The Engineer
December 2009 Online
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Joined-up thinking on the campaign trail
14 Apr 2010
Politicians’ reluctance to talk about engineering and its role in economic recovery reflects badly on them, and gives a worrying indication of the importance they place upon it.
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BAE wins French BvS10 order
23 Dec 2009
BAE Systems has received an order worth more than €220m for 53 BvS10 MkII vehicles from the French government’s Direction Générale de l’Armement (DGA).
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Tidal energy investment
23 Dec 2009
Marine Current Turbines (MCT) has received £3.5m of funding to help deploy the first commercial tidal energy farm in UK waters.
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Site for solar panel plant
22 Dec 2009
First Solar and EDF Energies Nouvelles (EDF EN) are in the final stages of negotiations with the town of Blanquefort in France to establish a new solar panel manufacturing plant.
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Lockheed funds defence research
22 Dec 2009
Global defence group Lockheed Martin has awarded a £130,000 grant to Cranfield University to advance its research in the defence and civil sector.
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Spyker renews offer for Saab
21 Dec 2009
Dutch luxury car maker, Spyker, has made a fresh offer to acquire Saab from General Motors (GM) after talks to save the company broke down last week.
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Armoured vehicle contract
18 Dec 2009
BAE Systems has received a $59m contract for the production of 109 second-generation Iraqi Light Armored Vehicles and 10 Mine Roller Kits for delivery to the Iraqi government.
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GM to wind down Saab operations
18 Dec 2009
General Motors has announced that it is to wind down operations at Saab Automobile after talks with a potential buyer, Netherlands-based Spyker Cars, broke down.
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Sweet success
18 Dec 2009
When it came to producing a chocolate mould to go with a new cookbook, French publisher Romain Pages was in a race against time to get them ready for the Christmas trade-buying season. With help from Protomold®, the rapid injection moulding service from Proto Labs®, they discovered the advantages of rapid injection moulding to deliver production volumes.
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Making (light) waves
18 Dec 2009
Richard Sant, Chief Designer at Nuneaton-based OceanLED, needed a fast and flexible way to produce low cost, high quality components for the firm’s latest state-of-the-art LED lights. He found the answer closer to home-shores than he expected with Protomold®, the rapid injection moulding service from Proto Labs®.
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MoD orders Javelin missiles
18 Dec 2009
The Ministry of Defence has awarded the Raytheon-Lockheed Martin Javelin Joint Venture $176m to supply more than 1,300 Javelin missile rounds and associated engineering support.
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Santa's Sleigh of the Future
18 Dec 2009
It seems talk of emissions and environmental sustainability have reached the North Pole and Santa’s huge carbon footprint hasn’t gone unnoticed.
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TfL funds underground power
18 Dec 2009
ABB has been awarded $70m by Transport for London to build a bulk-supply-point substation to power the London Underground rail system.
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EIB provides solar funding
17 Dec 2009
The European Investment Bank is to provide EDF Energies Nouvelles with €500m to help the company develop solar photovoltaic projects in France and Italy between 2010 and 2012.
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STFC refocuses science strategy
17 Dec 2009
Budget cuts to areas of the government’s science strategy could have severe implications for the country’s research base, according to leading UK academics.
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Skills gap delays low-carbon plan
17 Dec 2009
A report published by the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee claims that low-carbon industries face a skills gap that could delay the UK’s transition to a low-carbon economy.
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Colon simulator reduces cancer
17 Dec 2009
Researchers at CSIRO have developed a simulator to help reduce the incidence of bowel cancer, one of the most common cancers in Australia.
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Spin-out to cut drug production costs
17 Dec 2009
Compandia, a bioscience company spun out of Nottingham Trent University, could help to save the UK’s pharmaceutical industry millions of pounds in the cost of producing important drugs.
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Wet-mate connector to cut cabling costs
17 Dec 2009
A project that could considerably reduce the cost of cabling from offshore wave and tidal farms to the shore has been announced by the Energy Technologies Institute.
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Strathclyde NDE laboratory
17 Dec 2009
A new laboratory to support pioneering engineering research is to be created at Strathclyde University in Glasgow following a funding boost of £1.2m.
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Deep penetrating anchor tested
17 Dec 2009
Entrepreneur Jon Tore Lieng has developed a 13m-long, 80-tonne anchor that is being tested as a new mooring concept for offshore installations.
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Simplifying the process
17 Dec 2009
Process engineering companies have historically benefited from access to experienced talent in the form of operators, control/process engineers and general IT staff. This situation is now under threat.
