The SBTi approves Pakistan Cables science-based emissions reduction target

on 02/11/2023

Pakistan Cables, the pioneer wire and cable manufacturer in Pakistan, has become the country’s first building material company to have its science-based emission reduction targets validated and approved by SBTi. The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) drives ambitious climate action in the private sector by enabling organizations to set science-based emissions reduction targets.
“We plan to drive sustainability by investing in continuous process improvement and cleaner energy to reach our targets by 2030,” said Fahd K. Chinoy, CEO at Pakistan Cables. “By setting science-based targets, Pakistan Cables is accelerating its efforts to align with ongoing global efforts to reduce global warming”.
The Company’s science-based emission reduction targets are part of its long-term vision to develop its net zero strategy and is actively working to establish long-term science-based net zero targets that are aligned with SBTi’s net zero criterion.
Earlier in 2021, Pakistan Cables became one of the 26 Pakistani companies and the only building materials company that signed the pledge for Business Ambition 1.5oC ahead of COP26. To date, the Company has planted approximately 50,000 trees at the Pakistan Cables Urban Forest location in Nooriabad factory, which is the country’s first and largest Miyawaki based Urban Forest on an industrial estate.
Furthermore, Pakistan Cables has the 14001:2015 certification, which reinforces the Company’s commitment to ensure its products meet the highest environmental standards and mitigate environmental impacts.
Founded in 1953, Pakistan Cables is the premier and most reputable cable manufacturer in Pakistan. Being the only wire and cable manufacturer listed on the PSX since 1955, it is also a member company of the Amir S. Chinoy group. The Company has the largest geographical footprint in Pakistan with a presence in over 200 cities. It is ISO 9001:2015, ISO 45001:2018, ISO 14001: 2015 certified and various types of cables are tested by KEMA, Netherlands.
The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) drives ambitious climate action in the private sector by enabling organizations to set science-based emissions reduction targets. The SBTi is a partnership between CDP, the United Nations Global Compact, World Resources Institute (WRI) and the World-Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).

PEC Elections 2024 Emerging alignments, fault lines

on 02/11/2023

Each and every sitting be it a formal or informal, engineers across Pakistan has one topic in common.
Who will be the next chairman of Pakistan Engineering Council? Why should not this query be at the epicentre of engineers communication when the PEC Elections 2024 is just at the corner and all engineers’ groups have kicked off internal discussions focusing the elections.
Initial information gathered by ER suggests incumbent chairman, Engr. Najeeb Haroon supported by National Engineers—an alliance of National Engineers Welfare Organization, a section of contractors and a section of PEG, the organization Engr. Haroon once led—has decided to contest for the second term. ‘He would love to be nominated and supported by his allies, engineers close to him say. But would he be able to retain that support is not clear. Because, a section of engineers from his allies and close to NEWA chief wishes Engr. Abdul Qadir Shah to be the next chairman. Wishes apart, the interesting part is that not everyone in Engr. Shah’s group wants him to contest the office of the chairman.
Shah’s own group has another name too—Engr. Zahid Arif—which is in circulation for the office of chairman. Engr. Arif, a senior engineer hailing from KP and the one who merged his organization with Shah’s is now a divulged-candidate for the top post.
But Engr. Arif is not the last name on the list. Yet another senior engineer from Punjab, and running the office in the province, Engr. Niaz Akhtar is said be set at mind to contest for the post of the chairman. In sum, there are four candidates for the post from the alliance ruling at the moment.
Apart from National Engineers and the allies, engineers from Engr. Jawed Salim Qureshi’s camp has only one name in the sight—Engr. Qureshi. He has been active in recent months as the polls are drawing closer and thus has reorganized his camp—the Engineers Pakistan. Though his candidate in PEC Election 2021 did not fare well but he is said to have retained the amount of support mostly surrounded to him. Some engineers still mark him as a potential candidate for the forthcoming elections.
Besides National Engineers and the Engineers Pakistan, Engr. Waseem Nazir’s PEG is the third significant camp in the engineering community in Pakistan. Engr. Nazir attracted majority votes in Pakistan’s largest province of Pakistan but failed to win the majority for the office of the chairman. Engr. Nazir’s companions say he has also kicked off his group’s preparations for the campaign. Although, he has not announced for his candidature as yet but he is conceived to be the candidate for the top slot.
Among all three, PEG and the Engineers Pakistan have a kind of central command in terms of taking swift decisions for their candidates whereas the National Engineers is likely to undergo tougher bargains for picking up a consensus candidate. ‘In the process the alliance may go for another alignment too’, some engineers say.
Engr. Haroon’s aides argue he has run the council with a level of success and has taken care of his allies and engineers as a whole and thus he deserves to be picked up for the second term. But how Engr. Shah who had decided to contest for the top post much earlier and communicated to Engr. Najeeb Haroon would be convinced to be step back is something to be seen in the coming months.
Yet another interesting development to be seen would be the move of Engr. Zahid Arif’s supporters of whom some are as close to Shah as they are to Engr. Arif.
Not only that, but Engr. Niaz Akhtar’s candidature, if he is adamant to go along is the decision that he has not announced formally would be affecting alignments especially in Punajb which is the real battle group in the next elections. Engr. Akhtar had advantage of his deep relations in academia in Puniab, quite connected with engineering academicians in all four provinces in Pakistan.

