bbc news. more headfines bbc news. more headlines for - bbc news. more headlines for you - - bbc news. more headlines for you at - - bbc news. more} headlines for you at the - bbc news. more - headlines for you at the top of the hour after this programme. lara: this week, a question — how do you switch to renewable energy when the sun's down for half the year? we go off grid in the arctic to find out. solar could be a very good thing for the summer part lara: this week, a question — how do you switch to renewable energy when the sun's down for half the year? we go off grid in the arctic to find out. solar could be a very good thing for the summer part of the year, and then you would need something else for the rest of the year. is this me? i'm doing this? spencer: paul's checking out a new technology that - could make old diesel machinery cleaner and greener. ooh, i wonder what type of diesel engine he decided to try out. yes, it's a complete mystery. you'll never guess.

and we're pulling away. and as you will have seen, no emissionsl coming from the exhaust. now, how would you like to meet one of the most popular and highest—earning instagram models? well, you can't, because she doesn't exist. but we go behind the scenes with the team that created her. and what's this? lara checking out her health? surely not! icertainly am. honestly, i'm worn out just watching you. does that count as exercise? no. the united nations' annual climate change conference is the world's highest decision—making body on climate issues. this year, it takes place in baku in azerbaijan. the goal is for world leaders to gather and work together on solutions to tackle climate change, limit emissions, and protect the environment.

and with global temperatures hitting record highs, and extreme weather events affecting people around the globe, this year's conference will be keenly watched for big decisions and high—level agreements. but all over the world there are people, businesses and organisations trying to make their own contribution. and adrienne murray has been to the arctic circle to find out how a community in svalbard is trying to shift to clean energy. adrienne: high inside the arctic circle, the archipelago of svalbard sits on the frontier of climate change. it's one of the fastest—warming places on earth. yet, for most of its history, it's depended on coal for energy and jobs. this mine — norway's last — will now close next year.

and this arctic community is shifting to a more climate—friendly future. ditching coal was the first step, and this power plant switched fully to diesel last year. when we run the diesel, it's almost half the co2 emissions. that's including the exploration and production and the refinery and the transport up here. it's still a fossil fuel, so why do that? diesel will be an interim period, just a step on the way towards more greener fuel. they hope to tap future fuels like green ammonia or methanol. this is a complete off—grid situation. the wind doesn't blow all the time, the sun is gone for half the year — so we need something in the background which can secure supply even in the darkest and coldest winter nights. to help stabilise power, they've installed one of europe's biggest batteries. here we have four battery packages. they are controlling the voltage and frequency of the distribution network.

it also serves as a backup. you can store energy at night and you can use it during the day. all the diesel generators are off, we can run the whole city with the batteries for quite some time. closer to the north pole than the mainland, the remote town of longyearbyen isn't connected to norway's grid, making the move to cleaner energy much more challenging. but researchers are exploring ways to cut out diesel. this far north, conditions can be extreme, and so scientists here are testing how solar performs high up in the arctic. but here, it's notjust the elements we have to prepare for — it's also the wildlife. we are trying to study the potential of solar in the arctic, and document how much solar energy we can produce in order to perform an energy transition. they're doing that with the help of this guy — who looks. . . kind of familiar. the name of this device is r2—d2, and it's basically

a multi—face solar panel rig. so i'm basically collecting the data. we heard the clicking here. clicking i'm collecting the power production l of each face of r2—d2 here. for half of the year, svalbard is plunged into darkness, so using solar may sound like a weird idea, but for the rest of the calendar, there's round—the—clock daylight. one main aspect of solar energy in the arctic is that we can only have it during spring and summer time, and a surprising fact was that we get a lot of solar energy in spring due to the snow reflection and the cold temperature. in town, some businesses are already turning to solar, and that's helped this store save lots of energy running its power—hungry fridges and freezers. we produce almost 23% of all the energy we use, so we save a lot of money so we don't have to buy all the power.

we get the most power from around april until august — when the sun's up — and then it's up 24/7, almost. this century—old station houses critical communications equipment. it's also a research site testing off—grid energy. one of the world's northernmost solar parks is found here. also a battery system and other technologies. this is our energy transition pilot facility. and it's all monitored remotely. here we can see, for instance, how much solar energy we have produced. and, as you can see, they've just been operating a few hours throughout the day. so it's mostly solar energy that's been providing the station for the last 2a hours. they plan to adopt a similar off—grid system in longyearbyen, but on a bigger scale. so now we are running on diesel, we are looking into what could come after that. solar could be a very good thing for the summer part of the year, and then