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Climate Wizard
17 Dec 2009
A new web tool is able to generate coloured maps of projected temperature and precipitation changes using 16 of the world’s most prominent climate-change models.
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Drax forecasts profit increase
17 Dec 2009
British power station operator, Drax Group, expects underlying profits to be ahead of market forecasts and said that growth would be modest going forward.
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Biofuel study
16 Dec 2009
Northumbria University has teamed up with Newcastle-based proteomics software firm, Nonlinear Dynamics, in a three-year project that could lead to a breakthrough in the production of biofuels.
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Turbine sounds 'not harmful'
16 Dec 2009
A multidisciplinary panel has concluded that the sounds generated by wind turbines are not harmful to human health, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) has announced.
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GE redesigns Santa's sleigh
16 Dec 2009
As the world celebrates the winter holiday season and looks forward to a bright 2010, technologists at General Electric (GE) have unveiled a 21st-century sleigh for Santa Claus.
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Microsoft explores browser options
16 Dec 2009
Microsoft will offer European Windows users a choice of different web browsers and allow computer manufacturers and users to turn off Internet Explorer.
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Glove recovers fine motor skills
16 Dec 2009
Undergraduate mechanical engineering students at Northeastern University have developed a glove designed to help stroke patients regain fine motor skills in their hands.
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Shetland wave-power project
16 Dec 2009
Pelamis Wave Power and Swedish utility company Vattenfall have announced a joint venture to develop a 20MW wave-power project off the Shetland Islands.
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Cyclists given wheel boost
16 Dec 2009
A new bicycle wheel, developed by researchers at MIT, can store energy every time the rider puts on the brakes, and then give that power back to provide a boost when going uphill or to add a burst of speed in traffic.
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Interactive TV in Brazil
16 Dec 2009
A consortium of European companies sponsored by Nokia Institute of Technology in Brazil has successfully tested an interactive communications system for individuals living in remote communities.
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Qinetiq installs BLOS system
16 Dec 2009
Defence group Qinetiq has completed the integration of a beyond-line-of-sight satellite (BLOS) communications system into the RAF’s fleet of 22 Mk3 Merlin helicopters.
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Mitsubishi i-MiEV begins trials
16 Dec 2009
The first zero-emissions fully electric city car to be used on the government-funded Technology Strategy Board (TSB) user trials has begun testing in the West Midlands.
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Second Life in Pompeii
16 Dec 2009
A 3D recreation of a Roman house in Pompeii has been built in the virtual world Second Life by academics from Bristol University.
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Dredged-sediment disposal
16 Dec 2009
Two university scientists and a Franco-British partnership have been awarded €5m to find safe disposal methods for dredged marine sediments.
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Airport explosives detection
16 Dec 2009
Smiths Detection has announced an agreement with Analogic to develop the next generation of high-speed Explosives Detection Systems for security baggage checks at airports.
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Rare-earth-oxide recovery
16 Dec 2009
Researchers from Leeds University’s faculty of engineering have discovered how to recover significant quantities of rare-earth oxides that are present in titanium-dioxide minerals.
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Energy generation on Teesside
16 Dec 2009
Plans for an energy-generation project on Teesside, encompassing a wind farm and a combined heat and power (CHP) scheme, are soon to be revealed by a local developer.
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Sky high competition
16 Dec 2009
The Airbus A380 has been around for so long now it’s easy to forget that it was once neck and neck with Boeing’s Dreamliner in a race to stake its claim as a glimpse of aviation’s future.
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Money for biofilm research
16 Dec 2009
The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded €2m in funding to Freie Universität Berlin for its research into the formation of bacterial biofilms.
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River habitats threatened
15 Dec 2009
According to research by the UK Environment Agency, fish, invertebrates and other water species will be the first to feel the effects of climate change as river temperatures rise, and more frequent flooding and drought change traditional river habitats.
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PlinkArt snaps up Google prize
15 Dec 2009
James Philbin and Mark Cummins, two DPhil students from Oxford University’s Department of Engineering Science, have won a $100,000 prize in a major competition run by Google.
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Toyota test drives hybrid car
15 Dec 2009
Japanese car giant Toyota has introduced a plug-in version of its Prius petrol-electric hybrid vehicle. Approximately 600 units will be introduced in Japan, the US and Europe over the first half of 2010 for use by governments and businesses.
