Volumes & issues:
Volume 16, Issue 1
1 February 2021
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- Author(s): D. Ross
- Source: Engineering & Technology, Volume 16, Issue 1, page: 4 –4
- DOI: 10.1049/et.2021.0115
- Type: Article
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The global pandemic may be the final nail in the oil industry's coffin, but what will be the knock-on effects of its downfall? - Source: Engineering & Technology, Volume 16, Issue 1, p. 6 –7
- DOI: 10.1049/et.2021.0116
- Type: Article
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News from around the world. - Author(s): B. Heubl
- Source: Engineering & Technology, Volume 16, Issue 1, page: 8 –8
- DOI: 10.1049/et.2021.0117
- Type: Article
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A devastating historic oil spill in Ecuador remains a cause of concern. With data, E&T shows why. - Author(s): P. Dempsey
- Source: Engineering & Technology, Volume 16, Issue 1, page: 9 –9
- DOI: 10.1049/et.2021.0118
- Type: Article
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CES, the massive annual consumer technology event usually held in Las Vegas, offered some solid reasons for optimism this year despite being forced entirely online. - Source: Engineering & Technology, Volume 16, Issue 1, p. 10 –11
- DOI: 10.1049/et.2021.0119
- Type: Article
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Send your letters to The Editor, E&T, Michael Faraday House, Six Hills Way, Stevenage, Herts SG1 2AY, UK, or to [email protected]. We reserve the right to edit letters and to use submissions in any other format. - Author(s): P. Osborne
- Source: Engineering & Technology, Volume 16, Issue 1, page: 13 –13
- DOI: 10.1049/et.2021.0100
- Type: Article
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There are huge changes coming for electricity networks. Electric vehicles, electrified heating and renewables will be key factors in taking us on the path toward a net-zero-carbon future. But these new demands and sources of energy will have a huge impact on networks. One obvious solution to decarbonising energy is to use more of what we're already familiar with: electricity. But electrifying everything would create an enormous additional load on an already burdened network. As distribution network operators become distribution system operators, the paper argues that they need to apply a collaborative approach with gas networks to ensure they can cope with the upswing and avoid blackouts. A whole-system approach, whereby behaviours and interactions between different parts of the system are combined effectively to produce a desired outcome, is necessary if we are to mitigate the costs of updating electricity network capacity. The role of hydrogen is discussed in particular, especially in relation to intraseasonal storage, road vehicles and domestic hydrogen fuel cells. - Source: Engineering & Technology, Volume 16, Issue 1, p. 14 –15
- DOI: 10.1049/et.2021.0120
- Type: Article
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The world's first underwater roundabout has opened in a sub-sea road tunnel under the Tangafjordur sound in the Faroe Islands - an archipelago in the North Atlantic between Iceland and Norway. - Author(s): P. Dempsey
- Source: Engineering & Technology, Volume 16, Issue 1, p. 16 –19
- DOI: 10.1049/et.2021.0101
- Type: Article
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On China, it is best to start with the not-sogood news for the UK. In December, Biden announced he was nominating Katherine Tai to the cabinet-level post of US trade representative. Biden has already made it clear that, unlike Trump's earlier unfulfilled claims, he does not see a post-Brexit trade deal with Britain as an immediate priority. Tai's appointment underlines that. Her current role as chief trade counsel to the Ways and Means Committee in the House of Representatives and work there on the USMCA, the successor to NAFTA agreement with the US and Mexico, qualify her for the cabinet role. But Tai is also a fluent Mandarin speaker - she taught in Guangzhou for two years in the late 1990s - and has worked extensively on US-China trade issues in government, representing Washington in disputes with Beijing at the World Trade Organization. Biden's immediate trade priority is clearly finding a definitive resolution to the existing trade war between the two superpowers as part of his wider foreign policy agenda. - Author(s): H. Vella
- Source: Engineering & Technology, Volume 16, Issue 1, p. 20 –24
- DOI: 10.1049/et.2021.0102
- Type: Article
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The race to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050 has begun. From China to the US, governments are heeding scientists' warnings that decisions and actions - or lack of both - taken this decade will heavily affect the chances of meeting the internationally agreed Paris Climate Change target. Yet, despite having decades to figure it out, nobody really knows what a clear pathway to net zero looks like; not all the technology is commercially developed and, as governments are all too aware, some policy changes will be politically tricky. Nevertheless, time is of the essence, and after a string of delays, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson in November finally presented his government's opening gambit in the decarbonisation race: a £12bn-backed 10-point plan for a `green industrial revolution'. The plan was widely welcomed as the first phase to putting the country on a pathway to achieving net zero by 2050, even if the overarching Net Zero Strategy is still AWOL and not expected until sometime before Glasgow hosts the COP26 in November 2021. However, as it stands today, how achievable are the individual aims and what more is needed to kickstart the new green economy?. - Author(s): L. Williams
