straight after this programme. she no i looked back at the tech helping climate change. let's go alistair straps into the truck with a difference but how hard is it to manor a0 ton truck by battery. how hard is it to manor 40 ton truck by battery.— truck by battery. you can start with tons _ truck by battery. you can start with tons of _ truck by battery. you can start with tons of robots. _ truck by battery. you can start with tons of robots. plus - truck by battery. you can start with tons of robots. plus from | with tons of robots. plus from ten wheelers to two, how about a scooter powered by gas. here's a man with a plan to the planet. here's a man with a plan to the lanet. ., , ., ., planet. you put it into a huge micro chamber. _ planet. you put it into a huge micro chamber. is _ planet. you put it into a huge micro chamber. is sure - planet. you put it into a huge micro chamber. is sure abouti micro chamber. is sure about that? i'm _ micro chamber. is sure about that? i'm sure _ micro chamber. is sure about that? i'm sure it _ micro chamber. is sure about that? i'm sure it will - micro chamber. is sure about that? i'm sure it will be - micro chamber. is sure about that? i'm sure it will be fine, | that? i'm sure it will be fine, how do we get those precious metals out of our phones. spencer grabs the sponge that has the midas touch.

the world wants to go electric but bigger vehicles are proving more difficult. the bigger and heavier they are the bigger and heavier they are the bigger and heavier they are the bigger and heavier the batteries need to be. ~ ., . . . heavier the batteries need to be. a, ., ., ., ., be. more than a quarter of greenhouse _ be. more than a quarter of greenhouse gas _ be. more than a quarter of greenhouse gas emissionsi be. more than a quarter of- greenhouse gas emissions from road transport and eu come from heavy duty vehicles, and because nearly everything we eat drink and where will have been a big truck at some point, the cleaner, greenerfuture is going to need cleaner, greener haulage. going to need cleaner, greener haulaae. ., , ., haulage. some manufacturers are -aushin haulage. some manufacturers are pushing on _ haulage. some manufacturers are pushing on with — haulage. some manufacturers are pushing on with a _ haulage. some manufacturers are pushing on with a switch - haulage. some manufacturers are pushing on with a switch to - pushing on with a switch to electric as alistair keane has been finding out.

trundling off the end of the production line is an amount of electric trucks. they want this to be every vehicle they make. switching to electric vehicle production hasn't been easy. 0ne electric vehicle production hasn't been easy. one of the things is the weight of the batteries. they had to reinforce the concrete and bring you concrete to love them and that meant closing down the production line for three

months. there are several thousand new components into electric vehicles, and, also, what was very important during this time, was to also cater for the reskilling of all our fantastic workforce, so that they could be able also to mount electric vehicles just as they do for internal combustion engines. unlike for cars, this move to electric trucking is going at a very slow pace. so, what motivates a company to make such a big gear shift? hi, how are you doing? welcome on board. thank you. nice to meet you. i'm hitching a lift from the man with the keys to this organisation. this company have been part of the problem for 130 years, almost, a very long time, producing those trucks that were emitting the emissions that were not good for the planet. is there guilt behind the change? yeah, i think there is guilt. there is the notion - that we want to be able to see our kids and our. grandchildren in the eyes and be able to say we knew it, i and we choose to do something

about it, instead ofjust - trying to continue to optimise profits and do the things that companies do. - and there is also a notion - of coming early to the insight that this is the future competitiveness. - you know, if you're last| into this journey, you're going to have a hell- of a problem to compete, because at some point. everyone will understand. and that has been really- important, because you have to have that as a company - when you are to convince your supervisory board, your owners and everyone around _ you in the ecosystem, that you need to walk| down this path. not only did scania stop output for several months, they also built this battery factory right next to where the trucks are assembled. we're in one of the most high—tech parts of this site, where lots of robots are assembling the batteries that will end up in the trucks. it's quite mesmerising to watch. these batteries weigh

an incredible a,000 kilos. that presents lots of challenges for those driving them. there are still lots of questions, though, about using battery electric. is it powerful enough to move these heavy trucks? is there the charging infrastructure to allow them to go where they need to go? and at three times the cost of a normal truck, are they a sound investment that companies will get their money back on? and part of the debate has also been about other ways to power trucks, with some in the industry suggesting hydrogen fuel cells are the best solution for green trucking. battery electric is the most cost efficient. so, therefore, we believe in this. and also it is possible to build the infrastructure and everything around it. so, what do you think? shall we go for a ride? | i think we should. let's do it. all right, let's go. it's completely silent. and it's strong. torque is amazing. you must still have a hard job,

