Engineering Matters

By Reby Media

Five times winner of the Publisher Podcast Awards, including Best Technology Podcast, Engineering Matters celebrates the work of engineers who use ingenuity, practicality, science, theory and determin... more

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FAQs about Engineering Matters:

How many episodes does Engineering Matters have?

The podcast currently has 416 episodes available.

Engineering Matters episodes:

September 05, 2019 #30 Interviewing Dad: Atkins President Philip Hoare
Chloe is 16 and interested in an engineering career. She is also the daughter of Philip Hoare, President of engineering consultant Atkins. To find out more she digs deep into her Dad’s engineering life story by interviewing him about the projects that have shaped his career. From harrowing tragedy on a bridge project to world firsts in underground construction and his love of railways, she explores how her Dad came to lead a business of 18,000 people and grills him on crucial issues facing engineering in the UK today from HS2 and digital transition to gender diversity.
But it is not just Chloe who learns something. In this
insightful interview Chloe explains how it feels to be the only girl taking A
Level Physics and makes some important suggestions for how companies like
Atkins can encourage more young women into engineering.
Interviewer: Chloe Hoare
Guest: Philip Hoare, President of Atkins
The post #30 Interviewing Dad: Atkins President Philip Hoare first appeared on Engineering Matters.
...more
35min
August 22, 2019 #29 Innovations in Renewable Energy: Lorna Bennet
Growing up in a tiny village in rural Scotland, regular
power cuts would leave Lorna Bennet and her family without electricity for days
on end. Determined to become self-sufficient Lorna set about learning how to
create sustainable energy, from designing water wheels to working on tidal power
arrays and testing the world’s largest offshore wind turbine blades. Becoming a
mechanical engineer has enabled Lorna to push the boundaries of renewable
energy technology but working on world firsts is not easy and has meant overcoming
challenges that come with innovation, including the collapse of the burgeoning
wave power industry. But setbacks like this have also given Lorna invaluable
experience which she uses today at the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult,
designing and testing innovations that are changing the world and helping achieve
net zero emissions by 2050.
GUEST
Lorna Bennet, mechanical engineer, ORE Catapult
IET Young Woman Engineer of the Year WES Prize Winner 2018
SUPPORTER
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RESOURCES
Watch the world’s longest turbine blade manufactured by LM Wind Power, being transported to the ORE Catapult testing facility at Blythe here
Learn more about the Shetland Tidal Array
The post #29 Innovations in Renewable Energy: Lorna Bennet first appeared on Engineering Matters.
...more
37min
August 08, 2019 #28 Building for Biodiversity
Habitat for the UK’s Great Yellow Bumblebee has declined 80
percent over the last century thanks to the loss of the flower rich meadows
that sustain them. They now only persist in the North of Scotland, so when
Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks planned a new substation in the
Highlands, preserving the habitat of the bumblebee was a crucial part of the
design process. For SSE this was part of a wider strategy to ensure that every
project they build has a net improvement on biodiversity. And soon all projects
in England will have to do the same as the Department for the Environment and
Rural Affairs has announced sweeping changes to new developments mandating
the requirement for biodiversity net gain on all new projects.
Guests
Dr Julia Baker, Author, Biodiversity Net Gain: Good Practice Principals for Development
Tom Butterworth, Technical Director for Biodiversity, WSP
Caroline Maghanga, Senior Ecologist, Mott MacDonald
The post #28 Building for Biodiversity first appeared on Engineering Matters.
...more
24min
July 26, 2019 #27 Recycling Plastic into Roads
After 844 trial tests, and setting his own street on fire,
founder of Scottish start-up MacRebur Toby McCartney finally hit on a viable
solution for repairing potholes. His idea sought to resurface roads using recycled
plastics, and the result is a form of polymer modification of asphalt that uses
a mixture of waste plastics and additives to create an alternative to bitumen. Bitumen
is the sticky, fossil fuel derived substance that binds together the aggregates
that surface our roads, and although Toby’s new business can’t eliminate it, it
can replace a proportion of it, lowering the road’s carbon footprint and
finding a practical use for waste plastics that are polluting our planet.
According to MacRebur this could be the start of a new type
of circular economy with local councils using local plastic waste to pave their
highways. Department for Transport trials are underway to assess the long-term
performance of the new recycled plastic roads.
GUESTS
Toby McCartney, Founder and CEO, MacRebur
Gordon Reid, Operations Director, MacRebur
Dr Greg White, Director Airport Pavement Research Programme,
University of the Sunshine Coast,
Australia
The post #27 Recycling Plastic into Roads first appeared on Engineering Matters.
...more
18min
July 16, 2019#26 Saving Rossington
Placing the United Nations’ sustainable development goals at the heart of projects can regenerate UK communities. From a new 4km road link that saved a former mining community in Yorkshire, to a coastal replenishment scheme that brought new opportunity to Colwyn Bay in North Wales, we hear how incorporating the sustainable development goals is changing lives for the better.
Embracing the SDGs means doing things differently. It means
looking at local needs in a new way and asking what more can projects do to
enhance environment and improve opportunities for all. Crucially this must
happen now. The UK and 192 other nations have pledged to ensure that the SDGs
are met by 2030. But our first ever national review of UK progress on these
global goals shows that we have a long way to go if the UK is going to enable
all people, from all backgrounds to fulfil their potential and live rewarding
lives in a healthy environment.
This episode was produced in partnership with Mott MacDonald.
Photo credit: Rossington Parish Council
GUESTS
Nathan Baker, director of engineering knowledge, ICE
Lord John Bird, Founder, The Big Issue
John Cooke, Parish Councillor, Rossington Parish Council
Simon Dawes, Head of Sustainable Business, The Environment Agency
Neil Firth, Head of Service for Major Projects and Infrastructure, Doncaster Council
Ken Guest, Chair, Rossington Parish Council
John Huddleston, Communications & Corporate Affairs Director, Doncaster Sheffield Airport
Nigel Morley, Project Manager, Mott MacDonald
Taffy Osborne, Managing Director, Colwyn Bay Watersports
Benjamin Poulton, Project Manager, Colwyn Bay Waterfront Project, Colwyn Council
Davide Stronati, Global Sustainability Leader, Mott MacDonald
Ian Tuckett, Chief Executive, Coin Street Community Builders