- Source: Engineering & Technology, Volume 16, Issue 1, p. 26 –29
- DOI: 10.1049/et.2021.0103
- Type: Article
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When you visit Masdar City, “you will see few cars driving around the streets,” says Chris Wan, chief architect working on the project close to Abu Dhabi. “Masdar City is designed to be people-centric rather than carcentric,” he continues. “For internal circulation, we have prioritised walking, and we are also experimenting with hop-on, hopoff autonomous electric vehicles to help people get around.” Inaugurated in 2006, Masdar City provides a vision of what the world could look like if it were to wean itself off oil. Wan explains that the city is largely powered by solar energy farms, including the nearby 100MW Shams array, which, when launched in 2013, was the largest in the world. The urban space is designed to minimise energy use - narrow streets, thick walls and small windows keep out the Arabian heat. With fewer cars on the roads “it is also a safer environment for kids to play”. What is especially remarkable about Masdar City is that it is situated in the UAE, a country whose economy, like many others in the region, has long been dominated by the export of oil (oil exports now comprise around 17 per cent of GDP, down from a high of 60 per cent in 1979). The city's development, which is ongoing, shows it is possible to imagine a world that doesn't run on oil - even in a country that was historically dependent on the stuff. Imagining a world without oil appears especially urgent in 2020. This year has seen a combination of forces come together that have wreaked havoc on oil markets and thrown fuel onto debates about its future. What are the challenges facing oil producers, how significant will these issues be, and how is the industry adapting?. - Author(s): N. Smith
- Source: Engineering & Technology, Volume 16, Issue 1, p. 30 –33
- DOI: 10.1049/et.2021.0104
- Type: Article
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BACK IN THE 1980s, for a whole golden decade it seemed that the sun would never set on the prosperity North Sea exploration brought to the United Kingdom and Norway. Both nations gratefully cashed in on a new gold rush ushered in by the alignment of two factors. First, the price of oil had rocketed since the global political shocks of the ArabIsraeli War of 1973-4 and the Iranian Revolution of 1978-9. Second, while consumers sought an alternative to dealing with the inflated markets of the Middle East, rapid exploration of the North Sea's continental shelf meant that economically viable oilfields were coming on stream at considerable pace. With the energy crisis of the 1970s a thing of the past, Time magazine reported that “the world temporarily floats in a glut of oil”. The Institute of Fiscal Studies stated that “the growth of North Sea oil revenues is the most important fiscal development in the British economy in the 1980s”. In fact, during the 1980s, taxation on oil from the North Sea delivered to the UK's Treasury (when adjusted for inflation) an average of £18bn per annum, or 10 per cent of its entire income. As a direct result of tax revenues and state investment in oil generated from the North Sea, Norway was able to consolidate its economic independence and resist joining the EU. - Author(s): H. Pozniak
- Source: Engineering & Technology, Volume 16, Issue 1, p. 34 –35
- DOI: 10.1049/et.2021.0105
- Type: Article
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As the UK is slowly shifting towards cleaner and renewable energy, the article takes a look at what does that mean for the skilled workforce in the oil and gas sector. The following topics are dealt with: petroleum industry, gas industry, hydrocarbon reservoirs, drilling (geotechnical), labour resources, innovation management, wind power, carbon capture and storage and professional aspects. - Author(s): E. Maslin
- Source: Engineering & Technology, Volume 16, Issue 1, p. 36 –39
- DOI: 10.1049/et.2021.0110
- Type: Article
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The article explores how the UK's oil and gas industry can reduce the carbon intensity associated with oil exploration offshore installations. It segregates the reduction measures into: direct emissions from operations, indirect emissions and emissions from the fuel usage. The following topics are dealt with: carbon capture and storage, hydrogen production, offshore installations, wind power plants, government policies, fossil fuels, project management, electricity supply industry and air pollution. - Author(s): A. Saint
- Source: Engineering & Technology, Volume 16, Issue 1, p. 40 –41
- DOI: 10.1049/et.2021.0106
- Type: Article
