Without Francis Bacon, it’s unlikely that engineering as we know it would exist today. Following a chequered political career, Bacon challenged the status quo and developed his scientific method. Now, proper experimentation backed up theory - science superseded philosophy. This video takes a wry look at Bacon's career, his legacy and his demise!
UK-based chip designer Arm is reportedly planning to launch its own chip this year after landing Meta as a customer, the Financial Times (FT) has reported. Arm is a stalwart in the semiconductor design industry. Founded in Cambridge in 1990, the British firm’s central processing units (CPUs) feature in virtually all the world’s smartphones due to their superior battery life. Arm licenses its intellectual property to other companies, such as Apple and Nvidia, which use its designs to create their own chips. However, according to FT, the company – which since 2016 has been under the ownership of Japanese multinational conglomerate SoftBank Group – plans to launch its own chip this year after securing Meta as one of its first customers. Rene Haas, Arm’s chief executive, will unveil the…
A Chinese research team has developed technology to repurpose decommissioned wind turbine blades into a material for use in asphalt mixtures and cement concrete. Wind turbines are designed with a lifespan of 20 to 25 years. This means that after a couple of decades of providing energy, wind turbines on wind farms built in the early 2000s will soon reach retirement age. According to Chinese news agency Xinhua, a raft of wind farms built in China during this period means that by the end of 2025 the country will have seen a wave of decommissioned wind turbines. It is not just China. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in the US estimates that between 3,000 and 9,000 turbine blades will be retired each year for the next five years in the US, increasing to between 10,000 and 20…
“Radical” reform of the process allowing new energy facilities to connect to the grid has been announced by regulator Ofgem. The new connections system, which could be in place in spring 2025, would end the first-come, first-served system where clean energy generation or storage projects sometimes have to wait years before being allowed to connect. The new proposals will see connections fast-tracked if they can be operational quickly and contribute to the government’s plan to decarbonise the UK’s energy system by 2030. This new system – which prioritises projects that are “ready” and “needed” – would see accelerated offers made by the end of the year, with the first connected and operational from 2026. The UK is building huge amounts of new renewable energy facilities, led by a series…
A £2.5bn plan to bolster the UK’s steel industry has been announced by the government ahead of the introduction of stringent tariffs on both steel and aluminium from US President Donald Trump. The Plan for Steel aims to tackle various long-term issues facing the industry, such as high electricity costs, difficult trading practices and scrap metal recycling, as the domestic sector continues to face job losses and closures in the UK’s industrial heartlands. The government is also simplifying public procurement of steel and will ensure that UK firms are in “the best possible position” to compete for and win public contracts. For example, just this week Heathrow airport announced a multi-million-pound investment that will require some 400,000 tonnes of steel. The UK’s steel industry has been…
London’s new super sewer, the Thames Tideway Tunnel, has finally been completed after 10 years of works. The sewer was first announced in 2012 as an addition to London’s ageing Victorian sewer network. While the original network was considered an engineering marvel at the time, London’s population exploded from around 7,000 people per sq km in the late 19th century to around 18,000 by the turn of the millennium. The older sewer also has to contend with increasing levels of extreme rainfall brought about by climate change. With the original network not having the capacity to deal with these changes, excess sewage was being discharged straight into the Thames on an increasingly regular basis, breaching pollution guidelines. The last of 21 connections to the original sewer has now been completed…
The Football Association has released a statement regarding the use of AI tech in the seven matches taking place at Premier League stadiums during the FA Cup fifth round next month. These include video assistant referees (VAR) and semi-automated offside technology (SAOT). VAR are match officials, with independent access to match footage, who may assist the referee only in the event of a ‘clear and obvious error’ or ‘serious missed incident’ in relation to goal/no goal, penalty/no penalty, direct red card or mistaken identity. According to the FA statement VAR tech will include in-stadium VAR announcements, where match officials will announce their final decision in relation to reviewed incidents to provide improved clarity and understanding for spectators and viewers. During the fifth…
A 130-metre ‘hydrogen-ready’ catamaran is under development, with the capacity to transport up to 1,500 passengers with their cargo alongside 400 vehicles. Australian firm Austal has been given a contract worth between A$265m and A$275m (£134m and £138m) to develop the vessel by Gotlandsbolaget, which operates Swedish ferry services. The high-speed catamaran, dubbed Horizon X, will be the largest vessel ever constructed by Austal and feature a combined cycle propulsion system that includes both gas and steam turbines. This is a first for high-speed craft such as this, Austal says. The craft is part of the long road to ultimately decarbonise commercial ferries to meet net zero goals for the maritime sector. Horizon X will be built at Austal’s Philippines shipyard in the first half of…
