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