Over 65 students papers presented by various universities1st Two-day National Student Symposium at QUEST Nawabshah.

on 02/11/2023

Under the aegis of the IEEEP Nawabshah Centre, “The First Two-Day National Student Symposium” was organized in Quaid e Awam University of Engineering Science and technology, Nawabshah on October 23 and 24, 2023.
The event was graced with the presence of Prof. Dr. Saleem Raza Samo, the Vice Chancellor of Quaid e Awam University of Engineering Science and Technology (QUEST), Nawabshah.
Following the recitation of the glorious Quran, the event was graced with some keynote talks by the guest speakers and other scholars from different institutions. Engr. Muhammad Hafiz Muhammad Bilal Basheer from IEEEP, Rizwan Aziz Siddiqui (Registrar QUEST), Prof. Abdul Sattar Saand (Chair IEEEP Nawabshah Centre), Engr. Shahid Qureshi (Honorary Secretary IEEEP Nawabshah Centre), Prof Dr. Abdul Fatah Chandio (Dean Faculty of Electrical Electronics and Computer Engineering), Dr. Munsif Ali Jaoti from Salim Habib University, and Professor Dr. Shakeel from Sir Syed University of Engineering Technology staged their informative keynote talks.
In the presentations session, several emerging scholars, students, and senior academics from different institutions across Sindh gave their presentations, which were moderated by the senior research scholars. Following the assessment of the presentations, the names of three first position holders were announced and thus the winners (Gold, Silver and Bronze) were awarded with cash prizes.
The guest of honor at the event, Prof. Dr. Saleem Raza Samo (Vice Chancellor, QUEST) in his address appreciated the strenuous efforts made by the event committee, particularly the organizer of the event, Prof. Dr. Abdul Sattar Saand, Chairman of the Department of Electrical Engineering, QUEST.
He appreciated the scholars who presented their research projects and encouraged them to be more active in research and development.
Also, the chief guest of the event, Professor Dr. Muhammad Aslam Uqaili (The Former Vice Chancellor Mehran University of Engineering Technology, and Chair IEEEP Jamshoor Centre) addressed the event emphasizing that the network was a must for research. “I believe in the collaborative research contributions of our emerging scholars,” he said.
At the end of this session, shields were awarded to guests, keynote speakers, moderators of the presentations, symposium organizer, coordinator, and those who made efforts to make the event successful.
Prof. Dr. Abdul Sattar Saand, the organizer of the symposium, thanked the audience, guests, moderators, presenters, keynote speakers and others for making the event even far more beautiful.
students’Prof. Dr. Abdul Sattar Saand, who also briefed the media, said the main purpose of the event was to encourage students, particularly those in the final year of their studies.They must know the world of scientific knowledge. He divulged that more than 65 students’ papers were presented by various universities.
For the last couple of years, we have been making every possible effort to bring this kind of informative and enjoyable event for our students, and luckily our students are now increasingly publishing their research projects in the renowned academic impact factor journals of the world.
He associated this publication achievement of the students with this event, and he labeled the event ‘a force to be reckoned with.’
Rameez Mahesar, the coordinator of the event, informed the moot about the presentations which would be published in the journal after a peer-review process.n