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Transmission link shortlist
15 Dec 2009
Following strong competition for the first tender to run transmission connections to offshore wind farms in the UK, Ofgem E-Serve has shortlisted firms for each of the first nine projects.
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MoD to increase Chinook fleet
15 Dec 2009
UK defence secretary Bob Ainsworth announced today that the Ministry of Defence is to give a major boost to the military helicopter fleet with the provision of 22 new Chinook helicopters.
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Cyanobacterium recycles CO2
15 Dec 2009
Researchers from the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science have genetically modified a cyanobacterium to consume carbon dioxide and produce the liquid fuel isobutanol.
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Romag profits down
15 Dec 2009
Romag Holdings, the Durham-based glass and plastic composites maker, has reported pre-tax profits of £1.08m, down from £3.73m a year earlier, following a slump in demand for its glass products.
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It just popped up
15 Dec 2009
Every journalist has a stack of stuff they’ve been given at press conferences. Some are handy, like the bike helmet BASF gave me some years ago. Some are bizarre, like the Australian $10 bill encased in an inch-thick slab of perspex I have sitting on my desk, in case of emergencies (you never know when you’re going to need A$10). But this year’s champion oddity is the review copy of the Large Hadron Collider pop-up book.
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Thales signalling for rail tunnel
15 Dec 2009
Thales, as part of the Transtec Gotthard Consortium, has been awarded €72m to deliver, install and test a turnkey rail-signalling solution for the Gotthard Base Tunnel.
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Wind farm gets extension permission
15 Dec 2009
ScottishPower Renewables has been given permission to develop a second extension at Whitelee Windfarm near Glasgow, which will see Europe’s largest onshore wind farm add a further 39 turbines.
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Nexans wins €100m contract
14 Dec 2009
Cable firm Nexans has secured a contract worth €100m to manufacture and supply the high-voltage subsea power export cables that will connect the London Array to the UK grid.
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Wellcome support for bacteria fight
14 Dec 2009
Abingdon-based drugs firm, Summit Corporation, has received £2.2m of funding from the Wellcome Trust towards its programme to fight the Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) bacteria in healthcare environments.
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New Earth receives funding
14 Dec 2009
New Earth Solutions Group, a Dorset-based waste treatment and renewable energy company, has received a £4m investment from Carbon Trust Investments.
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Wind power research centre
14 Dec 2009
A centre designed to explore more reliable and efficient wind turbine generators has been opened today as part of a partnership between Sheffield University and Siemens Wind Power.
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Electrifying train speeds
14 Dec 2009
Plans to electrify three major rail routes in the north west were announced today alongside the full launch of Britain’s first high-speed train service.
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Light investments for LCA
14 Dec 2009
UK investment group, Low Carbon Accelerator, has announced additional investments in US lighting firm LUMEnergi and Imperial College spin-out, QuantaSol.
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Station to station
14 Dec 2009
Chief reporterThe Engineer
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Wireless sensor to monitor glaciers
14 Dec 2009
Bristol University scientists have been awarded £225,000 to develop a wireless sensor that will monitor ice sheets for the effects of climate change.
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Reasons to be cheerful
14 Dec 2009
One reason to be hopeful that positive action on curbing global warming might just be achievable is that the technologies required to build a low carbon future offer potentially huge economic opportunities.
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Climate change negotiations continue
14 Dec 2009
Climate change negotiations are wrapping up in Copenhagen this week and world leaders including prime minister Gordon Brown and US president Barack Obama are expected to be in attendance. The Prince of Wales will deliver a speech tomorrow at the conference and meet with global business leaders to lobby for measures to reduce deforestation.
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Military airlifter takes off
11 Dec 2009
Airbus Military’s A400M airlifter made its maiden flight today from Seville Airport, Spain, following an extensive programme of ground tests.
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Good use of space?
11 Dec 2009
Here’s a quick Friday lunchtime brainteaser for you. What UK industry has grown by nine per cent a year since 2000, contributes £6.5bn a year to the economy and supports 68,000 jobs?
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Honeycomb reduces crash destruction
10 Dec 2009
NASA aeronautics researchers have dropped a small helicopter from a height of 35ft (10.7m) to see whether an expandable honeycomb cushion, the ‘deployable energy absorber’, could lessen the destructive force of a crash.
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Search to save the rainforest
10 Dec 2009
A search engine called Ecosia has been launched this month with the aim of helping to save the Amazon rainforest.