SUPPORTER
Mott MacDonald: Opening opportunities with connected thinking.
Mott MacDonald is a US$2bn engineering,
management and development consultancy involved in:
solving some of the world’s most urgent
social, environmental and economic challenges
helping governments and businesses plan,
deliver and sustain their strategic goals
responding to humanitarian and natural
emergencies
improving people’s lives
Its expertise by sector includes buildings,
communications, defence, education, environment, health, industry, mining, oil
and gas, power, transport, urban development, water, wastewater and more. Its
skills encompass planning, studies and design, project finance, technical
advisory services, project and programme management, management consultancy and
beyond.
The post #26 Saving Rossington first appeared on Engineering Matters.
...more
44min
June 27, 2019 #25 Return of the Fatbergs
Underneath cities all over the UK subterranean mountains of
calcified fat are gathering in our sewers as fat, oil and grease stick to baby
wipes and harden to form a blubbery bacterial blockage. Removing them is
dangerous, manual work, putting people and the infrastructure itself at risk.
In this episode we venture to the site of Europe’s biggest fatberg in
Blackfriars, London with Lanes Group special projects manager Andy Howard, who
explains that removing a fatberg is not necessarily the end of the story.
Unless people change their habits, fatbergs will come back. At Whitechapel, in
east London they have already witnessed the return of the fatberg.
Hear Andy describe in detail how fatbergs are hacked,
drilled and dug out as well as describe a new phenomenon plaguing the sewers –
concretebergs.
GUEST
Andy Howard, special projects manager, Lanes Group
A new report from Lanes shows that
public awareness of fatbergs is increasing with 77 percent of people knowing
what they. However 85 percent of people had never heard of concretebergs! Full
survey here.
SPECIAL THANKS
Lanes Group
Thames Water
Water UK
The post #25 Return of the Fatbergs first appeared on Engineering Matters.
...more
29min
June 13, 2019#24 Unleash the Hydrogen Potential
Could the lightest element in the periodic table be the
answer to the world’s most weighty challenge of decarbonising energy? Hydrogen
is the most abundant element in the Universe and the most energy dense. Burning
it creates clean electricity and heat without generating carbon emissions, but
to utilise it, first it must be released from the organic materials or water
that host it. So how do we capture its potential to create clean energy systems
of the future in a cost-effective way?
In this episode we are working with consultant Mott
MacDonald to explore the possibilities for hydrogen as an energy carrier, an
electricity and heat source and as a long-term option for back-up power
storage. We find out how stranded renewables could lead to cheap green hydrogen
and explore the challenges around cost, safety and the need for leadership on hydrogen
energy policy in the UK.
GUESTS
Ian Clarke, Global Sector Leader Energy, Mott MacDonald
Chris De Beer, Energy Storage Specialist, Mott MacDonald
Arnaud De Lhoneux, Business Developent Manager renewable
Hydrogen, Hydrogenics
Guy Doyle, Energy Economist, Mott MacDonald
Stuart Gregg, Innovation Manager, National Grid
Jonny Goldstone, Founder and Managing Director, Green Tomato Cars
Zeynep Kurban, hydrogen consultant, International Energy Agency
Andy Lewis, Innovation Project Manager, Cadent
Faiez Sallie, Oil and Gas Practice Leader, Mott MacDonald
Chris Stark, Chief Executive, Committee on Climate Change
SUPPORTER
Mott MacDonald
Opening
opportunities with connected thinking.
Mott
MacDonald is a US$2bn engineering, management and development consultancy
involved in:
solving
some of the world’s most urgent social, environmental and economic challenges
helping
governments and businesses plan, deliver and sustain their strategic goals
responding
to humanitarian and natural emergencies
improving
people’s lives
Its
expertise by sector includes buildings, communications, defence, education,
environment, health, industry, mining, oil and gas, power, transport, urban