though, convincing companies and drivers to make the switch? sure, there is a lot of scepticism. - i'm travelling a lot in myjob, and i was also to finland - a couple of weeks ago, - which i would have expected to be a market ready to transition quickly. i but huge scepticism, you know, will this really work? _ can it stand the temperatures of northern finland, - you know, the home of, uh... he laughs ..uh, of santa claus, really cold, really tough - drives, really high vehicle weights. l and i understand that. we need to take that on with facts. - and then the best way. to convince customers is, as always, when something is new — and this is a very. traditional industry we're in, so we're used to that — - but when there is something new, let them test. - the road to green trucking is slow. there's still a lot of work to do for manufacturers across the industry trying to convince buyers

to make this switch. and now from heavy goods vehicles to something more nimble. in some parts of the world, scooters have already gone electric, with lightweight bikes and hot swappable batteries making a lot of sense. but even the e—scooter�*s taking a while to reach everyone. in the meantime, nikhil inamdar has been to pune in india to see a bike powered by compressed natural gas. nikhil: 250 million. that is the number of two—wheelers on india's roads, emitting harmful pollutants that are adding to the worsening air quality of its cities. but one company now claims it has a solution.

this is bajaj auto's freedom, the world's first motorbike that runs on compressed natural gas, or cng. it's basically a gas that's compressed and stored in a cylinder, and it's both cleaner and cheaper than other automobile fuels like petrol or diesel. now cars, trucks and even tuk—tuks have used cng for long — but mounting this tech on a two—wheeler has taken years of trial and error. so, what have been the big challenges in designing this bike? the motorcycle has very little space. a cng cylinder is big, it is heavy, and it is of a certain shape. so, that has to be integrated and design has to take care of that. just to quickly show you, this is a 2kg cng cylinder which weighs 15 kilos, which has been packed

into this bike. so, you can see how large this is. along with this, to give the customer reassurance that the customer will never be stranded, there is an auxiliary fuel tank which is right over here, which is another two litre. engine starts bajaj claims using this fuel effectively halves the running cost of the motorbike and dramatically reduces emissions of several harmful greenhouse gases. so, despite being fuelled by cng, this does really feel like riding any other bike. the big question, though, on everybody�*s minds is really the timing of the launch, because this does come into the market when we're all on the cusp of that big ev revolution. the indian government wants 80% of all two—wheelers on its roads to be electric by 2030.

is that a problem? i'm still saying an electric motorcycle itself today is impossible. i caught up with shumi, who reviews bikes for a living. do you think evs will sort of fundamentally pose a threat to these cng bikes in the next few years? i think we are too large a country for things to pose a threat to each other automatically. 0k? for the last 20 years of testing, i've heard of how this bike is going to end some other bike and, honestly, nothing has ended ever. transitioning a country this large all the way to electric at 80%, where is the capacity in terms of power, in terms of battery manufacturing, in terms of cells, in terms of actual manufacturing? who's going to sell them? where is the infrastructure? it's a cascade of things that has to fall into place first. we are moving in that direction, but i can very easily argue that we're not moving fast enough to meet that goal. but there might be more immediate challenges. long lines, like these,

of cng—run tuk—tuks and taxis are a regular sight at india's gas stations. for these new bikes to hit the fast lane, fixing these infrastructure gaps will be critical. in this part of iceland is one of the world's most active volcanic hot spots. instagram and facebook parent company measure is to introduce facial risk mission to correct down on scammers using celebrities and advertisements, soft well compared images to those in the public figures profile picture and if they match the app will be deleted, they say early testing with a small group shows promising results. scientists have discovered a gigantic space rock that smashed into the earth 3 billion years ago could have actually helped some life

flourish. although the top layers of the ocean is boiled, it is thought bacterial life rebounded quickly following the impact, with populations of single celled organisms beating on the released phosphorus and iron. flying taxis are edging closer after new rules from us officials. the federal aviation administration in the us has recognised them as a new type of aircraft. they take off and land vertically like helicopters while flying like fixed wing planes. it has issued rules on how they can operate and how pilots will be trained to fly them. many companies are working to get flying taxis on the market. they had been held back by the lack of clarity over regulations. in this part of iceland is one of the world's most active volcanic hot spots.