you would need something else for the rest of the year. it's about using a hybrid system, combining different energy technologies. and there lies the big challenge. scientists are also exploring how well wind works in extreme cold. and here, they're testing geothermal. we have a thinner crust of the earth here, so it's actually not that far down to get the warm temperatures in the ground. for us, heat is the energy we need the most. we use three times as much heat and electricity in the town. for the many arctic communities living off grid, the work here might help them cut down on fossil fuels and move to a more climate—friendly future. paul: rail is often billed as the greener way to travel. in the uk, only 38% of the rail

network is electrified, meaning passenger and freight trains are still contributing co2 emissions — although lower than other modes of transport. horn blasts but now a new technology has been developed that can not only make diesel engines more efficient — it could help make dirty trains much cleaner. and i went along to harry needle railroad company's train yard in worksop to find out more. advanced hydrogen technologies' engine carbon clean system combines hydrogen generation with carbon capture, and can be fitted to anything with an engine — not just trains. it uses electrolysis to turn ordinary water into oxygen and hydrogen, which is then pushed through the engine to remove carbon residue that has built up over time. explain this to me

like i'm five. so this unit that we're looking at here has a diesel engine. correct. and it runs on diesel as normal. correct. what does this device do to that diesel engine? ok, so this is a 1962 class 08 locomotive. and, as you can imagine, the diesel that's been pumping through there for many, many, many years has built carbon up inside the engine. so the efficiency of the engine is very much decreased. so what this system does is it pumps the hydrogen through the air intake and it goes through the whole engine, and what it does is it knocks or blows the carbon out, which then goes out through the exhaust, and that takes it back to where it was when it was built back in the �*60s. so the efficiency comes back, the carbon emissions is massively reduced because after a few months with our system on there, the carbon build—up is almost gone. so just to give you a visual representation of what this looks like, these pistons here are typically what's used on a train unit.

and you can see from the top here, this black all around here is actually carbon build—up. it's quite mucky, as you can tell. whereas, if we move to this one, this is what it would actually look like once it's been through a system and it's been cleaned and it's actually clean to the touch — well, i'm still dirty from the other one, but it's clean to the touch. it's... it's quite a remarkable difference. although primarily for increasing efficiency, testing has showed the use of the system also significantly cuts emissions. on a diesel shunter like this one, it reduced 27% of carbon monoxide, co2 by 8% and formaldehyde by 39%. there was a demonstrator day in april where we witnessed the aht kit on this shunter. there was... there was no visible emissions. so that's how we got interested in the product in the first place. what we're looking

at is the kind of gap in the next five to ten years, between 100% diesel and zero emissions, and just coming away from ioo%. so can we get it down to 90%, can we get it down to 80% with something that's viable for the actual train operator to buy, save them money, reduce their emissions? and that's the perfect scenario, really. for companies maintaining our railway infrastructure, this new technology helps them to increase the working life of older machinery. the opportunity to use the technology that aht bring allows us to unlock older assets in a modern environment where we need to concentrate on our emissions and act responsibly. so effectively using a 60—year—old bit of kit

in a modern way, without having to do lots and lots of expensive re—engineering and fit expensive equipment — it's a cost—effective way of giving us an opportunity. people watching might be quite surprised that we're still using 60—year—old trains. i mean, wouldn't the answer be to perhaps get newer trains rather than use technology like this? yeah, ithink... well, part of being sustainable is reusing, isn't it? so if you can say that you're reusing a 60—year—old asset responsibly by cleaning it up a little bit and using new cutting—edge technology, i think that's a good way of being able to be more sustainable, rather than having to start from scratch and put something on paper, go through research and development and not know what the outcome is going to be. so this represents a good off—the—shelf option for us to be able to be more responsible. when you're ready for me, if you'd like to start... and — naturally — i couldn't come to a train yard and not take this cleaner bit of kit out for a spin myself.

horn toots ooh! he laughs is this me? i'm doing this? yep. and we're pulling away and, as you will have seen, no emissions coming from the exhaust. and i'm driving a train into a shed. obviously, the ultimate aim is to remove carbon emissions from our railways altogether, and already trains are operating in the uk and europe using a variety of alternative energy sources — including hydrogen. but while technology catches up, and diesel trains remain on our tracks, the most abundant element on earth mightjust be making the air we breathe a little bit cleaner. vodafone announced merger plans injune vodafone announced merger plans in june but vodafone announced merger plans injune but the competition and markets authority warned that tens of millions of mobile phone users could end up paying more if the merger went ahead.

and invest in at least £10 billion in their networks. the world's first electric hydrofoil fairy has opened for business in stockholm. you might have seen me try out the prototype last year. computer—controlled wings are used to wing the vessels so it can fly one metre above the water by reducing friction from a very can cut energy consumption as much as 80%. the world's first with the satellite has been launched into space, the league no sap has been developed by scientists in japan. has been developed by scientists injapan. from the international space station where it will be released. what can be more durable in space since there is no oxygen or water. and so could potentially be used as a building material. it might also help a tackle the issue of spacejunk.