Researchers at Australia’s Macquarie University have genetically modified fruit flies and zebrafish to break down toxic methylmercury into a diluted gas. Methylmercury is one of the world’s most dangerous pollutants. It is a highly toxic organic form of mercury that is released into the environment via industrial activities such as gold mining and the burning of coal. It poses health threats to humans and other forms of wildlife due to its high bioavailability. This means that once it has been ingested by a small aquatic organism, for instance, it can easily cross the digestive tract and make its way into the tissue, where it accumulates. When this creature is eaten by another organism, the mercury becomes increasingly concentrated as it moves up the food chain. Eventually it could pass…
A ground-based neutron monitor has been installed at a Met Office site in Cornwall to help understand and mitigate the impacts of space weather. The new NM-2023 monitor, the first to be built in the UK in more than four decades, will provide real-time data and new measurement capabilities to help better understand and mitigate the impacts of space weather. Space weather is a consequence of the behaviour of the Sun, the nature of Earth's magnetic field and atmosphere, and our location in the Solar System. Space weather can drive changes in the electromagnetic and radiation environment in near-Earth space, in the atmosphere and at the surface. As such, it can represent a real threat and can have an impact on human technology, including satellites, power grids, communications, navigation…
The Clean Industry Bonus (CIB) is a new incentive scheme aimed at encouraging offshore wind developers to invest in industrial communities and low-carbon supply chains. In December 2024, the UK government published its Clean Power 2030 Action Plan, setting out a roadmap for decarbonising the energy grid by 2030. Offshore wind is the cornerstone of Britain’s clean energy strategy, and the plan is to expand current capacity from 15GW to between 43GW to 50GW by the end of the decade. As part of this Action Plan, the CIB will provide an initial £27m in funding for every gigawatt of capacity to successful offshore wind project bidders. That means if developers commit to 7-8GW of offshore wind, up to £200m of funding could be made available. There are certain caveats, however. Developers…
Tanya Weaver looks back at the birth of the steel-making process, the first public demonstration of the TV and clever computer chess. 168 years ago What a steel American inventor William Kelly filed a patent on 20 January 1857 for a blast furnace for manufacturing steel. In this pneumatic process of steelmaking, air is blown through molten pig iron to oxidise and remove unwanted impurities. Around the same time, on the other side of the Atlantic, Sir Henry Bessemer (pictured) in the UK had discovered a similar process to produce inexpensive steel. While he patented his invention in 1855, the story goes that due to financial panic in 1857, a company that had already licensed the Bessemer process was able to purchase Kelly’s patents, and licensed both under a single scheme using the Bessemer…
Hosted by: Tim Fryer, Jack Loughran and Tanya Weaver Special Guest: Simon Swales, Senior Consultant, Mindset Practice Engineers don’t have it easy. Barely manageable workloads, zero tolerance towards making mistakes, frequently morphing into roles that go beyond their engineering roots - like management, finances, logistics etc - excessive travel and yet solitary nature of the task - all are contributory factors in making engineering a mentally tough occupation. It is no surprise then that engineer burnout is not just a recognisable condition, but a growing problem. In this podcast we discuss why it is problem that can no longer be ignored. Regulars Tim Fryer, Jack Loughran and Tanya Weaver are joined by guest Simon Swales, Senior Consultant, Mindset Practice
Helium may be invisible to the naked eye, but its impact on renewable energy and sustainability is anything but. Thomas Abraham-James, president and CEO of Pulsar Helium, a primary helium exploration and development company, discusses helium’s role in renewable technologies, battery manufacturing, data centres and next-generation computing. As we witness the global acceleration of efforts to decarbonise our communities and alter the trajectory of climate change, renewable energy storage solutions are taking centre stage. Helium is vital for the manufacturing and testing of next-generation batteries used for grid-scale energy storage systems, a cornerstone of the ‘Green Energy Transition’. These systems are crucial for managing intermittent energy generation from solar and wind sources,…
Electric vehicles (EVs) generally emit less non-exhaust particulate matter through tyre wear and braking compared with combustion engine vehicles. While most vehicles’ environmental impact is due to exhaust emissions, fine particles are also generated by tyre and brake wear. Airborne particulate matter, from visible pieces of tyre rubber to nanoparticles, can have negative health impacts on humans. Every year, billions of vehicles worldwide shed an estimated six million tonnes of tyre-wear particles. In London alone, 2.6 million vehicles emit around nine thousand tonnes of tyre-wear particles. EVs may solve the problem of localised fuel emissions, but they still create pollution in the form of tyre and brake wear. The degree to which they do so and how that compares to internal combustion…
The UK Subsea Cable System Forum will aim to improve cable reliability and influence standards surrounding subsea cables. Subsea cable systems are critical elements of offshore wind infrastructure, essential for transmitting electricity from offshore wind farms to the grid. If the UK is to hit its ambitious target of 50GW of offshore wind capacity by 2030, there needs to be a substantial investment in the installation and maintenance of thousands of kilometres of subsea cables. Trade and development body Global Underwater Hub (GUH) has identified cable performance and reliability as a major challenge – especially as floating offshore wind, which requires even more complex dynamic cables, becomes an increasing percentage of the overall installed base. Neil Gordon, chief executive of…
