As wind power becomes more important in the energy mix, so too does the need to manage its variability. A new study has reviewed the options and indicates that, although state-of-the art technologies exist to maximise gains from wind power, they need proper and insightful management.

Technological advances in European cement production could reduce energy consumption by up to 10% and CO2 emissions by 4%, according to a new analysis. The research suggests that initial costs of some of the pending technological improvements could be recouped in as little as a year.

Reindeer herding has a long history in the Arctic, but climate change and industrial activity are bringing this important economic and cultural tradition to breaking point. In a unique initiative, reindeer herders across the Arctic are leading an international team of scientists in using modern technology to adapt to global change and empower indigenous communities.

Techniques for reducing the noise caused by wind turbines are reviewed in a new study. Noise pollution is one drawback of wind power and restricts where wind farms can be located in relation to people and wildlife. The researchers identify methods that could aid the design of low-noise wind turbines, including modifying the blade’s shape and adding rows of brushes to the edge of the blade.

Increasing energy efficiency in Europe is vital to achieving a sustainable economy and tackling climate change. However, new research has shown that lack of capital and concerns about costs of disruption are major barriers to implementing energy efficiency measures in the foundry industry.

The impact of climate change on the distribution of tree species is likely to have economic implications for the timber industry. A new study has estimated that climate-induced shifts in range could reduce the value of European forest land for the timber industry by between 14 and 50% by 2100. At the higher end of this estimate, this could equate to a potential loss of several hundred billions of euros.

New research has investigated the many ways in which technological transfer occurs for wind power projects in developing countries. These range from trading with developed countries, to local innovation. In India and China, successful transfer was found to depend more on existing capabilities in these countries than international projects, such as the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).

The ecological impacts of micro wind turbines (up to 50 kW) are treated in a diverse way by different local authorities in the UK during the planning approval process, research suggests. The study calls for ecologists, policymakers, planners and industry representatives to improve the integration of ecological information within planning, and for greater guidance for local authorities on the ecological considerations of micro-turbines.

Noise caused by construction of Germany’s first offshore wind farm caused significant habitat disturbance for harbour porpoises, according to a recent study. Its results suggest that porpoises avoided areas up to 20 kilometres from the noise source during construction of the wind farm’s foundations.

Fishing in most of Norway’s counties is at ‘moderate’ to ‘high’ risk from ocean acidification, concludes a new study. The researchers reached this conclusion with the use of an integrated risk-assessment method that accounts for environmental, economic and social factors within the 19 counties. They call for immediate action to protect the fishing industry against the effects of ocean acidification.

A new study has investigated the possibility of a regional industrial symbiosis of metal industries across the Sweden-Finland border. The analysis suggests that it is technologically feasible, but that regulatory support may be inefficient, particularly with respect to changing the status of a waste product to a by-product.

A new tool to improve the measurement of waste management performance has been presented by a recent study. The researchers applied it to three high consuming cities aspiring to ‘zero waste’, finding San Francisco to be closer to achieving zero waste than Stockholm and Adelaide, due to its emphasis on reusing solid waste.

Composts containing biodegradable plastics may hinder rather than help plant growth, according to a recent study by university scientists in Poland. These findings have implications for waste management practices within the EU.

The main factors affecting household food waste in the EU have been identified by an analysis of the 2013 Flash Eurobarometer survey (n.388). On an individual level, the main factors include age, gender, income and environmental attitudes. On the national level, the most significant factor is median disposable income. The authors suggest their results could help develop campaigns targeted at groups that generate the most household waste.

The Alang-Sosiya shipbreaking yard in India is highly polluted with heavy metals, a study concludes. The researchers studied heavy metal contamination in sediments taken from the intertidal zone of the shipbreaking yard and compared them to a control site. The area was found to be ‘strongly polluted’ with copper, cobalt, manganese, lead and zinc.

Turkey is a major ship recycling centre and is the largest OECD member country with a significant ship recycling industry. In this study, researchers reviewed the environmental, health and safety issues surrounding the Turkish shipbreaking industry, its compliance with environmental regulations and its ability to claim ‘green recycling’.

A successful circular economy for valuable metals needs more than just effective recycling technologies, as a new study shows. The research, which explored the governance of recovering vanadium from steel-industry waste, revealed that industry stakeholders feel the prospect of financial gain, or reduced costs, through recovery is too distant at present. This perception could hinder a circular economy for critical materials from industrial residue, the study warns.

Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises comprise the majority of European businesses — and, therefore, have a vital role to play in reducing our dependence on, and consumption of, increasingly scarce resources. A new study explores whether the concept of industrial symbiosis, in which companies use waste products of other industries as raw materials, is common in small- and medium-sized companies (SMEs) — using beer producers and mushroom farmers in Sweden as case studies.

Researchers have devised a blueprint to integrate the efficient use of waste wood throughout a bioeconomy system — part of the economy that uses renewable biological resources from land and sea. This study assessed the environmental sustainability of three scenarios for increasing targeted levels of industrial symbiosis within the wood-based bioeconomy of central Germany, and found that, in most cases, the three alternative future bioeconomy networks outperformed the selected fossil-based reference systems, mitigating environmental impacts by 25 to 130%.

"The importance of hybrid cloud and AI has accelerated. What has changed is the pace at which they're being adopted. Transformation journeys (of) last few years are now being compacted into months...They're looking for long lasting answers on what they can do with technology to address the key issues that COVID-19 has brought to light," he said.

India saw a 62 per cent decline in job hiring in the month of April, led by hotel/restaurant/travel/airlines industries that saw a massive -90 per cent less hiring activity that the same month last year.

Sixty-four per cent of organizations in India and Europe invested in cloud technologies in the last two years, followed by IoT, where 51% firms made investments.

