable of landing on a runway for reuse. “While I can’t share the specific altitude and speed TA-1 reached due to proprietary agreements with our customers, we are pleased to…

  • US ocean drone company Saildrone launches long-endurance USV to map the ocean floor

    Contracted to the US Navy for initial testing, SD-3000 is an aluminium Surveyor unmanned surface vehicle (USV) that has been designed to map the seafloor to depths of 11,000 metres. As humans we know relatively little about vast areas of our ocean. Mapping the open ocean comes with various challenges – not least of all, it requires sophisticated equipment and crew that need to be at sea for long periods of time. US ocean drone company Saildrone has solved both of these challenges. The most recent vehicle to join its fleet of uncrewed surface vehicles (USVs) is the SD-3000, which, like the rest of the fleet, is powered by renewable wind and solar power. It is designed to scale ocean data collection with a minimum carbon footprint. Leveraging the advanced manufacturing production techniques…

  • NatPower allocates £10bn to expand the UK’s grid-scale battery storage

    NatPower says it will build over £10bn worth of battery storage amounting to around 15-20% of the UK’s needs by 2040. The UK-based firm, a division of NatPower Group, which is headquartered in Luxembourg, plans to start with three “GigaParks” to be licensed by 2024 and another 10 by 2025. It also said that £600m has been allocated to develop new substations in the electricity grid in preparation for the battery facilities. It is expected that batteries will play an increasingly big role on the grid as they allow energy produced from renewables to be used at times when they are not generating electricity. They also help to avoid problems of excess electricity production – currently, wind or solar energy producers are sometimes forced to suspend energy production so that the grid is not overloaded…

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