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Th article takes a look at how the UK will guarantee its future fuel security, as its main supplier, Norway, aims to achieve net-zero ahead of Europe's 2050 goal, by reducing fossil fuel production. The article summarises the benefits and drawbacks of fracking, and puts forward alternative renewable energy solutions. The following topics are dealt with: natural gas technology, sustainable development, petroleum industry, shale gas, international trade, renewable energy sources, energy security, government policies and energy conservation. - Author(s): C. Edwards
- Source: Engineering & Technology, Volume 16, Issue 1, p. 42 –45
- DOI: 10.1049/et.2021.0107
- Type: Article
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The outlook for the oil sheikhs of the Middle East or the gas oligarchs of Russia looks increasingly bleak. The value of their underground resources looks poised to fall away permanently as they struggle to diversify. Governments around the world, the UK among them, have committed to banning or severely curtailing the sale of petrol and diesel cars within a decade as they strive to bring their contribution to global carbon dioxide emissions down to net-zero by 2050. The road user is not alone in attempts to end oil's dominance of transport. In 2018, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) committed to halving the CO2 emissions from shipping by 2050 and started to tighten up rules to bring forward reductions over the coming decade. Airlines have joined the chorus. In September, British Airways and the 14 other members of the Oneworld Alliance pledged to cut carbon emissions to zero by the middle of the century. The question is what these new vehicles will use instead. For most European governments, the answer for most cars and light vans is electrification. The UK will allow petrol-hybrid vehicles to be sold until 2035 as long as their tailpipe emissions are more or less zero for most of the time. But the emphasis will be on installing more charging points and promoting battery-focused technologies. - Author(s): R. Northfield
- Source: Engineering & Technology, Volume 16, Issue 1, p. 46 –50
- DOI: 10.1049/et.2021.0121
- Type: Article
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Now in its 16th year, our annual awards are the ultimate celebration for people, projects and organisations revolutionising our world through excellence in engineering and technology. - Author(s): B. Heubl
- Source: Engineering & Technology, Volume 16, Issue 1, p. 52 –54
- DOI: 10.1049/et.2021.0108
- Type: Article
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Severe storms in 2020 have added to a backlog in maintaining the UK's ageing bridges, and more floods are likely to make the situation worse. Bridges over flooding rivers are struck by debris in the fast-flowing water; this debris can include tree trunks and boulders. Councils hit hardest by the floods in late 2019 and 2020 face a combined bill of half a billion pounds to fix bridges in need of repair, E&T has calculated from Freedom of Information (FOI) data acquired by the RAC Foundation. The paper looks at how these repairs can be funded. - Author(s): A. Gage
- Source: Engineering & Technology, Volume 16, Issue 1, page: 55 –55
- DOI: 10.1049/et.2021.0122
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It's fair to say that 2020 was a year like no other. It presented many different challenges, and during the year we used this column to report on how the IET Archives have been using technology to help us 'keep calm and carry on'. - Author(s): L. Murray
- Source: Engineering & Technology, Volume 16, Issue 1, p. 56 –57
- DOI: 10.1049/et.2021.0123
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A life-size robot that looks, swims and reacts like a real dolphin . . . does this foreshadow the future of marine parks? - Author(s): J. O'Malley
- Source: Engineering & Technology, Volume 16, Issue 1, p. 58 –61
- DOI: 10.1049/et.2021.0109
- Type: Article
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One of the most impressive environmental achievements of the last decade has been a near transformation of Britain's national electricity grid. As Britain locked down in April 2020, its grid went without burning coal for two continuous months - the longest coal-free period Britain has experienced since the Industrial Revolution. Other areas, such as the automotive sector, are also moving in an encouraging direction as it pivots further to electric cars. As we work towards the Paris Agreement target of net-zero emissions by 2050, everything appears to be going well - apart from the construction industry. According to the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction, the act of constructing buildings, including manufacturing materials such as steel and cement, is estimated to be responsible for 11 per cent of global CO2 emissions. This is known in the industry as the `embodied' carbon. Some independent academics argue that this may even be a low-ball estimate, with the true figure being closer to 20 per cent when alternative methodologies are used. Once you include the anticipated carbon emissions from buildings' lifetimes - the `operational' carbon - this figure approaches 40 per cent of global emissions. The paper looks at ways to improve this situation. - Author(s): J. Pollard
- Source: Engineering & Technology, Volume 16, Issue 1, p. 62 –63
- DOI: 10.1049/et.2021.0124
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In celebration of IET@150 we look at feats of engineering from around the world. - Author(s): N. Smith
