19/02/2021

Ford Plans For All Cars Sold In Europe To Be Electric By 2030

The Guardian - 

US firm to spend $1bn converting plant in Cologne to become its first electric vehicle facility in Europe

Ford’s first all-electric cars will start rolling off the production line at its plant in Cologne, Germany, in 2023.Photograph: Friedemann Vogel/EPA 
Ford has pledged that all of its cars on sale in Europe will be electric by 2030, in the latest move by the world’s biggest auto manufacturers to set out plans to move away from polluting internal combustion engines before looming bans on fossil-fuel vehicles across the world. 

The US car giant said on Wednesday that it was going “all in” on electric vehicles and would invest $1bn (£720m) converting a vehicle assembly plant in Cologne, Germany, to become its first electric vehicle facility in Europe.

It said the first all-electric cars would start rolling off the production line there in 2023.

Ford promised that all of its passenger cars in Europe would be “zero-emissions capable all-electric or plug-in hybrid” by mid-2026, before ramping up its ambitions to be “completely all-electric by 2030”. “We are charging into an all-electric future in Europe with expressive new vehicles and a world-class connected customer experience,” Stuart Rowley, the head of Ford’s European operations, said.

“Our announcement today to transform our Cologne facility, the home of our operations in Germany for 90 years, is one of the most significant Ford has made in over a generation.

“It underlines our commitment to Europe and a modern future with electric vehicles at the heart of our strategy for growth.”

Ford said two-thirds of its commercial vehicles would also be all-electric or plug-in hybrid by 2030.

The company dominates the US and European markets for petrol-powered commercial vehicles with a 40% and 15% share of the markets, respectively. Ford said its commercial vehicle business was “key to future growth and profitability.”

The carmaker, which returned to profit in Europe last year, has formed an alliance with Volkswagen to use its modular electric drive electric vehicle platform to build some models. The Cologne facility will use the VW platform.

This month Ford said it was “doubling down” on electric vehicles (EVs) and would invest at least $22bn in electrification by 2025, nearly twice the company’s previous EV ambitions.

This week Jaguar Land Rover, the UK-based carmaker owned by India’s Tata Motors, said its luxury Jaguar brand cars would be electric-only by 2025 and it would abandon petrol vehicles entirely in the middle of the next decade.

Ford’s Detroit rival General Motors aims to have an entirely zero-emission lineup by 2035.

The plans come as car companies race to transform their business to meet strict CO2 emission targets set by governments across the world.

The UK has announced a ban on the sale of new cars and vans powered wholly by petrol and diesel from 2030.

It is part of Boris Johnson’s call for a “green industrial revolution” to tackle the climate crisis and create new jobs in future technologies. The UK has set a target to be a net zero emissions economy by 2050.

EU environment ministers struck a deal in October to make the bloc’s 2050 net zero emissions target legally binding.

Norway, which relies heavily on oil and gas revenues, aims to become the world’s first country to end the sale of fossil-fuel-powered cars, setting a 2025 deadline. Fully electric vehicles make up about 60% of monthly sales in Norway.

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(AU) More Than 100 Australian Plant Species Entirely Burnt In Black Summer Bushfires, Study Finds

The Guardian - 

CSIRO-led research estimates 100 entire populations were burnt and another 816 had more than half their area burnt

The Gondwana rainforest burning in the Nightcap national park during Australia’s Black Summer. Fears that rare and ancient rainforest plants are now further threatened have been confirmed by a study. Photograph: Darcy Grant/The Guardian

More than 100 plant species had their entire populations burned in the Black Summer bushfires, according to the most detailed study yet of the impact on Australia’s plants.

An estimated 816 species had at least half the areas they grow burned, according to estimates in the study, and some ecosystems are now at risk of “regeneration failure”.

While many of the species studied are adapted to recover from fire – either by reshooting or growing from seeds waiting dormant in nearby soils – there are fears that the loss of mature plants has left some species and entire ecosystems vulnerable.

CSIRO researcher and lead author of the study Dr Bob Godfree and 14 other researchers published their analysis, which used satellite data to map the fires, in the journal Nature Communications.

The fires, which burned at least 7.5m hectares of eucalyptus forests in the south-east of the continent, had left rainforest species particularly exposed.

“To have so much burn in such a short period of time was quite staggering,” Godfree said.

He said plants underpinned the function of entire ecosystems, providing food and shelter for wildlife and stabilising soils, as well as storing carbon.