Aiming to slow China’s advances, govern technologyUS moves to regulate artificialintelligence, signs order

on 02/11/2023

President Biden signed a far-reaching executive order on artificial intelligence last week, requiring that companies report to the federal government about the risks that their systems could aid countries or terrorists to make weapons of mass destruction. The order also seeks to lessen the dangers of “deep fakes” that could swing elections or swindle consumers.
“Deep fakes use A.I.-generated audio and video to smear reputations, spread fake news and commit fraud,” Mr. Biden said at the signing of the order at the White House. He described his concern that fraudsters could take three seconds of a person’s voice and manipulate its content, turning an innocent comment into something more sinister that would quickly go viral.
“I’ve watched one of me,” Mr. Biden said, referring to an experiment his staff showed him to make the point that a well-constructed artificial intelligence system could convincingly create a presidential statement that never happened — and thus touch off a political or national security crisis. “I said, ‘When the hell did I say that?’”
The order is an effort by the president to demonstrate that the United States, considered the leading power in fast-moving artificial intelligence technology, will also take the lead in its regulation. Already, Europe is moving ahead with rules of its own, and Vice President Kamala Harris is traveling to Britain this week to represent the United States at an international conference organized by that country’s prime minister, Rishi Sunak.
“We have a moral, ethical and societal duty to make sure that A.I. is adopted and advanced in a way that protects the public from potential harm,” Ms. Harris said at the White House. She added, “We intend that the actions we are taking domestically will serve as a model for international action.”
But the order issued by Mr. Biden, the result of more than a year of work by several government departments, is limited in its scope. While Mr. Biden has broad powers to regulate how the federal government uses artificial intelligence, he is less able to reach into the private sector. Though he said that his order “represents bold action,” he acknowledged that “we still need Congress to act.”
Still, Mr. Biden made it clear that he intended the order to be the first step in a new era of regulation for the United States, as it seeks to put guardrails on a global technology that offers great promise — diagnosing diseases, predicting floods and other effects of climate change, improving safety in the air and at sea — but also carries significant dangers.
“One thing is clear: To realize the promise of A.I. and avoid the risks, we need to govern this technology,” Mr. Biden said. “There’s no other way around it, in my view.”
The order centers on safety and security mandates, but it also contains provisions to encourage the development of A.I. in the United States, including attracting foreign talent to American companies and laboratories. Mr. Biden acknowledged that another element of his strategy is to slow China’s advances. He specifically referred to new regulations — bolstered two weeks ago — to deny Beijing access to the most powerful computer chips needed to produce so-called large language models, the mass of information on which artificial intelligence systems are trained.
While businesses often chafe at new federal regulation, executives at companies like Microsoft, Google, OpenAI and Meta have all said that they fully expect the United States to regulate the technology — and some executives, surprisingly, have seemed a bit relieved. Companies say they are worried about corporate liability if the more powerful systems they use are abused. And they are hoping that putting a government imprimatur on some of their A.I.-based products may alleviate concerns among consumers.
The chief executives of Microsoft, Google, OpenAI and another A.I. start-up, Anthropic, met with Ms. Harris in May, and in July they and three other companies voluntarily committed to safety and security testing of their systems.
“We like the focus on innovation, the steps the U.S. government is taking to build an A.I. work force and the capability for smaller businesses to get the compute power they need to develop their own models,” Robert L. Strayer, an executive vice president at the Information Technology Industry Council, a trade group that represents large technology companies, said on Monday.
At the same time, several companies have warned against mandates for federal agencies to step up policing anticompetitive conduct and consumer harms. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce raised concerns on Monday about new directives on consumer protection, saying that the Federal Trade Commission and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau “should not view this as a license to do as they please.”
The executive order’s security mandates on companies were created by invoking a Korean War-era law, the Defense Production Act, which the federal government uses in what Mr. Biden called “the most urgent moments.” The order requires that companies deploying the most advanced A.I. tools test their systems to ensure they cannot be used to produce biological or nuclear weapons. The companies must report their findings from those tests to the federal government — though the findings do not have to be made public.
The order also requires that cloud service providers report foreign customers to the federal government. It also recommends the watermarking of photos, videos and audio developed by A.I. tools. Watermarking helps track down the origin of content online and is used to fight deep fakes and manipulated images and text used to spread disinformation.
Mr. Biden, trying to make watermarking sound useful to Americans, said, “When your loved ones hear your voice on a phone, they’ll know it’s really you.”
Many of the directives in the order will be difficult to carry out, said Sarah Kreps, a professor at the Tech Policy Institute at Cornell University. It calls for the rapid hiring of A.I. experts in government, but federal agencies will be challenged to match salaries offered in the private sector. The order urges privacy legislation, though more than a dozen bills have stalled in the divided Congress, she said.
“It’s calling for a lot of action that’s not likely to receive a response,” Ms. Kreps said.

