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A UK startup is close to full-scale commercial production of solar trees that serve as clean energy charging stations for electric cars, according to the company’s chief executive. SolarBotanic Trees, which was founded last year, is developing two different sized versions of the tree, one 5.5 metres tall tree and another 3.5 metres tall, with the first installations planned for early next year in Oxford. “The idea is to put solar panels on a domed surface like the canopy of a tree, and then place a battery storage system into the trunk,” Chris Shelley, CEO of SolarBotanic, told The Independent. “Putting solar cells and batteries into the same structure is very practical, as it allows them to store excess energy without having to solely rely on its backup grid supply.” The number of electric vehicle (EV) charging stations in the UK has risen by more than a third over the last year in an effort to keep up with growing demand. There are now more than 25,000 locations as of May 2023, according to EV mapping service Zapmap, though this is still well short of the 325,000 charging points that the UK’s Climate Change Committee claims will be necessary by 2032. SolarBotanic already has deals in place with EV infrastructure suppliers to build trees for several sites in the UK, Mr Shelley said, including an order of 200 trees from the Raw Charging Group. The initial idea was to create a structure capable of harvesting both solar and wind energy, using photovoltaic leaves that flutter in the wind to generate additional power. Preliminary research found that wind harvesting via this method is not sufficiently advanced at present to be commercially viable in the near term, however it remains a prospect fot the future. For now, SolarBotanic’s focus is on entering production later this year in order to deliver the solar trees to UK customers at the start of 2024. From there, the company plans to enter other markets, including Europe and the US, as well as develop customisable structures to suit other applications. These include large trees with integrated seating underneath to be used in town squares or pub gardens, with people able to charge their phones or even warm themselves up from inbuilt infrared heating fixtures. “There are quite alot of variations on the core theme,” Mr Shelley said. “Offgrid versions that don’t need to meet the electricity demands of an electric vehicle could serve as work or social areas in town squares with telephone and laptop charging, seating and shelter. “Beyond commercial and municipal uses, the trees could go in people’s gardens to supplement rooftop solar panel setups, or several of them could even meet the annual electrical requirement of a medium-sized house.” Read More Scientists figure out how to turn rocks into batteries Japan aims to beam solar power from space by 2025 Scientists break world record for solar power window material Electric cars could save more than 100,000 lives, study claims Scientists smash world record for solar power window material Instagram has stopped working properly

Quantum computers might soon actually be useful, researchers have said after a new breakthrough. A new study showed that a quantum computer could be used for calculations that are beyond the capabilities of our current best classical – or non-quantum – computers. It means that the technology could soon be useful in practical applications, the researchers suggest. For years, quantum computing experts have been hopeful that the technology could allow for entirely new kinds of calculations, which might be useful across battery research, medicines and more. But the current versions are given to a host of problems, including the fact that they are prone to errors. Quantum computers need to be able to fix those errors more quickly than they accumulate. But even the best quantum computers have struggled to do so, meaning that practical use of the technology has remained beyond our grasp. New research from IBM showed that those errors could be mitigated, however, and a quantum computer could be used in ways that a classical computer could not. As such, the results “herald further opportunities for quantum processors to emulate physical systems that are far beyond the reach of conventional computers”, scientists away from the research say. Unlike many other similar breakthroughs – which focus on the extra speed that a quantum computer can provide – this new research focuses on the scale of the computer. Researchers used more 127 qubits, the equivalent of bits on a classical computer, to do research that classical computers do not have enough memory for. The breakthrough is described in a new paper, ‘Evidence for the use of quantum computing before fault tolerance’, published in Nature today. Read More Major finding boosts hope for finding alien life in our solar system Mother tells Congress about fearing her daughter was kidnapped after AI voice scam Battery breakthrough ‘offers 1,500 kilometre range from just 10 minutes of charging’