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Thames Water makes savings with sewage
10 Dec 2009
Thames Water claims to have saved £15m in electricity bills last year by generating its own renewable power from its 13.6 million customers’ excrement.
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UTC to invest in wind power
10 Dec 2009
United Technologies Corporation is to acquire a 49.5 per cent stake in Clipper Windpower, a California-based wind turbine manufacturer that trades on the AIM London Stock Exchange.
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GE to supply turbines for Oregon project
10 Dec 2009
GE has received a $1.4bn contract from Caithness Energy to supply wind turbines and provide services for an 845MW wind-farm project in Oregon.
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EIB contributes to BritNed project
10 Dec 2009
The European Investment Bank has agreed to provide €300m for the construction of the BritNed Interconnector, a new electricity transmission cable between the UK and the Netherlands.
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Eskom awards plant contract to ABB
10 Dec 2009
ABB has been awarded $54m by South African utility Eskom to provide electrical and automation solutions at three of its largest power plants.
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Fuel-cell company gets emda grant
10 Dec 2009
A Loughborough-based business that specialises in clean fuel-cell power systems has received an £800,000 Grant for Business Investment from the East Midlands Development Agency.
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Darling delivers pre-budget report
10 Dec 2009
Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling delivered his pre-budget report on 9 December 2009, identifying digital, bio and low-carbon technologies as sectors for investment and growth.
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National Instruments and DENSO Robotics Collaborate to Address New Applications in Industrial Robotics
10 Dec 2009
New LabVIEW Library Facilitates Single Programming Environment for Robot Control, Machine Vision, Measurements and HMI
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Exhibit features Joking Computer
9 Dec 2009
A new exhibit launched at the Glasgow Science Centre will give children from across Scotland the chance to create their very own Christmas-cracker gags this festive season.
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Scandanavian power cable
9 Dec 2009
The power-transmission-system operators in Denmark and Norway are to build a power cable between the two countries.
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Vestas to receive R&D grants
9 Dec 2009
Vestas Technology is to receive government grants of £3.5m for research and development, in addition to the £6m it was awarded in July this year.
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Website compiles nanotechnology documents
9 Dec 2009
Arizona State University researchers have organised a massive number of regulatory documents on nanotechnology on a database that is accessible via the internet.
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Scientists store energy in paper
9 Dec 2009
Stanford scientists are using nanotechnology to quickly produce lightweight and bendable charge-storage devices in the form of everyday paper.
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Geothermal energy could help ease water crisis
9 Dec 2009
An underground source of hot-rock energy may have the potential to produce low-cost fresh water, according to researchers at the University of Queensland’s Queensland Geothermal Energy Centre of Excellence.
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Support for ground source heating
9 Dec 2009
Ground source heat pumps could produce a third of the UK’s renewable heat by 2020, a report from the Environment Agency has found.
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United orders wide-body aircraft
9 Dec 2009
United Airlines has ordered 50 wide-body aircraft designed to reduce fuel burn and environmental impact, and increase passenger comfort.
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Aviation future up in the air
9 Dec 2009
A long-awaited report into the future of aviation in the UK is spreading discord among the various groups involved with the air industry.
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Non-contact sensors measure thickness and flatness of solar glass panels
9 Dec 2009
A manufacturer of thin-film solar power modules is using non-contact measurement systems from Micro-Epsilon in order to inspect the quality of solar glass panels.
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National Instruments Announces the Embedded Virtualisation Webcast Series
9 Dec 2009
Webcasts to Provide Practical Information on Virtualisation for Engineers, Scientists and Embedded Designers
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Warmest decade on record
8 Dec 2009
The Met Office released a report today showing that the first decade of this century has been the warmest decade on the instrumental record.
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The Engineer Technology and Innovation Awards 2009
8 Dec 2009
The Engineer’s Technology and Innovation Awards returned to The Royal Society last week to celebrate this year’s most successful UK engineering projects.
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CBI reveals Industrial Trends Survey results
8 Dec 2009
A quarter of UK manufacturers predict that production will fall a little over the next three months, according to the results of a new survey released by the CBI.
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Grant provides boost for VIPERconnect
8 Dec 2009
A new product to help recover oil and gas from water depths too deep for divers has received a boost from the South West Regional Development Authority.
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Enerfast awarded for leak-prevention device
8 Dec 2009
A Bath-based engineering company has been commended by the Carbon Trust in its 2009 annual awards in London for developing a device that prevents the leaks of toxic chemicals from oil refineries.