development, water, wastewater and more. Its skills encompass planning, studies
and design, project finance, technical advisory services, project and programme
management, management consultancy and beyond.
The post #24 Unleash the Hydrogen Potential first appeared on Engineering Matters.
...more
31min
June 13, 2019 #24 Unleash the Hydrogen Potential
Could the lightest element in the periodic table be the answer to the world’s most weighty challenge of decarbonising energy? Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the Universe and the most energy dense. Burning it creates clean electricity and heat without generating carbon emissions, but to utilise it, first it must be released from...
...more
31min
May 30, 2019 #23 Becoming an astronaut: Sophie Harker
It was a meeting with the first Briton in space, Dr Helen
Sharman, that changed the course of Sophie Harker’s life forever. A maths
student at The University of Nottingham, she took this advice seriously and
went on to become an aerodynamics and performance engineer at BAE Systems.
Although she is yet to leave planet earth, Sophie has been working on designs
for a revolutionary new aircraft designed to take off from a runway and enter
space in a single stage. Project such as this are just part of the story, and
Sophie is working hard to ensure that when the European
Space Agency put out their next call for astronauts, she is ready, and with
thousands of applicants for every seat, competition will be fierce.
GUEST:
Sophie Harker, aerodynamics and performance engineer, BAE Systems and The IET Young Woman Engineer of the Year
2018
The post #23 Becoming an astronaut: Sophie Harker first appeared on Engineering Matters.
...more
35min
May 21, 2019 #22 Electric Excavators: Cities cut carbon in construction
Since 1913 the world’s most famous flower show
has been held every Spring in Chelsea in London. This year among the electric
blue Persian Slippers, the white and yellow Anthemis Punctata, and the eye
catching, deep pink Digitalis Illumination series of Chris Beardshaw’s Morgan
Stanley Garden, there is a focus on creating beautiful gardens with a lighter
environmental footprint. To achieve this they rejected diesel fuelled
excavators and turned to a battery powered machine, Volvo Construction
Equipment’s ECR25 Electric, to prepare the site.
Low noise, no
emissions and zero fossil fuel means a smaller carbon footprint and better air
quality. It is little wonder then that cities all over the world are demanding
cleaner construction solutions as they strive to contribute to reducing
national carbon emissions and lower the rate of global temperature rise. In
Oslo for example, the Municipality has demanded zero carbon on all of its new
construction sites. This means a range of new solutions are needed including
electric construction equipment, and manufacturers are investing to meet
emerging demand.
GUESTS
Ahcène Nedjimi, Electromobility Specialist, Volvo Construction Equipment
Julie Furber, Head of Electric Power, Cummins
Romeo Thomassen, Omsorgsbygg
Anreas Walnum, PON
Equipment Norway
SUPPORTER
3D
Hubs
3D
Hubs makes manufacturing of high precision custom parts easy and cost-effective.
3D Hubs’ online platform provides readily available production capacity for the
fastest lead times and most price-competitive parts. Simply upload designs to
receive instant quotes. 3D Hubs’ automated Design for Manufacturing (DFM)
analysis detects any potential issues before production begins, eliminating
risk and accelerating the manufacturing process for engineers. Founded in 2013,
3D Hubs has produced more than 2,000,000 parts, serving engineering companies
of all sizes. To get an instant quote for your parts, go to 3dhubs.com.
Interviews in Oslo were recorded at the Nordic
EV Summit organised by the Norwegian Electric Vehicle Association
The post #22 Electric Excavators: Cities cut carbon in construction first appeared on Engineering Matters.
...more
21min

FAQs about Engineering Matters:

How many episodes does Engineering Matters have?

The podcast currently has 416 episodes available.

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