SpaceX has successfully launched Starship, the world’s most powerful rocket, for the first ever time. The spacecraft took off from Texas early on Saturday local time. It marked SpaceX’s second attempt to launch the spacecraft, after a previous test in April saw the rocket exploded soon after launch. The booster that carried the spacecraft up towards orbit exploded after it detached from the main spacecraft. SpaceX said that it had known there was a chance that the booster would be destroyed in the launch. But the main part of the ship successfully carried on towards the edge of space. Eventually, SpaceX hopes that Starship will fly to the Moon and help with missions to Mars. But first it must undergo a series of uncrewed tests to ensure it is safe. Elon Musk - SpaceX‘s founder, chief executive and chief engineer - also sees Starship as eventually replacing the company’s workhorse Falcon 9 rocket as the centerpiece of its launch business that already lofts most of the world’s satellites and other commercial payloads into space. NASA, SpaceX‘s primary customer, has a considerable stake in the success of Starship, which the US space agency is counting on to play a central role in its human spaceflight program, Artemis, successor to the Apollo missions of more than a half century ago that put astronauts on the moon for the first time. Starship’s towering first-stage booster, propelled by 33 Raptor engines, puts the rocket system’s full height at some 400 feet (122 meters) and produces thrust twice as powerful as the Saturn V rocket that sent the Apollo astronauts to the moon. SpaceX is aiming to at least exceed Starship-Super Heavy’s performance during its April 20 test flight, when the two-stage spacecraft blew itself to bits less than four minutes into a planned 90-minute flight. That flight went awry from the start. SpaceX has acknowledged that some of the Super Heavy’s 33 Raptor engines malfunctioned on ascent, and that the lower-stage booster rocket failed to separate as designed from the upper-stage Starship before the flight was terminated. The company’s engineering culture, considered more risk-tolerant than many of the aerospace industry’s more established players, is built on a flight-testing strategy that pushes spacecraft to the point of failure, then fine-tunes improvements through frequent repetition. A failure at any point in the test flight would be a major concern for NASA, which is counting on SpaceX‘s rapid rocket development ethos to swiftly get humans to the moon in the U.S. competition with China’s lunar ambitions. Judging the success or failure of the outcome may be less than clear-cut, depending on how far the spacecraft gets this time. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, who has made the China rivalry a key need for speed, compared Starship’s test campaign with the success of SpaceX‘s past rocket development efforts. “How did they develop the Falcon 9? They went through many tests, sometimes it blew up,” Nelson told Reuters on Tuesday. “They’d find out what went wrong, they’d correct it then go back.” The combined spacecraft in April reached a peak altitude of roughly 25 miles (40 km), only about halfway to space at its target altitude of 90 miles (150 km), before bursting into flames. Musk has said that an internal fire during Starship’s ascent damaged its engines and computers, causing it to stray off course, and that an automatic-destruct command was activated some 40 seconds later than it should have to blow up the rocket. The launch pad itself was shattered by the force of the blastoff, which also sparked a 3.5-acre (1.4-hectare) brush fire. No one was injured. SpaceX has since reinforced the launch pad with a massive water-cooled steel plate, one of dozens of corrective actions that the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration required before granting a launch license on Wednesday for the second test flight. Additional reporting by agencies Read More SpaceX launches ‘zero fuel’ engine into space SpaceX is launching the world’s biggest rocket – follow live SpaceX to launch world’s biggest rocket again after first attempt ended in explosion The world’s most powerful rocket should launch imminently, Elon Musk says Why Apple is working hard to break into its own iPhones OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman ousted as CEO

Tesla has revealed the prices and features of different versions of its highly-anticipated Cybertruck at a delivery event in Austin where the company finally handed over to customers the first 13 electric pickup trucks. The deliveries to a select group of customers come six years after Tesla boss Elon Musk tweeted about building a truck, and 4 years after a version of the Cybertruck was unveiled for the first time in 2019. At the short livestream of Thursday’s delivery event, Tesla also redemonstrated the toughness of the Cybertruck after its 2019 demo awkwardly shattered the windows of the truck. The event started with the Tesla boss driving the truck on a stage in darkness and hopping out to talk about it. The electric pickup truck’s angular body is made of a stainless steel alloy developed by Tesla with Mr Musk calling it the “most unique thing on the road”. “Finally the future will look like the future,” he told the attendees, consisting of Tesla investors. The Cybertruck, dubbed “an armoured personal carrier from the future,” will eventually be available in three different configurations with the cheapest version starting at a $60,990 base price, Mr Musk said. He said the pickup truck can carry over a ton in its bed and tow over 5,000kg (11,000 pounds). However, this ”rear-wheel version” with a range of 250 miles and acceleration from zero to 60mph in about 7 seconds, would not be available until 2025, the company said. An all-wheel drive version of the Cybertruck, Tesla announced, would have an estimated 341-mile range, top speed of 112 mph, and a starting price of $79,990. The third version announced on Thursday is what’s called the “Cyberbeast” – slated to arrive in 2024 – with a range of 320 miles and 845 horsepower, travelling from 0 to 60 mph in 2.6 seconds at an estimated price of $99,990. All these models are much more expensive than the $39,900 starting price Tesla announced for the base version in 2019. Tesla also announced that it would offer a range extender to push the all-wheel drive Cybertruck to about 470 miles and the Cyberbeast to a range of over 440 miles. The range extender, Mr Musk explained later in a post on X, is an “optional pack” that fits in about a third of the truck’s bed. “Still room for plenty of of cargo. It’s meant for very long trips or towing heavy things up mountains,” he said. “Massive congrats to the incredible Tesla team, from design through to manufacturing, for making Cybertruck real! I love you,” the multibillionaire said. At the event, the Tesla boss also invited the electric vehicle company’s chief designer Franz Von Holzhausen to re-do the demonstration of the toughness of the Cybertruck that was botched in 2019. This time, instead of throwing a metal ball at the vehicles glass, Mr Von Holzhausen threw an ordinary baseball – rather weakly – showing the glass could the projectile. Tesla has said the glass will not shatter in the face of a 70mph baseball strike. This definitely wasn’t that. The livestream event ended after about 30 minutes, once Mr Musk had listed the features and performance capabilities of the Cybertruck’s different versions and its bulletproof exterior. It was followed by the Tesla boss assisting some of the first customers in driving off in their trucks. Mr Musk has played down hopes that the Cybertruck would revive profits for the carmaker in the near future. He told investors and analysts in an earnings call in October that it could take at least 18 months for the truck to become profitable. “There will be enormous challenges in reaching volume production with Cybertruck and making the Cybertruck cash flow positive,” he said. Read More When and where to watch Tesla’s highly anticipated Cybertruck delivery event Google users urged not to press button Nasa has received a signal from 10 million miles away Google users urged not to press button Nasa has received a signal from 10 million miles away Magazine under fire for publishing AI-written articles with fake author headshots

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