Solutions for Intermittent Renewable Energy Sources

on 25/10/2023

Little impact is felt on grid operations when tiny amounts of intermittent power are used. The grid infrastructure may need to be upgraded or perhaps completely redesigned if more intermittent electricity is used. Storage, improved interconnection between various variable sources to smooth out supply, the use of dispatchable energy sources like hydroelectricity, and overcapacity are all options for absorbing significant amounts of variable energy into the grid. The latter will ensure that there is enough energy produced even when the weather is unfavorable. Additional ties between the energy industry and the construction, transportation, and industrial sectors could be beneficial. Power demand and supply matching is a challenge that affects all power sources, not only intermittent ones. Existing power systems already have components of uncertainty, such as unexpected power plant outages and abrupt, significant fluctuations in demand. Despite the fact that power networks are currently built with considerable capacity above predicted peak demand to handle these issues, significant changes may be necessary to handle significant volumes of intermittent electricity.
Day-ahead forecasting is used by grid operators to choose which of the available power sources to use the following day, and weather forecasting is used to determine the expected availability of wind and solar power. Despite the fact that wind power predictions have been used operationally for decades, the IEA is coordinating global cooperation to increase their accuracy as of 2019.
The amount of electricity produced at any one time by a specific plant will depend on the wind speed, air density, and turbine parameters because wind energy is a variable resource (among other factors). The wind turbines must be shut down to prevent damage if the wind speed is too high, and they cannot produce power if the wind speed is too low. While the output from a single turbine can change significantly and quickly as local wind speeds vary, the average power production becomes less variable as additional turbines are connected over larger and larger areas. Solar energy is inherently erratic since it depends on the amount of sunshine present at a certain location and time to generate renewable electricity. Dust, fog, cloud cover, frost, and snow can all have an impact on the solar output, which fluctuates throughout the day and across the seasons. Many seasonal variables can be predicted quite well, and some solar thermal systems use heat storage to generate grid power for a whole day.
Dispatched generating that is being replaced by storage hydro, geothermal energy, nuclear energy, natural gas, biomass, or coal could be. It is less expensive to use nuclear or geothermal energy continuously as base load power than to start and stop these sources. Any excess power that is produced can be used to replace heating fuels, be stored, or be sold to another grid. When intermittents are not producing electricity, biofuels and conventional hydro can be preserved. In addition to demand patterns, which frequently cause big swings in the amount of electricity suppliers deliver into the grid, all sources of electrical power are somewhat variable. The tools to impact supply and demand are well-developed, and grid operations procedures are designed whenever possible to match supply and demand at high levels of reliability. Large-scale, highly variable power generation may necessitate adjustments to current practises and new expenditures. In reality, partially loaded conventional plants that are already in place to offer response and reserve change their output to make up for variations in the power output from wind. The bigger overall changes at higher penetration levels will necessitate extra reserves or other forms of compensation, whereas low penetration levels of intermittent power may employ existing levels of responsiveness and spinning reserve.