Welcome to Britain's biggest building site. There's a ‘fish disco'
Two miles off the Somerset coast, a strange sound is playing. About 20 metres below the slate-grey surface of the Bristol Channel, a small device called a ceramic transducer blasts out a high-pitched acoustic beam at a frequency far higher than can be detected by the human ear.
This machine — once disparaged by the former environment secretary Michael Gove as a 'fish disco' — is being tested to see if it can scare off the salmon, herring, shad, eel and sea trout that in six years' time will start being sucked in their millions into massive water inlets that have been built near by.
Hinkley Point C nuclear power station is late and over budget. This is the biggest building site in Britain, possibly
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BBC News
37 minutes ago
- BBC News
Doctors use poo pills to flush out dangerous superbugs
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The Guardian
40 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Ministers commit to £86bn for ‘breakthrough' UK science and tech R&D
New drug treatments, longer-lasting batteries and developing artificial intelligence are among research projects that will receive funding as part of an £86bn government investment into science and technology. Ministers have announced a £22.5bn a year commitment in research and development (R&D) over the next four years, including up to £500m for regional authorities to target the investment locally. The announcement comes before the spending review on Wednesday where Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, will set out day-to-day expenditure for three years and investment spending for four years. Reeves said: 'Britain is the home of science and technology. Through the plan for change', we are investing in Britain's renewal to create jobs, protect our security against foreign threats and make working families better off.' Peter Kyle, the science and technology secretary, said: 'R&D is the very foundation of the breakthroughs that make our lives easier and healthier – from new medicines enabling us to live longer, more fulfilled lives to developments in AI giving us time back, from easing our train journeys through to creating the technology we need to protect our planet from climate change.' Ministers said the investment would boost the life sciences industry in Liverpool, the defence sector in Northern Ireland and semiconductors in south Wales. It matches a commitment made by the previous Conservative government to spend £22bn a year on R&D. The seven mayoral strategic authorities in England – Greater Manchester, West Midlands, South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, Liverpool City Region, North East and Greater London – will each receive awards of at least £30m each. The fund will also include a competition open to all other parts of the UK. The announcement was welcomed by Richard Parker, the mayor of the West Midlands, and Kim McGuinness, the north-east mayor. McGuinness said the funds would support the car and green energy industries in her region. The package also includes £4.8m for a partnership between Manchester and Cambridge to attract business investment. Alongside the spending review on Wednesday, Reeves is planning to announce an overhaul of the Treasury's 'green book' – the rules that govern how public investment plans are judged. Critics say the existing rules are biased in favour of London and the south-east. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion Changing the rules will allow ministers to divert more money to areas of the north and Midlands, including the so-called red wall where Labour MPs face an electoral challenge from Reform UK. The chancellor will put £113bn of new capital investment in homes, transport and energy at the forefront of the spending review, money which was unlocked by changes she made to the government's debt rules in October. Ministers hope that billions in capital investment and a funding boost for the NHS will stave off disquiet over harsh cuts to day-to-day spending expected across many departments.
Daily Mail
3 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Britain must retain the means of making iron, says Sir Andrew Cook
Sir Andrew Cook is a leading British industrialist. 'Iron, Cold Iron, is the master of men all'. So reads Rudyard Kipling's memorable poem, and so might the steel men of Scunthorpe have recited with relief when learning their jobs had been saved from the Chinese wrecking ball. This steelworks, and its blast furnaces in particular, has been much in the news recently, the commentary fuelled more by ignorance and emotion than plain fact. For that fact is that a blast furnace, for all its association with the crag-jowelled ironmasters of nineteenth century England, is essential to any modern nation wishing to remain in what we still call the first world. Put aside the issues of pollution and climate change and consider instead the reality. You cannot make steel without iron, and you cannot make iron without a blast furnace. For iron does not exist naturally in its pure state. It is embedded within a brownish-coloured rock called iron ore. To extract the iron from the rock, the rock has first to be smelted. The term 'smelting', as you would expect, refers to melting plus something more. The 'something more' in this case is a chemical reaction which changes the fundamental composition of the material being smelted. In chemistry terms, the composition of the rock – iron ore – is changed into two separate materials, iron itself, and a residue which we call slag. This process can only be done in a blast furnace using coke, a fuel derived from coal, which provides both the heat and the carbon, the two being essential to the reaction. Iron ore plus carbon plus heat gives you iron plus slag. The slag goes mostly to waste – some is used to make roads. The iron is now ready to be made into steel. 'But can't you also make steel in an electric arc furnace? This is what we are told, and the arc furnace is so much greener. Isn't all that carbon dioxide that the blast furnace spews out avoided with the arc furnace?' I am sorry to disappoint you but the answer is 'No' on both counts. An electric arc furnace can only reprocess old scrap steel. Iron ore, being a rock, doesn't conduct electricity. Moreover, repeated recycling of old steel gradually de-purifies it, with levels of contaminants building up to a point where the steel cannot be used for certain essential purposes, notably military and medical use. So if you need pure steel, you need iron, and if you cannot supply the iron yourself, you have to import it. Someone, somewhere, has to use a blast furnace to make the iron from which is made the steel. Who is that someone? Well, if Britain has no blast furnaces, it has to be from across the English Channel, and possibly from a distant, and maybe potentially hostile part of the world. They can refuse to supply or charge us what they like. China uses its vast steel industry as a geo-political tool, its objective being to destroy those of weaker countries unwilling or unable to defend their own. Moreover, it is a known fact that the quality of Chinese steel cannot be trusted – just ask any construction worker. 'OK' you say, 'but what about the massive carbon footprint of the blast furnace?' Let there be no doubt, the blast furnace does emit a large quantity of carbon dioxide. But set this against three facts. Firstly, carbon dioxide is not a poison. It is an inert gas essential to plant growth. Without it, there is no food and the human race dies out. Secondly, if Britain does not have a blast furnace, the country's needs must be satisfied by someone else's. Global iron production indelibly emits a set quantity of CO2. The effect of Britain closing its blast furnaces on worldwide carbon emissions is precisely zero. And thirdly, don't get the idea the electric arc furnace is carbon-free. It also emits CO2, produced by its carbon electrodes, which steadily turn into gas as the melting process consumes them. As in most things, a balance must be struck. If Britain wishes to remain in the first rank of nations, it needs a steel industry, and this has to include at least one blast furnace. If it wishes to be self-sufficient in the manufacturing of steel products, essential to national security and well-being, it must retain the means of making iron. Britain has the skills, the equipment, and the essential coking coal from the Cumberland mine that has been short-sightedly refused planning permission by the authorities. Let common sense now overcome ignorance and emotion. The nation's security and industrial well-being are at stake.