- Source: Engineering & Technology, Volume 16, Issue 1, p. 64 –67
- DOI: 10.1049/et.2021.0125
- Type: Article
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With its mission to put global responsibility into the heart of engineering, charity Engineers Without Borders UK is working to find the next generation of professionals. CEO Katie Cresswell-Maynard explains some of the initiatives that will get the job done. - Author(s): C. Quin
- Source: Engineering & Technology, Volume 16, Issue 1, p. 68 –69
- DOI: 10.1049/et.2021.0126
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Tech for a cleaner home, better coffee, easier contactless payments, more room for guests, better security and keeping microfibres out of our oceans. - Author(s): P. Dempsey
- Source: Engineering & Technology, Volume 16, Issue 1, p. 70 –71
- DOI: 10.1049/et.2021.0127
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A heat sink with a gaming console attached. - Author(s): N. Smith
- Source: Engineering & Technology, Volume 16, Issue 1, p. 72 –73
- DOI: 10.1049/et.2021.0128
- Type: Article
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The golden age of the great American railroad is as memorable for its vivid corporate design as it is for its engineering. Ian Logan, author of 'Logomotive', discusses its impact. - Author(s): S. Somara
- Source: Engineering & Technology, Volume 16, Issue 1, page: 74 –74
- DOI: 10.1049/et.2021.0129
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Dr Shini Somara talks to award-winning innovator and engineer Yewande Akinola MBE about her passion for engineering and how she continues to inspire the next generation. - Author(s): J. Pollard
- Source: Engineering & Technology, Volume 16, Issue 1, page: 75 –75
- DOI: 10.1049/et.2021.0130
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Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose was a visionary whose ideas led to such achievements as 'crystal' radio sets and the demonstration of electrical nature of plant responses. - Author(s): T. Fryer
- Source: Engineering & Technology, Volume 16, Issue 1, p. 76 –77
- DOI: 10.1049/et.2021.0131
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An Italian tech start-up has revealed MAMBO, believed to be the world's first 3D-printed fibreglass boat. - Author(s): H. Lamb
- Source: Engineering & Technology, Volume 16, Issue 1, page: 78 –78
- DOI: 10.1049/et.2021.0132
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A diamond heiress plans to assert her authority by wearing her deceased enemies as a diamond. - Author(s): R. Northfield
- Source: Engineering & Technology, Volume 16, Issue 1, page: 79 –79
- DOI: 10.1049/et.2021.0133
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Feed your bizarre curiosity and roll your eyes at some of the weird gadgets of 2021. New Year, new ridiculousness. - Author(s): V. Vitaliev
- Source: Engineering & Technology, Volume 16, Issue 1, page: 82 –82
- DOI: 10.1049/et.2021.0134
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For the second session of his virtual anti-pandemic book club for E&T readers, our columnist suggests a witty trans-USA travelogue by two prominent Russian satirists of the 1920s-30s.
Opinion - Editorial. Editor's Letter
News - Briefing: World News
News - Briefing. The Graphic: Oil pollution in Ecuador
News - Briefing. Consumer Technology - Virtual CES 2021 demonstrates innovation in adversity
Opinion - Feedback. Your Letters
The path to net zero has to take a whole-system approach [Opinion first person]
Transport - Island connections. The Bigger Picture: Underwater roundabout
What will be the biden effect? [Public affairs]
Ten steps to net zero [energy decarbonisation]
Has black gold lost its sparkle? [Industry oil]
North sea oil: a tale of two countries [Oil & Gas Industry]
The energy transition: how to bridge the skills gap [oil&gas skills]
Emission impossible? decarbonising hydrocarbons [oil&gas environment]
Drop or drill? [oil&gas policy]
Future fuels the balance [oil alternatives]
Engineering - Awards. 2020 E&T Innovation Awards: The Winners
Bridge repairs fall behind amid rising flood costs [Analysis infrastructure]
From the IET Archives - The latest technology helps us celebrate our 150-year heritage
Robotics - Animals. The Gallery. So life-like!
Builders' dirty secrets [Environment construction]
Engineering - Places. Royal Observatory Greenwich
Interview: Katie Cresswell-Maynard
Reviews - Consumer Technology. Gadgets: McLear RingPay; De'Longhi PrimaDonna Soul; Nilfisk Core pressure washer; Ring Always Home Cam; Norrøna Gore-Tex Coat; Tablebed double
Reviews - Consumer Technology. The Teardown - Microsoft Xbox Series X
Reviews - Book Interview. Graphic tales of America's railroads
Regulars - Columnist. BackStory: Built Environment - 'Engineering is very practical. You can see its immediate impact.'
Regulars - Columnist: The Eccentric Engineer. Discovery - A man whose great discoveries proved to be ahead of their time
News - Briefing. The Measure of: MAMBO (3D printed Boat)
Regulars - Columnist. Dear Evil Engineer: Question - How many corpses do I need to make the world's largest diamond?
Technology - Blog. Bizarre Tech: Bzigo - Blood sucker detector, Super Soaker 2.0 and Social distance beeper
Regulars - Columnist. After All: Book Club - Two Soviet writers go in search of 'the real America' in 1935
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