Engineering Matters

In this Engineering Matters Awards episode, we celebrate the winner of the Net Zero Champion category, which recognises projects, processes, and tools that make a real contribution to reducing carbon emissions. The highest awards were to be given to those entries that demonstrate significant impact or widespread scope, or that overcome a specific challenge.

Our gold-level award-winning entrant was Ceres Power for its solid oxide technology, which can generate electricity with high efficiency while avoiding the combustion and associated emissions of conventional power generation. We explore how Ceres’ technology could help meet rapidly growing electricity demand, including from data centres, while supporting the transition to a lower-carbon energy system.

Guest

Nick Lawrence, Chief Product Officer, Ceres Power

Resources

For McKinsey’s report, Global Energy Perspective 2025, click here

For more information about the Ceres Endura and more from Ceres Power, click here

Returning to the Moon is the next step, but staying there is the next leap. Abrasive and electrostatically-charged dust particles cling to every surface, and find their way into every mechanism, while a radiation-blasted lunar surface swings from 130°C in the sun to a brisk -173°C in the shade.

To survive and thrive in the lunar wasteland, we will need habitat modules, power plants, autonomous rovers, drilling equipment and more: a fleet of machinery that needs to survive these hostile conditions.

How we design these machines will be critical, how lubricants behave in extreme temperatures and hard vacuum is yet to be determined. But engineers are beginning to answer some of these questions.

Guest

Chris Lockett, Chief Technology Officer, Castrol

Resources

To watch the Drive Me to the Moon documentary, click here

To listen to the Engineering Matters episode on in-situ space resource utilisation, click here

In this Engineering Matters Awards episode, we celebrate the winner of the Sustainability Champion category, which recognises organisations driving groundbreaking innovation to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It promotes the conservation of natural resources, reduces waste and pollution, and supports social and economic stability.

Our award-winning entrant is the Nuclear Manufacturing Group at the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC), whose team partnered with Cambridge Vacuum Engineering and Kairos Power to pioneer electron beam welding for Small Modular Reactor (SMR) vessels. Their breakthrough reduces vessel welding times from 500 hours down to just five hours, eliminates hundreds of kilograms of filler wire, and dramatically cuts manufacturing energy consumption and carbon emissions.

Guest

Charles Carpenter, Head of Research for the Nuclear Manufacturing Group, University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre

Resources

To read more about the project discussed in this episode, read the Kairos Power Report

How should local and regional leaders encourage investment in their communities? Around the world, cities struggle with a legacy of industrial decline. In England, devolution of planning policy to mayoral combined authorities has allowed for regions like Greater Manchester to outpace national growth. But within regions, local areas can themselves fall behind, and require a joined up approach to planning and investment.

When this episode was first recorded in September 2024, the focus was on how places can unlock investment by understanding their own histories, strengths and opportunities. Today, as the debate around Britain’s infrastructure ambitions intensifies, and the former Mayor of Greater Manchester looks increasingly likely to become the next Prime Minister, the intentions of the government in this area are worthy of speculation.

The infrastructure industry is not waiting, an open letter from leading infrastructure and construction organisations, including the Association for Consultancy has called on the next government to prioritise long-term infrastructure delivery and provide greater certainty for investment.

Could the principles of Manchester transfer to the nation at large? Will infrastructure be a priority for the incoming government? Can the required investment be funded? The engineering sector waits to see.

Guests

Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester

Susan Hinchliffe, Council Leader, Bradford City Council

Tim Newns, MD, Levelling Up, Office for Investment, UK Department for International Trade

Richard Robinson, CEO, UK and Europe, AtkinsRéalis

John Rayson, MD for Northern Transformation, AtkinsRéalis

Resources

For the open letter from the ACE to Andy Burnham, click here

At the end of the Second World War, millions of tonnes of unwanted explosives and weapons were disposed of at sea. For decades, these dumped munitions lay hidden beneath the waves as time and tide passed over them.

Now 80 years past that mass-dumping, corrosion has begun to expose the explosive chemicals inside these weapons casings. Lead, mercury and TNT breakdown products have begun to be detected in fish stocks throughout the affected waters. At the same time, the growth of offshore infrastructure such as wind farms is increasing the need to understand and manage hazards on the seabed.

But dumped munitions are not the same problem as unexploded ordnance (UXO). Instead of finding isolated dangerous objects, engineers face vast areas containing thousands of items, requiring new approaches to detection, removal, containment and disposal. This is a question of new technologies, new approaches, and still yet, convincing people of the scale of the problem.

Guests

Torsten Frey, post-doctoral researcher, Geomar Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel

Peter Nieuwveld, Solution Owner UXO Risk Mitigation, Fugro

Jennifer Yun, New Business Manager, Fugro

Resources

Sign up for the CAMMera & MMinE-SwEEPER Newsletter: http://bit.ly/3PDUcPj

Visit JPI Oceans Knowledge Portal for Munitions in the Sea: http://munitionsinthesea.eu/

Check out Munitions in the Sea Projects booklet: Munitions_booklet_October_2025.pdf

Check out UNOC 2025 Munitions in the Sea Factsheets: https://tinyurl.com/2x35pwwu

For the Engineering Matters episode on UXO mitigation, click here

Photo credit: Lukas Schröder

Partner

Fugro is the world’s leading geo-data specialist, collecting and analysing comprehensive information about the Earth and the structures built upon it. Through integrated data acquisition, analysis and advice, Fugro unlocks insights from geo-data to help clients design, build and operate their assets in a safe, sustainable and efficient manner.