krafla has erupted 30 times in a thousand years, and last blew in the 1980s. and though it may sound crazy, scientists are now preparing to drill into it. the idea is to learn more about how volcanoes behave so that we can better predict eruptions, and also tap into a super hot source of energy. volcanoes can be spectacular, but they're also devastating. around the world, millions of people live close to them. here in iceland, residents of grindavik have had their lives upended by a string of eruptions. but researchers here hope their work will change that, helping to save lives and money, while also pioneering a form of volcano power. we have about a0 wells spread around the geothermal fields, producing a mixture

of hot water and steam. this plant supplies electricity to about 30,000 homes. soon after it began operations five decades ago, krafla began to wake up again. we started to have volcanic eruption only 2km away from where we are standing now. this was a very strong indication about where the heat was coming from. using those new clues, scientists began drilling in this spot where, in 2009, they stumbled across an extraordinary discovery — a shallow pocket of magma. we were aiming to drill to a.5 kilometres, and were absolutely not expecting to hit magma at only 2.1 kilometre depth. much closer to the surface than scientists ever imagined, the extreme heat from this molten rock destroyed their equipment. we were able to measure

the power that comes out of it. this well produced about ten times more than the average well in this location, giving us a very strong indication of the extremely powerful resource that we may be sitting on. now, a team from kmt, the krafla magma testbed project, want to find it again. right here, two kilometres down, is a red hot magma chamber, and scientists are preparing to drill down into it. starting in 2026, they'll begin work on the first—ever underground magma observatory. we are basically standing on the spot where we are going to drill. what we want to do is to basically revolutionise the way we monitor volcanoes. the plan is to place sensors in the magma, temperature and pressure sensors. this will allow us to predict, with more accuracy, volcanic activity _ so, this will change how we predict eruptions.

with the second well, they'll harness that extreme heat, developing what's called near magma geothermal. the plan is to drilljust short of the magma itself, possibly poke it a little bit. the geothermal resource, which is located just above the magma body, we believe that is around 500 to 600 degrees celsius. just two boreholes of this kind could match the output of this entire plant. we now today need to feed the power plant with 22 normal wells. so there is an obvious game—changer. and there's the exciting possibility of potentially limitless cheap, clean energy. this is a big part of how we are going to take geothermal to the next level. and also, of course, a huge part in the green energy transition.

but the drilling will be technically challenging. at the university of iceland, lab work is under way, testing materials to withstand extreme heat and pressure. this is carbon steel, so the typical material used in the geothermal wells. these carbon steel materials lose strength quite quickly after 200 degrees celsius. and they are also not corrosion resistant, so we have to explore new materials and more corrosion resistant alloys. they're working with temperatures of up to 500 degrees, and corrosive gases. we have been focusing on high grade alloys, nickel alloys, and also titanium alloys. the team here think this could be replicated around the world. there are indications about shallow magma bodies in east africa, in the us, and in hawaii. possibly this kind of geothermal power production can be applied in many, many other locations around the world where we have active volcanoes.

so this crazy—sounding plan may actually have huge potential. the story of electronic waste is a bleak one. a lot of our devices are just smashed up and consigned to landfill, with toxic chemicals leaching into the soil, and precious metals like gold and platinum all mixed up in piles of plastic. we produce 50 million tons of e—waste every year, and that's the fastest growing solid waste we're producing on this planet. and it's not biodegradable, so this is accumulating, yeah? raffaele tells me that 7% of the world's gold reserve is actually trapped in e—waste. and although it is technically

possible to recover some of it, at the moment, we're only managing to get about a fifth of it back out. and so we continue to mine more gold, with all of the environmental impacts that causes. a 2021 report from the wwf, the global environment campaign, found that extracting one kilogram of gold leads to 12,000 kilogrammes of co2 emissions. extracting one ton of gold displaces 100,000 tons of rock and surrounding environments, and can result in chemicals like mercury and cyanide ending up escaping into rivers. what would be ideal is if there were a way of recovering metals like gold from e—waste in a cleaner, greener, more sustainable way. well, that is exactly what raffaele and his team have discovered.

the first thing you do is pull all the bits of metal off of your phone or your computer, and you grind it up into this powder. this is a mix of all sorts of metals like copper and gold, palladium, platinum and stuff. so how do you get the gold out? well, the first thing you do is pour it into some pretty nasty acid. that's why i'm wearing the goggles and the gloves! it goes green because there's a lot of copper in there. but what you then do is pop this magic sponge in there. this sponge, over the course of 2a hours, attracts ions of gold more strongly than it attracts anything else that's in that solution. so, about a day later, you have a sponge that's absolutely saturated with gold ions. what you do then is take the sponge out, incinerate it, and you're left with melted gold, which, when it solidifies, becomes gold nuggets. so, the important question