IT advisory IDC estimates that domestic IT spending will decline 4.5% to $55.5 billion this fiscal

As Indian firms realign their focus on revenue growth, they need to leverage customer and market behaviour to place their bets on long-term, sustainable growth, a new report said.

The headcount has now come down from more than 1,000 employees a year ago, with the majority of job cuts in the wake of Covid-19 outbreak that forced shutdowns in the February-April period. The headcount comprises staff on the company’s rolls as well as those on contract and outsourced manpower.

An EU project has developed a new crop spray system for orchards that is precise, efficient and safer for the environment. It sprays pesticides according to the needs of the crop and local environment, and can reduce spray drift by up to 80 per cent. Preliminary field tests conducted in Poland have demonstrated its effectiveness.

New research indicates that large-scale wind farms may influence local weather. It suggests the impact can be minimised by changing the design of the rotors or positioning wind farms in regions with high natural turbulence. These strategies could also make the farms more productive.

A new tool for minimising offshore wind energy's impacts on other activities in the North Sea has been developed. The tool identifies space for wind farms based on their priority compared to other marine activities, such as sand extraction or fishing.

General acceptance of offshore wind farms is most positively influenced by reductions in fossil fuel imports and contributions to global warming mitigation, and most negatively by concerns about increases in electricity price and impacts on scenic views, US research suggests. Other factors, such as reductions in air pollution, were not closely related to general acceptance even though on average the public rated them as important.

Wind is an important renewable energy source for Europe. The wind power capacity installed in 2014 could produce enough electricity to meet over 10% of the EU’s electricity consumption. However, wind power structures can also be harmful to birds, which can collide with turbines. This study assessed methods of reducing avian collisions with wind turbines and makes several practical recommendations.

Wind energy will likely continue to play a leading role in reaching the EU’s renewable energy targets. However, in some areas wind turbines face social opposition based in large part on the visual impact of wind turbines in the landscape. A new study outlines a novel methodology to measure emotional response to wind turbine visuals, which may assist wind farm planners in gauging public acceptance.

Shortages of indium, a key metal found in thin-film solar cells, could limit their large-scale deployment in the future. A new study has outlined four ways that indium supplies could be increased to meet future demand. For example, indium could be extracted more efficiently from zinc ores, or historic wastes containing indium could be processed to extract the element.

Wind farms are an important component of Europe’s shift towards a greener energy supply, but they could potentially have an impact on marine ecosystems. This study provides the first measurements of the distribution of harbour seals in relation to the construction and operation of wind farms, and makes recommendations to minimise any potential harm, including breaks in the pile-driving phase of construction.

Indium, a unique metal, is in short supply worldwide and is not recycled at the end of its life (EoL). Indium is used in a wide range of technologies, causing regions across the world that are reliant on its import — such as Europe — to be concerned about security of supply. Primary sources of indium are thought to be sufficient for medium-term needs, but with growing demand comes growing concern over long-term supply. A new study has conducted a material flow analysis and examined secondary sources of indium within European ‘urban mines’ and in-use stocks (IUS) of indium products, identifying these as potential sources of 500 tonnes of indium — if it were recycled at EoL.

Deployment of AI and cloud technologies is helping the energy firm maintain its operations without disruption.

April was a month of heavy-lifting for Anand Natarajan, COO, DBS Bank India, but the company’s investments made towards building a robust tech infrastructure made pandemic substantially easier for him.

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) surveyed dozens of young stars -- some Sun-like and others approximately double that size -- and discovered that the larger variety have surprisingly rich reservoirs of carbon monoxide gas in their debris disks. In contrast, the lower-mass, Sun-like stars have debris disks that are virtually gas-free.

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A team of Carnegie scientists has discovered three giant planets in a binary star system composed of stellar ''twins'' that are also effectively siblings of our Sun. One star hosts two planets and the other hosts the third. The system represents the smallest-separation binary in which both stars host planets that has ever been observed. The findings, which may help explain the influence that giant planets like Jupiter have over a solar system's architecture, have been accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journal.

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Ever since the 1950s discovery of the solar wind - the constant flow of charged particles from the sun - there's been a stark disconnect between this outpouring and the sun itself. As it approaches Earth, the solar wind is gusty and turbulent. But near the sun where it originates, this wind is structured in distinct rays, much like a child's simple drawing of the sun. The details of the transition from defined rays in the corona, the sun's upper atmosphere, to the solar wind have been, until now, a mystery.

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Public support grows for wind farms if they are located away from recreational areas and if they are either fully or partly owned by organisations within the local community. In addition, Swedish consumers would accept bigger bills for electricity generated by wind power if the local population were heavily involved in wind farm planning, a recent survey suggests. This article was updated 30.09.14 to correct an error in the cost of the REC scheme.

Phosphorus is essential for modern agriculture. Supplies are dwindling and markets are concentrated, presenting a serious threat to food security. Tackling this emerging global sustainability risk requires effective governance to ensure phosphorus is available and accessible to farmers worldwide. This study presents a series of phosphorus security indicators to support this goal.

In addition to reducing carbon emissions, policies promoting efficient energy use can encourage innovation in the manufacturing sector. This study evaluated the innovation effect of household energy policies using a comprehensive dataset of 21 European countries. The results show that policies such as financial subsidies and product labels can promote the development of sustainable-energy technologies.

The first inkling of the potential of the industry came with the appearance of smartphones like Nokia 9000, which found ready acceptance among professionals, entrepreneurs and even enterprises.

53 percent of Indian enterprises were least mature in the adoption of mobility solutions whereas 17 percent of enterprises are adequately mature in their strive to adopt mobility solutions

Canon India’s sales-force application (iCAN) now has mobility features that enable the sales team to attend to sales leads and generate price approval requests on the mobile which are passed onto the managers through a push notification feature.