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First bionic finger unveiled
8 Dec 2009
What is claimed to be the world’s first bionic finger has been unveiled by a Scottish high-tech prosthetic company.
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DoE funds carbon-capture projects
8 Dec 2009
The US Department of Energy is to fund three projects with almost $1bn to accelerate the deployment of carbon-capture and storage technologies on a commercial scale.
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BT designs high-speed media network
8 Dec 2009
Peel Media has awarded a multi-million-pound communications contract to BT Business to design, implement and manage a 10Gb/sec network at the MediaCityUK development at Salford Quays on Manchester’s waterfront.
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Offshore grid agreement
8 Dec 2009
The UK and nine other countries have signed an agreement to develop an integrated offshore grid in the North and Irish Seas yesterday.
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Laser measures high winds
8 Dec 2009
A French start-up company has developed a small instrument to measure wind speed and direction from the ground up to heights of 200m - information that is vital when deciding where to build wind turbines.
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Stretching implant life
8 Dec 2009
A researcher from Cambridge University has been awarded a €1.5m grant from the European Research Council to set up a research group to improve the lifespan of prosthetic implants such as hip replacements.
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Government funds Centres for Doctoral Training
7 Dec 2009
The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council has announced government investment of £13m to fund three new Centres for Doctoral Training at the universities of Lancaster, Cambridge and Warwick.
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TSB announces plastic electronics investment
7 Dec 2009
The Technology Strategy Board has announced £8m worth of government investment into new plastic electronics technologies to accompany the launch of a National Strategy for Plastic Electronics.
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CBI calls for emissions-trading commitment
7 Dec 2009
The CBI has called on other countries to adopt emissions trading schemes to help cut global carbon emissions and tackle climate change.
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Researchers use EMPT to cut steel
7 Dec 2009
Researchers in Germany have developed a new method for making holes in press-hardened steel bodywork using electromagnetic pulse technology (EMPT).
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Power from the heart
7 Dec 2009
A microgenerator that converts energy from heartbeats into power for implanted medical devices has been named winner of the Emerging Technology Award at IET Innovation Awards 2009.
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Partners cancel Swansea Bay wind farm project
4 Dec 2009
Dong Energy and E.ON, the partners who were due to construct the Scarweather Sands offshore wind farm in Swansea Bay, have decided not to proceed with the project.
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Sainsbury's rolls out electric vans
4 Dec 2009
Supermarket giant Sainsbury’s is to purchase 50 electric vans from Smith Electric Vehicles (SEV) for its online grocery-delivery service.
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CSIRO models 20m rogue waves
4 Dec 2009
CSIRO scientists have created ‘rogue waves’ more than 20m high and smashed them into virtual oil- and gas-production platforms to compare different mooring designs.
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NPL makes world's smallest snowman
4 Dec 2009
A researcher at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), the UK’s measurement institute, claims to have created the world’s smallest model snowman.
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Corus to mothball TCP facilities
4 Dec 2009
An international consortium’s breaking of a binding contract means that Corus will be mothballing some of its facilities at its Teesside Cast Products (TCP) business in north-east England.
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Heritage sites go online
4 Dec 2009
Internet users can now explore World Heritage sites such as France’s Palace of Versailles and the UK’s Stonehenge online thanks to a partnership between UNESCO and Google.
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Orkney network deploys smart grid
4 Dec 2009
The power distribution network on Orkney is the first to deploy smart-grid technology from Scottish and Southern Energy and Smarter Grid Solutions.
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Phones for deaf people
4 Dec 2009
Cornell researchers and their colleagues have created cell phones that allow deaf people to communicate in sign language.
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Solar flight earns its wings
4 Dec 2009
This week’s Futurescope literally takes off from the Dübendorf Airfield in Switzerland where the first solar powered aircraft designed to fly night and day without fuel achieved its first ‘flea hop’.
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Macroscopic yarns
3 Dec 2009
Researchers have used lasers to create the first practical macroscopic yarns from boron nitride fibres, opening the door to an array of applications from radiation-shielded spacecraft to stronger body armour.
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AI flight-safety system wins award
3 Dec 2009
A system that uses artificial intelligence to improve flight safety has been awarded a prize from the Technology Strategy Board.
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Bendy antennas are highly durable
3 Dec 2009
North Carolina State University scientists have created antennas using an alloy that can be bent, stretched and twisted.
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Nuclear facility set for South Yorkshire
3 Dec 2009
A £25m Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre is to be based in South Yorkshire alongside Sheffield University’s Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre.