is, what is your magic sponge made of? the answer... ..is ricotta cheese. ricotta cheese? no way. well, actually, yes, whey. because whey is the liquid left over from cheese making, which can itself be made into several things, like ricotta. and itjust so happens that the proteins contained within this completely natural waste product bind very strongly to gold once it's been through all that nasty acid. so you're recovering e—waste using cheese waste? exactly. so if i had to put it into an equation, i will put waste to the square equals gold. that's what we do. that's alchemy, man. that's alchemy! yeah. ok, it's not. and they did have to do

a little bit more than just pop down to the shop and buy a blob of ricotta, but the sponge is made in a very similar way. the results they're calling aurogel, the au being the chemical symbol for gold. good, you're ahead of me on that one. so far, the team has ground up 20 computer motherboards and used this natural sieve for gold to pull out a 22 carat nugget weighing a50 milligrams. the team estimates that however much the process costs in energy and materials going in, you can get 50 times that value in gold coming out. so the question i have is, might there be any other costs? the conditions that people in the developing world live in and work in when they're recovering e—waste are already terrible. now we're talking about introducing really dangerous acids into that process as well. that doesn't sound necessarily a good idea? yeah, i mean, you will have to discharge that solution using all the norms of acidic

or waste water treatment. so, if you do it in the right way, that's not a problem. yeah, i guess the question is, will it be done? now this type of sponge from cheese making only works with gold, but raffaele is hoping to discover other by—products from other industries which would remove other materials. it may be that waste products from the oil or soy industries might bind strongly to silver or palladium, or even radioactive uranium and organic materials like hormones. it would all come down to finding the right proteins in the right materials, and whether nature can give us all a helping hand. that's it from us for now. thanks for watching

and we'll see you soon. hello there. hello there. 0n the whole, wednesday 0n the whole, wednesday was a cloudy day for most was a cloudy day for most of us, but there were of us, but there were a favoured few spots a favoured few spots where we saw some sunshine. where we saw some sunshine. aberdeenshire, one of them, aberdeenshire, one of them, and also powis in wales, and also powis in wales, where we saw some lovely sunshine — where we saw some lovely sunshine — temperatures peaked temperatures peaked at 17 celsius. at 17 celsius. but for thursday, it's but for thursday, it's going to be another cloudy day. going to be another cloudy day. quite a murky start as well, quite a murky start as well, but we keep that mild theme but we keep that mild theme to close out to close out the month of october. and that is because high the month of october. and that is because high pressure stays with us, pressure stays with us, and the winds very light indeed across the far northwest, and the winds very light indeed across england and wales, across england and wales, more isobars to the north, more isobars to the north, stronger winds in scotland, stronger winds in scotland, and this weather front and this weather front running across the top. running across the top. that will introduce that will introduce a little bit a little bit more in the way more in the way of rain as we go of rain as we go through the day across through the day across the northern isles. the northern isles. a windy scenario here — a windy scenario here — gusts, perhaps close gusts, perhaps close

to 50 miles an hour. to 50 miles an hour. more in the way of cloud more in the way of cloud across the far northwest, but we will be chasing cloud amounts around. if you get some sunshine, temperatures will respond, and through the afternoon, we're likely to see highs

temperatures peaking into the mid—teens. that cooler air is not set to last. high pressure on the move again. it's moving over to the near continent, and that allows a subtle change in wind direction to more of a southeasterly. but that subtle change could bring quite a dramatic change to the forecast. there's the potential for a little more in the way of sunshine coming through across england and wales sunday into monday. looking ahead, that quiet theme continues, but once again, we have to watch out for mist and fog.

welcome to newsday, reporting live from singapore, i'm katie silver. the headlines: spain sees its deadliest flooding in three decades. at least 95 people have been killed and others are missing. north korea test—fires a suspected intercontinental ballistic missile, thought to be be one of the most powerful in its armoury. washington condemns the move. and in the us presidential election, both kamala harris and donald trump are circling back to the swing states that

are likely to decide the race for the white house. welcome to newsday, i'm katie silver. it's 10am in singapore and three in the morning in spain where at least 95 people have died in flash floods that have devastated parts of the south and east. rescuers are still searching for the missing, after mudslides and torrents of water swept away bridges. cars were left piled up on each other. the valencia region received a year's worth of rain in eight hours on tuesday. and as you can see, more torrential downpours and flooding is expected as the week goes on. this is the picture going into thursday and friday. 0ur climate editor justin rowlatt reports. these flash floods were truly apocalyptic.

0ne town got a year's worth of rain