Episodes

When it comes to adhering to standards, working within regulations, and ticking boxes, companies are pretty great. It’s how they are set up, and it is how they are used to thinking. But starting around 10 years ago, companies and organisations were asked to look at the world, and the work they do, in a very different way. Countries began to press companies to consider the impact of their work and their decisions on society and the world at large. But companies are struggling to get to grips wit...

Coral reefs are sometimes called the rainforests of the oceans and support an estimated 25% of all known marine species, but they, and the sponges that inhabit them, are unusually susceptible to changes in the waters and the local microbial community. Coral bleaching is just one of the negative effects of changing world. However, teams from a Brazilian University have launched a project to learn more about the bacteria from different regions and different species. They hope to produce a probiot...

This is the story of a structure so unique that there is nothing like it in the entire world. The Falkirk Wheel in Scotland is the only rotating boat lift ever built. Constructed in the late 1990s as part of the Millennium Link project to connect the Union Canal with the Forth and Clyde Canal it is a shining example of engineering efficiency and iconic design. But behind the elegant form is an intriguing design story that highlights how simple measures can prevent catastrophic failure. Guest An...

In partnership with Tabsal SCL, Engineering Matters speaks with Javier Saldise about how his Spanish company is taking waste wood and transforming it into structural timber. The post SHORT: Engineering Waste first appeared on Engineering Matters.

What if we could take the waste that no one wants, the kind of waste that is shoved into landfill and turn it into sustainable fuel? Thanks to developments in gasification technology this is now possible at a commercial scale. In this episode we visit the Varennes Carbon Recycling Plant to discover why engineers are so excited about working on this pioneering new technique for recycling the carbon in the waste, which could help decarbonise transportation and lower Canada’s carbon footprint. Gue...

As hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians flee their country which is under attack by Putin’s Russia, we find that the number of forcibly displaced people is at an all-time high. This episode, first run in 2019 and created with Mott MacDonald at the UK Shelter Forum examines the issues affecting shelter provision for refugees. Original Episode 34: Crisis Shelter for Mass Displacement Noorullah Kuchai is a civil engineer, a humanitarian and a refugee twice over. He lived in a tent in a Pakistani re...

In this week’s episode we will learn about the technologies that have driven the development of electrification for a variety of well-known industrial OEM brands. Electric motors, high-frequency battery chargers and motion controllers have made electric and hybrid vehicles more and more ubiquitous. And industry is just getting started. Guests Claes Avasjo, Executive Director, ZAPI GROUP Lloyd Gomm, Vice President Business Development, Delta-Q Technologies Gareth Jones, Application Engineer,...

Green hydrogen, created from renewable energy resources, has been hailed as a panacea to decarbonisation of heat and fluctuation in natural gas prices. But the reality is that not every application will be either cost effective or practically viable. In this episode we explore the case for green hydrogen and find that its success is dependent on the creation of a system where each part of the cycle, from generation to final user is connected. Guests Simon Garlick, Senior Engineer, Low Carbon Te...

In the UK in 2020, 80% of freight was moved by road and 90% of passenger miles were travelled by road. It is considered a high-carbon form of transport today, but this is changing as new technology is rapidly making electric vehicles and alternative fuels more attractive. With the decarbonisation of road transport, its popularity is expected to increase, with traffic levels set to be higher in 2050 than they are today. Even juggernaut investments in rail such as High Speed 2 are expected to tak...

Predicting the future is difficult, every year would-be prophets fail to predict major events and over-eager journalists seize on the words of ancient mystics to fill column inches. But there are some people who need to be able to predict what society will need, up to a decade in advance. Developers of skyscrapers need to anticipate economic cycles, people’s tastes, and professional requirements to make sure their buildings appeal to businesses and sectors that might not even exist yet. If the...

In the summer of 2021 record rainfall overwhelmed river systems across Europe. People in the Limburg region of the Netherlands held their collective breath as water levels in the River Meuse rose. Floods in the 1990s had taught them what devastation flooding could bring. Fortunately, the government had already acted, investing in a unique and technically advanced system of dikes to protect communities, a design which had never been used before. The question was would it work? Guests Gert-Ruben ...

The 2021 energy crisis saw coal power plants fire into life as natural gas prices spiralled and wind turbines stood idle. The combination of circumstances emphasised the need for firm power that is also zero carbon. Fortunately, a quiet revolution has been underway in the nuclear industry as Small Modular Reactor (SMR) plans are maturing. With technologies such as Gen IV reactors and fusion still some way in the future, SMRs offer a reliable and affordable route to a robust green grid. Guests...

