Nuclear renaissance?
Energy and climate change remain at the top of agendas around the world. The oven-like temperatures around the Mediterranean and resulting epidemic of wildfires and ruined holidays made the headlines over the summer, matched by calls to delay measures that might in some way curb the seemingly unstoppable march of climate change.
US pharma flounders
It used to be simple – or at least relatively straightforward. Big Pharma relied on ‘blockbuster’ drugs to provide profits and financial support for R&D. Then biotech became the ‘next big thing’ with small start-up companies, often spin-outs from university research and funded by venture capitalists. Read the full article.
Paying the price for healthy living
How much is the average individual prepared to pay to meet, and hopefully overcome, the current environmental challenges that include plastic pollution, air and water quality, and of course climate change?
Confused taxonomy
Sustainability is very much at the top of most industry and governmental agendas. But the application of legislation to achieve a national goal of sustainability is as complicated as any other approach to meeting national goals, and further complicated by a nation’s particular position in the international world.
Leader: Renewables rule?
Globally, electricity generation was the cleanest it has ever been in 2022, according to energy analyst, Ember. In its latest report, now in its fourth edition, Ember says clean sources of generation, including nuclear and hydro, accounted for 39% of total generation
R&D superpower
Innovation forms the very foundation of science-based industries like chemicals, pharmaceuticals and renewable energy. And the bedrock of that innovation is research and development (R&D). While research-based institutions and industry can provide that R&D, it requires an appropriate environment in which to flourish.
A better 2023?
As a major energy consuming industry, chemicals have suffered from extremely high costs due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the consequent pressures on the global economy and key customer industries.
Inflated opinion
Each January, business leaders and politicians from across the world gather in Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum (WEF), to look at what the coming year may hold for the global economy. And 2023 is no exception, with a focus on the inflation that is hitting every national economy, driven by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine just after the 2022 WEF and its impact on energy costs, as well as the ongoing problem of Covid and decarbonisation.
Energy investment
It is now almost a year since the world was plunged into an energy crisis by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But this crisis might become the potential turning point for world climate – with the move away from fossil fuels gaining momentum as society looks at the route to energy security and also decarbonisation.
Solidarity in crises
Responsibility, international solidarity, openness, inclusion, mobility, flexibility and predictability. They are words that will already be familiar to all of us engaged in the international scientific community. So perhaps it’s not too surprising that they are also the watchwords selected by a recent report on the Ukraine crisis.