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RWE opens Welsh wind farm
3 Dec 2009
This week, RWE Innogy officially opened the 90MW Rhyl Flats Offshore Wind Farm, situated five miles off the north Wales coast in Liverpool Bay.
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Conoco Phillips fined for oil spill
3 Dec 2009
Conoco Phillips and the operator of a Plymouth fuel-distribution depot have been fined after nearly 80,000l of petrol leaked from a terminal and polluted groundwater.
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Pulse Tidal receives EU grant
3 Dec 2009
Sheffield-based Pulse Tidal is to receive a grant of €8m from the EU’s technology research and development fund to begin work developing its first fully commercial tidal-energy generator.
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Tidal turbine wins technology award
3 Dec 2009
Strathclyde engineers behind a pioneering tidal-power device have been recognised at the Energy Institute Awards.
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Tool improves readability of medical scans
3 Dec 2009
US engineers have designed a tool that converts the flat images of medical scans into 3D images that are easy to see, manipulate and understand.
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Valorem SAS opens Picardy wind farm
3 Dec 2009
French developer and energy producer Valorem SAS has officially opened a new wind farm in the Picardy region, north of Paris.
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Environmentally friendly iron
2 Dec 2009
Corus is to test a new iron-making technology in a pilot plant project at its IJmuiden steelworks in the Netherlands.
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Instant translator
2 Dec 2009
A member of Amherst College’s information technology department and two faculty colleagues have developed an instant-messenger (IM) computer program that enables students to have their queries about various foreign languages answered online.
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Turbine-powered supercar
2 Dec 2009
A new hybrid electric supercar is powered by traditional batteries and a low-emission range-extending microturbine developed by Capstone Turbine Corporation.
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Long-life dialysis graft
2 Dec 2009
An invention by researchers at the University of Limerick (UL) could reduce the number of surgeries among dialysis patients.
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Squeezable interface
2 Dec 2009
Cambridge Consultants has developed a unique ‘squeezable’ user-interface technology that creates a whole new way of interacting with computers.
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Nuclear refurbishment
2 Dec 2009
ABB has won orders worth $73m from Kernkraftwerk Leibstadt (KKL) to refurbish and upgrade the non-safety related operational control and automation system at its 1,220MW Leibstadt nuclear power plant in Switzerland.
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Green light for wind farm
2 Dec 2009
Energy company E.ON has received planning consent for its 29.9MW Dungavel wind farm in South Lanarkshire.
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Smart move
2 Dec 2009
Plans for a UK-wide smart gas and electricity meter scheme are to be unveiled today by the energy and climate change secretary, Ed Miliband, which will see 47million meters installed in 26million properties by 2020. Almost five million meters per year: that’s a tough target. And this will be accompanied by the roll-out of smart grid systems, so not only will householders be able to see how they are consuming energy – and therefore control how much they use more easily – but the system ...
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General Motors plans redundancies
1 Dec 2009
General Motors is to shed 354 positions at its Luton plant, where around 1,500 employees make light commercial vehicles, including the Vauxhall Vivaro van.
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High hopes for clean-energy plan
1 Dec 2009
Small-scale renewable-electricity schemes could generate more than twice the output of Sizewell B nuclear power station by 2020 if government ministers improved the proposed Clean Energy Cash-Back scheme (or feed-in tariff) due to be launched in April next year.
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Sea levels to rise even faster
1 Dec 2009
According to a new report by some of the world’s top climate scientists, global ice-sheets are melting at an increased rate, Arctic sea-ice is disappearing much faster than recently projected, and future sea-level rise is now expected to be much higher than previously forecast.
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Naval inspection system
1 Dec 2009
Researchers at the Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO) in Australia are helping to develop a system to measure the structural health of a vessel at sea, using a sophisticated network of fibre-optic sensors.
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Enel signs wind energy contract
1 Dec 2009
Enel Green Power’s US subsidiary, Enel North America, has signed an agreement with Minnesota-based Geronimo Wind Energy to develop Geronimo’s 4,000MW wind projects in the US.
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Nanomaterial withstands 850ºC
1 Dec 2009
University of Pittsburgh researchers have developed a composite nanomaterial that is stable at high temperatures.
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Sandia requests hopping robot
1 Dec 2009
Boston Dynamics, the developer of robots such as BigDog and Petman, has been awarded a contract by Sandia National Laboratories to develop a four-wheeled hopping robot called the Precision Urban Hopper.