When Andrew Smyth turned the handle on his clockwork pies on Great British Bake Off in 2016, it brought together two disciplines that had never been combined before. Engineering and baking were combined in the glory of eight mechanised pies. For aerospace engineer Andrew this was just the beginning of a new career as a “bakineer”, a term he invented and has now brought to Netflix in its latest viral cooking programme Baking Impossible. In this podcast we explore how engineering influences Andrew...

In this first episode of the New Year, we are telling a story about renewal. A project in 1950s New Zealand called the Kaituna Cut re-diverted a river, draining wetlands to create pasture. But working against nature can have negative consequences. The process caused the Maketū estuary to silt, and biodiversity to crash. Now, following a multi-decade campaign led by local Maori groups, a re-diversion of the river has begun the process of restoring the land and water to its former health. Openi...

This week we bring you a guest episode from the Planet Beyond podcast. An adventurous spirit in people has made many successful organisations what they are today. To be truly great, we often find these people are guided by a moral compass, possessing core values that provide that relentless pointer to the right way, even when all plans have turned on their head. Fugro’s hydrographic director Mark Sinclair is a man who always knows how to find his way. In 2018 he participated in the Golden Glob...

Humans can feel that we have built a world to live in that is above and apart from nature. We concrete the ground, we regulate the temperature of our spaces, and we shield ourselves from storms. But increasingly wild and frequent weather events are making us doubt the endurance of our fortress of glass, steel, and stone. Faced with the environmental triple threat of carbon emissions, biodiversity loss and flooding, engineers and scientists are increasingly looking to nature for solutions. In t...

By the end of 2021, 8 billion doses of COVID19 vaccine had been administered around the world. This achievement has only been possible thanks to world leading scientific research creating vaccines in record breaking time. However not many people realise that this is only part of the story. To get these vaccines into the arms of the global population meant that manufacturing faced a challenge it had never seen before. It was a problem that only engineers could solve, like pharmaceutical manufactu...

High Speed 2 is the UK’s latest transport megaproject. Billed as the largest ever investment in the country’s rail, its first phase will link London in the south via 230km of high-speed rail with Birmingham in the West Midlands. With a focus on innovation and new technologies available, the project is determined to avoid the mistakes of the past. Immersive virtual reality, emotion sensing, and eye-tracking will come together to revolutionise the way we design stations. Guests Heather Donald, ...

At 4.1GW Berwick Bank is planning to become the largest offshore windfarm in the world. This is enough generating capacity to power Scotland’s homes twice over and it would play a critical role in meeting the UK’s wind energy targets. But in order to move ahead it must overcome a range of challenges from obtaining planning consent to understanding the incredibly complex and variable ground conditions. Project owner SSE Renewables, and its supply chain will be tested like never before. Guests Ri...

Ever since the beginning of the space age, scientists and engineers have considered the role extra-terrestrial resources could have to supporting missions of exploration and science. However, early missions to space and the moon were too brief to benefit from in-situ supplies. Now with a new drive to return to the Moon, this time to stay, and as we prepare to push on to Mars, space resources will play a critical role. New technologies, new skills, and the support of an innovative private sector...

Two years ago the world was preparing for COP25 in Madrid, and we released this episode (#36) about a calculator that was helping countries around the world to lower their greenhouse gas emissions and create more sustainable energy systems. Just as relevant now as it was then, and for the benefit of newer listeners, we are re-running the episode this week. When Professor David MacKay of Cambridge University wrote a book about sustainable energy in 2009, he could not have realised that this gro...

In the 20 years before Covid-19 the proportion of 17- to 20-year-olds with a driving licence fell from nearly half to less than a third. Even before lockdowns and remote working, the way people moved was changing. As we organise for the future, we need to understand that the decisions on what to build and what to invest in will have a direct impact on people’s behaviour. Investing in infrastructure for cars, encourages car use; building cycle lanes encourages cycling. The complexity increases w...

Decarbonisation of transportation and shipping will require us to leverage improvements to green technologies and adapt to new ways of thinking and organising. It will require us to make different choices, on an individual and collective level. This is the final episode in our series of specials in the run up to COP26. We will learn about a new concept known as a Transport-Energy Nexus, we will learn about how government is advised on the best climate policies and we will learn about a new hydr...

The world is in a climate emergency and as its inhabitants, we have a narrow window of opportunity to take control. And the infrastructure industry has a fundamental and important role to play in reducing global emissions. In this episode, the third of our series leading up to COP26, we look at some ambitious targets companies can adopt if they want to function responsibly in a climate-conscious world. Guests Abi Clifford, Graduate Environmental Advisor, Morgan Sindall Infrastructure Liz Nicho...