joe: a photoshoot with no model. she's not late, though — she doesn't exist. aitana is an ai model. since she was created around a year ago, she's amassed a big following and is making thousands a month for her ba rcelona—based agency. we intend to always try to make it as similar as what an influencer would do. we take a picture with me in the image and we have to replace it with al. so we have to play a little bit with lights and shadows to make it as real as possible. as well as the main images, aitana's designers make short videos to post as her instagram stories. back in the studio, they plan the post. maybe that. . . barcelona as the background is going to be more interesting. yeah. and if we want, we can do a simple prompt.

now put aitana, and then... ..complement all the prompt with more things like the clothes, the acting. clueless agency won't say exactly which ai image generator they are using, but say they use a mixture of open—source models like stable diffusion. sometimes it can throw up some surprises. we train... she laughs ..aitana with... that's interesting that you laughed at that one. aitana will never wear this, for example. right, that's what made you laugh. so it's funny because it's like, "wow, iwould love her to wear this," but she will not wear this. we spent, like, two months creating this personality and understanding how she would speak, how she would, like, interact with her community. so this is why we believe she has been working and she still works. once the image is chosen, the refinements and corrections are done. they start with seeing what photoshop�*s in—built ai suggests, then touch it up by hand. touch—ups used to take around

a day, but now it's a few hours because of how the al's improved so much. a few days later, here's the final product. i love this — they've just given us a printout of the very, very early days of aitana's instagram. so she only had 3,800 followers, and these are the early pictures. and what's interesting is they hadn't quite got the face perfect. so aitana's face just changes slightly. the studio says they can get thousands of pounds a month for sponsored posts and endorsements with aitana. she's now the most famous of this new wave of realistic—looking ai models. he and there are plenty of them — some with hundreds of thousands of followers, as well. achieving realism in videos is proving harder, but aitana's team are experimenting, too. aitana also has an onlyfans—style private membership for underwear

and swimsuit shots. her virtual life is built for her mostly male fans — a key demographic for these ai models. some find the message they're sending to boys and girls troubling. we're seeing ai — artificial intelligence — influencers and if you watch these, it is terrifying how real they are. danae mercer is a wellbeing influencer who calls out fakery on instagram. i see huge issues with the rise of ai models and influencers. i think they're setting an unrealistic beauty standard that is close enough to being real, that a lot of people who follow them don't realise they're not real — especially teenagers, young teen girls — but then that perfection is so unachievable because it isn't real — that is something, like, none of us can ever reach. aitana is marketed as a fitness—loving woman who lives a healthy lifestyle. she's even been sponsored by nutrition and sports brands. is there a problem where you're

promoting a body image of someone that is, you know, in many ways perfect, but they don't exist? they don't go to the gym, they don't watch what they eat. and there are some people — some of your followers — that say, "i wish i had that body." in the beginning, we tried to make more curvy models, for example, or more not—standardised models, and clients didn't like that. they usually want, like, a perfect model, but you can see this everywhere in publicity. at the end of the day, she's an influencer, but comparing her to the rest of the influencers, she looks the same as the rest. the agency started creating more models with more diverse looks — including some men, too — although apparently marketeers aren't as interested in male ai models. do you think that one day we just won't need any more real—life influencers or models?

i believe that we are here to stay, and ai technology is here to stay, as well, so in a way we have to, like, combine and hold hands and see if we can do it together. the latest project is for a major car company. the brief is, design an ai model to be the face for an in—car ai voice assistant — a very 2024 assignment. lara: steps, heart rate, calories burnt, blood oxygen — wearables can drown us in data. if, though, you want to be able to use one measure to represent your cardiorespiratory fitness and your oxygen efficiency, well, a vo2—max test does that. it may also be the best single measure for your life expectancy. the thing is, you usually have to go through this. so, feel that test push you, you push back. the dreaded exercise test — pushing me to my limit.

am i over ten minutes? oh, yeah, you're 10:15 now. keep going, keep going! loads of data comes out of this. but the important bit — the vo2—max estimation — is the number that describes your cardiovascular fitness. it's the measure of how much oxygen your body consumes whilst going through this. really good effort. and it does this to your hair. what a relief! it was so frustrating because it wasn't actually feeling that difficult, and then suddenly it got really hard, my legsjust couldn't keep going. yeah, that is kind of how it goes. but you did a greatjob, ok? that was a great effort. we think, actually, you should, based on your age and size, be achieving a score of 29.5. you're actually achieving a score of 37.5 — so you're 127% of your predicted score, or 27% better than you're supposed to be. thank you. well, that's great to know, but it's not actually about testing me today — it's about testing something else. the exercise test may