National Grid has started work on connecting the UK’s largest electric vehicle (EV) battery factory to the grid. Tata Group’s £4bn gigafactory is being built on a former munitions works near Bridgwater, Somerset. Agratas, the subsidiary firm overseeing the new project, said the 40GWh factory on the 620-acre Gravity Smart Campus will create up to 4,000 direct jobs and many more as part of the supply chain. Due to open in 2026, the gigafactory aims to supply almost half of the batteries needed by the UK’s automotive industry by the early 2030s. National Grid Electricity Distribution (NGED) is building two interim 33kV connections to power the facility until a new high voltage 400kV transmission substation at Woolavington, built by National Grid Electricity Transmission (NGET), is complete…
The Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have cut ties with Russia’s power grid and switched to the EU continental grid. During a ceremony held in Vilnius, Lithuania, ministers from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania joined European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen to officially connect their electricity grids to the European grid. A few days earlier, they had disconnected from the Russian power grid. These states will now rely on connections with Finland, Sweden and Poland. The Baltic states split from the the Soviet Union in 1991; however, they have remained reliant on Russia’s power grid. While they had announced their attention to achieve energy independence from Russian in 2018, this process was sped up following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. While they stopped…
Climate change could be having significant effects below the Earth’s surface that are only just starting to receive the attention they warrant. Warnings about the possible consequences of climate change tend to focus on the most dramatic and visible effects. The ice caps diminish, major cities flood as sea levels rise, urban areas become uninhabitable due to increasing temperatures – all are easy to depict even if the scenario is decades away. Increasingly, scientists are warning that we should start looking down and assessing how human activity and the extreme weather conditions attributed to it are slowly but surely undermining the infrastructure we rely on. Whether it’s making buildings unstable, corroding pipes and cables or disrupting road surfaces, underground climate change is an…
A new study has demonstrated how ultrasonic waves can be used to transport electricity through the air and around obstacles. The formation of electric sparks is chaotic, with branches splitting out in random directions. The path of the electrical current is guided by subtle differences in air density and charge, and attraction to conductive materials, such as metal. For these reasons, electricity is difficult to precisely control. Take a lightning bolt, for example. However, a new study has demonstrated a way to guide electric sparks through the air. Researchers at the University of Helsinki, the Public University of Navarre in Spain and the University of Waterloo in Canada have shown how ultrasonic beams can direct high-voltage sparks. The researchers claim that the method allows sparks…
Climate researchers have called on Keir Starmer not to approve the development of a major new oil field in the North Sea. The Treasury has reportedly been considering giving the project the go-ahead as part of plans to maximise the UK’s economic growth. But the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment warned that the project would jeopardise efforts to keep domestic carbon emissions in check while undermining the UK’s reputation for climate leadership. After the Oil and Gas Authority gave the go-ahead for developing the Jackdaw project in May 2022, experts warned the previous Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, that “if the UK allows any new development of oil and gas fields, it will severely undermine … claims of leadership by contributing to further oversupply of…
Researchers have identified a strain of bacteria that can eat PFAS or “forever chemicals”, as well as some of their toxic byproducts. Since their invention in the 1940s, poly- and perfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS) have spread worldwide. They represent a group of around 12,000 different chemicals and are known as ‘forever chemicals’ because of their unbreakable chemical structure. Due to their handy water-repelling properties, PFAS have been widely used for decades in non-stick cookware, waterproof cosmetics, firefighting foams and clothing. A study led by researchers at the University at Buffalo in New York has identified a strain of bacteria that can break down at least three types of PFAS, as well as mop up some of the toxic byproducts created in the bond-breaking process. Having…
Partners in the LOWNOISER project aim to “address the critical environmental challenge of underwater noise pollution from shipping”. Underwater radiated noise from shipping is a significant source of continuous underwater noise pollution. It has been found to impact marine species that rely on sound for survival such as whales, disrupting their communication, navigation and reproduction. The European Commission has highlighted this issue in its Marine Strategy Framework Directive, which requires 80% of habitat sizes for target species to remain free from biologically harmful noise levels. The four-year LOWNOISER project led by Norway’s Maritime CleanTech is an initiative aimed at tackling noise pollution. Funded by €6.3m from the EU, the project brings together 15 partners to develop…
The UK government should reassess its decision to spend £22bn on “unproven” carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, MPs on the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) have said. Britons are currently facing some of the “highest energy bills in the world” alongside other cost of living challenges. CCS, the capture and underground storage of carbon before it is released into the atmosphere, is viewed by the government as essential to its 2050 net zero goals. In particular, it is considered to be a useful tool for sectors such as shipping and aviation where reaching net zero is very challenging with current technology. In December, two major carbon capture projects in Teesside were greenlit, with construction expected set to start in mid-2025. But the PAC said there are no examples of CCS…