“Changes in vegetation is natural over very long time frames, but if that change occurs very rapidly it can be disruptive,” he said.

Researchers analysed data from four satellites alongside more than 1.4m records of plants in south-east Australia across forests, woodlands, healthlands, grasslands, shrublands and in and around rainforests.

The research said: “All known populations of an estimated 116 species (14% of the total) burnt, which is more than double the number of plant species endemic to the British Isles.”

Fears that rare and ancient plants in Australia’s network of Gondwana rainforest reserves were now further threatened were confirmed, the study said.

Godfree said one group of rainforest plants particularly vulnerable were known as epiphytic orchids, which grow on trees rather than on the ground.

“They’re killed by fires, especially crown fires, and they don’t have much of a seed bank,” he said.

Some 251 plant species in the study were highly adapted to fire and had traits to recover, such as the ability to sprout from burnt trunks or underground tubers, store seeds in nearby soils or have seeds that germinated after exposure to smoke or heat.

But another 122 species that in theory could persist after fire were considered vulnerable because of invasive disease like myrtle rust, grazing from invasive species like deer, and more intense droughts.

Godfree said: “The impacts of these fires was certainly unprecedented in their scale. They impacted more plant species in a single fire season since anything that’s happened since European settlement, possibly longer.”

Importantly, Godfree said, the fires burned across wide areas and across species that were already being affected by changes to climate.

The study warns there is emerging evidence globally that catastrophic fire events have the ability to trigger tipping points, where forests are replaced with other vegetation.

Much of the vegetation affected by the fires was already under stress from extreme drought and record high temperatures which, the study said, could alone drive major changes.

More research was needed to find out if some forests were undergoing “regenerative failure”, the study concluded.

Plant ecologist Dr Rod Fensham, of the University of Queensland, who was not an author of the research, said the study was “impressive” but said the reported impacts on rainforest species needed further study.

He said: “We ecologists are on edge and nervous about what the meteorologists are telling us about these events and how they’re going to get more frequent.”

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New Tree-Loving Robots Could Plant Entire Forest Of Seeds Daily

Interesting Engineering - 

The robots work in tandem, one clears up the site from vegetation and the other one plants. 

Renders of Milrem Robotics' Planter and Brushcutter robots. Provided by Milrem Robotics

Estonia's University of Tartu and Milrem Robotics have collaborated to develop two types of autonomous robot foresters that have the capacity to plant thousands of trees a day using driverless technology.

One of the robots is a planter, the other is a brushcutter. Both are the size of a small car and can work in tandem, New Scientist reports. 

Milrem Robotics' brushcutter and forester robots

The Multiscope Forester Planter is equipped with a modular "planting payload with a capacity of 380 seedlings," Milrem Robotics explains on its website. The company also points out that their robot was "designed for a temperate climate zone," meaning it isn't quite equipped for harsh terrain or weather.

The Multiscope Forester Brushcutter, meanwhile, was designed to be "rugged and long-lasting in challenging environments like clear-cut areas."

The system is equipped with Milrem Robotics' Multiscope platform, which is equipped with a power unit (Max. pressure: 250 bar, Oil flow: 70 l/min), a brush cutting tool, and sensors.

An older Milrem Robotics model using the company's Multiscope platform, Source: Provided by Milrem Robotics

Advanced LiDAR systems for autonomous navigation

Both of the machines travel at about 12 mph (20 km/h), enabling the Forester Planter to have a planting speed of approximately 5-6.5 hours per hectare (2.5 acres) depending on the species of tree and the type of terrain.  

The two robots can be used in tandem, with the brushcutter trimming vegetation around seedlings or clearing our space for the Planter robot.

Both of the robots navigate via laser-based LiDAR, cameras, and global positioning systems (GPS). LiDAR produces a three-dimensional geometric representation of the robots' environments, enabling them to navigate autonomously.

Mobile robotics technology is maturing fast

Andrew Davidson at the U.K.'s Imperial College London told New Scientist, "this is one of many interesting applications ... which show that mobile robotics technology is maturing fast and enabling robots to tackle new types of task in difficult environments."

The makers of Sophia the Robot recently cited a rise in the use of robots amid the pandemic as a motivation for their bold future plans and many other companies also capitalizing on the recent surge in automation.

Milrem Robotics and the University of Tartu are utilizing their expertise in the rising field of robotics for the equally important sector of sustainability.

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