be the gold standard, but a new device from danish start—up ventriject aims to do a similarjob without the hard work. so what we can do with this small sensor here is we can go in and measure the vibrations in the chest caused by the beating heart. we do that by you lying down, actually, and then measure for 40 seconds. the brain behind all of this is our algorithm, and then taking that heart reading into it. and then we can assess the v02—max. can also get those readings from devices like an apple watch, a fitbit, an oura ring. how different is that to those devices? so the difference between this and those devices is we'll be able to do a spot measurement, so i can pull anyone in from the street and actually get an accurate v02—max right

here, right now. they need several months of recordings from you. there we go. there you go. that's it. and then you lie down. 0k. age, weight and height are entered into the app and you're ready to go. it's intended — certainly at first — for use by doctors as a more efficient, practicaland — for some with medical conditions — safer option. so we have the results ready... great. ..if you want to see where you're at. initial trials showed a 12% error ratio, but that's improving as the algorithm does. and for me, it closely matched my 37.5 on the bike, with a score of 39. would you consider that negligible? yeah, i would consider that negligible, right? so it's clear here you have a really high v02—max, as you also saw on the cpet test, right? what else can it tell me? because that sounds good, but i'd love some more information. one thing is your number, right? but what we actually would recommend people is getting their v02—max tested quite frequently to measure the projection of how you're developing. it's fitness, but also if you're a smoker, you can stop smoking, there is something through your diet. and also generallyjust losing weight can also improve your v02—max. we don't need you to run a marathon tomorrow — you might be able to do it,

but some people might not — so it's an element of we just need people to do a little bit more exercise than what they do today. well, i've definitely no plans to run any marathon, but for many, even going through these sorts of tests can be intimidating, so the prospect of a device being able to do something like this could come as a relief. all in a day's work at click! and that's it for this week's programme. thanks for watching. bye— bye. good evening. the fairly grey, gloomy but largely dry theme to the weather continued on friday, and for many of us, it will continue through the weekend as well. not everywhere. we've got a few showers moving in on sunday. that marks the start of something a little bit clearer into next week, but certainly the next 2a hours or so, most of us keeping this blanket of cloud. this is how we're going to start saturday morning.

a few clear spells across northern and western scotland. it's here that we'll have some mist and some fog around through the first part of the day, slowly clearing away, and then there'll be some sunshine across the north and west of scotland, but elsewhere, any sunshine in short supply once again. it'll feel rather cool under that cloud in the east, around 8—10 degrees, whereas further west, we could see 12—1li. so saturday night, some clear spells again in the north. but then we'll start to see some of these showers working in through the early hours of sunday across western scotland and northern ireland too. ahead of that, anotherfairly cool night, frost—free as we start remembrance sunday. temperatures down to [i or 5 degrees for some in the east. so sunday, then, many central and eastern parts of england keeping quite a bit of cloud, some brighter spells. as showers move their way in from the north—west, pushing across northern england and wales, a return to some sunshine by the end of the afternoon for much of scotland and northern ireland. so a marked change here compared to what we've seen of late. a bit milder than saturday, so we're looking at about 10—15 degrees. moving on into monday,

and that's when this clearer air mass starts to move in behind this cold front, sinking its way south, so a different feel to the weather — at last — as we head through monday. early cloud and perhaps a few showers — that's the remnants of that cold front in the south first thing — clearing away. winds coming in from a different direction now, in from the north or the north—west. perhaps a little bit more cloud across parts of scotland and northern ireland, but certainly england and wales, much more sunshine than we've seen of late. still relatively cool, around about 10—15 degrees. moving through to tuesday, then, well, high pressure with us. but this frontal system may just move in from the east. so a bit of uncertainty about the detail on this, but potentially on tuesday, parts of eastern england could see a bit more cloud, a few showers around as well. but for much of the uk, i think another predominantly dry and settled day. temperatures between about 10—12 degrees for most of us, so a little bit cooler and fresher than it has been, but a lot of dry, settled weather through much of the week ahead. and compared to the last week, we've seen, where there's been a lot of cloud, there will be more sunshine around.

live from washington, this is bbc news with a special look at this

week in us politics. the us charges three men in connection with an alleged iranian plot to assassinate president—elect donald trump. just days after the election, trump's team is working on the transition as thejustice department makes moves to wind down the legal case against him. and majority control of the us house of representatives hangs in the balance as the republicans secure the senate. hello. i'm caitriona perry. thanks for being with us. it's been a week for the history books in the world of us politics. donald trump will make a return to the white house after sweeping tight races in battleground states to win decisively against kamala harris. and republicans are celebrating victory in other key political institutions.

the party now has control of the senate and is just three seats shy of a majority