THE DEMAND for lithium from large batteries designed to store and redistribute electricity from the grid could surge if a British pilot project proves a success. It involves building Europe’s largest lithium battery, at southern England’s Leighton Buzzard at a cost of British Pounds GBP13.2 million (USD20.4 million).…

THERE has been a sharp rise in the number of British health practitioners being trained in psychotherapy, giving nurses a significant opportunity to diversify their skill-set, enrich their careers and make more money.

The opportunity has come from the Increased Access to Psychological Therapy (IAPT) programme.…

The 9.5MW J920 FleXtra gas engine formally installed in May this year by the municipal utility Stadtwerke Rosenheim, in Bavaria, Germany, ticks off a number of important innovations. The largest gas engine yet developed by the Austrian company GE Jenbacher, the unit is seen by the company as an illustration of the role distributed energy is now playing in Germany’s ‘Energiewende’ – the country’s policy to halt all nuclear power by 2022 and replace it with natural gas, renewable energy, and greater use of energy efficient technologies.…

The challenges of working out whether textiles are sourced, produced or manufactured ethically are magnified by the plethora of eco-labelling schemes that apply to the industry. According to the Vancouver, Canada-based Ecolabel Index (www.ecolabelindex.com) there are 436 ecolabels worldwide, of which at least 24 cover textiles, clothes, other apparel and garments (while several others potentially overlap into the industry).…

WASTE -to-energy gasification is a game changer, experts say, because it offers renewable and low carbon heat and power, security of supply and short delivery times when energy prices are high.

Advanced thermal gasification, as opposed to combustion – burning waste in an incinerator to produce energy, is “clean, safe, very efficient, and being of a moderate scale is acceptable to local communities, because nobody wants a huge incinerator in their back yard,” stressed George Willacy, the chairman of Refgas UK, a Flintshire-based specialist in gasification fuelled by waste and biomass.…

“We use our earth as if we have a planet and a half; we have a deficit relation with our natural resources. The biggest challenge facing not just business, society and government, but humanity is the question of our sustainability. And business, as usual, will do nothing to solve it.”…

WHILE textiles, clothing and textile-based soft materials have not traditionally been a focus in robotics, researchers in the United States (US) especially are increasingly combining the two to perform certain functions, such as helping robots to ‘touch’ and ‘feel’ their environment.…

THROUGH their fat content, dairy products affect viscosity in the production of confectionery, bakery and ice-cream products and also the ‘mouth feel’ of the end product. The trick in manipulating this to advantage is to start from ingredients as near ideal characteristics as possible, then use the most reliable and sensitive equipment that return-on-investment considerations allow.…

THE EUROPEAN Union’s (EU) long term budget for 2014-2020 (called the multiannual financial framework (MFF) in Brussels’ famously complex jargon) is currently in limbo following a vote by the European Parliament last month (March) to reject the deal. The political deadlock is not likely to last, nor are the actual figures, agreed by EU heads of government in February, likely to be much changed, though.

IT seems for all the world like the setting for a Graham Greene novel: a British-trained chartered accountant in charge of an almost unfathomably wealthy state-owned holding corporation in a distant outpost.

Yet Greene would barely recognise the 21st century context in which Our Man in Kazakhstan operates.…