Manufacturing

Fitness Fads and Their Environmental Price Tag

Tamzin Preece: The ‘home gym’ didn’t feature in many UK homes before the pandemic, but it’s now much more commonplace to own various bits of kit for home workouts. Within the first three months of lockdown alone, exercise bike sales rose…

The computer chip industry has a dirty climate secret

The Guardian: The semiconductor industry has a problem. Demand is booming for silicon chips, which are embedded in everything from smartphones and televisions to wind turbines, but it comes at a big cost: a huge carbon footprint. The industry presents a…

Electrocatalysis improved for green urea production

The Engineer: Scientists have developed a less energy-intensive way of making a key compound in fertiliser, an advance that could lead to more sustainable agriculture. The breakthrough has been made by a team of international scientists led by Nanyang Technological University…

We could power households from the scraps in our food waste bins – here’s what is stopping us

The Conversation: Imagine if you could power your kettle using the energy generated from the vegetable cuttings quietly breaking down in your kitchen’s compost bin. That reality might not be…