• Question: Do you do things about habitats or eco friendly things?

    Asked by The BrightSpark to Ashwanth, Jeni, Mark, Natalie, Stephen on 14 Jun 2016.
    • Photo: Stephen Richardson

      Stephen Richardson answered on 14 Jun 2016:

      Almost all engineers these days have to consider doing things in eco-friendly ways. Its becoming more and more important.
      My research is about finding materials to build buildings that are more ecofriendly and the other researchers in my team are looking at other stuff to make buildings more ecofriendly.
      One girl, Stacey did research on how bats sometimes get hurt by the materials that are put into roofs to keep them waterproof.
      Another guy did a load of research about how to deal with the fact that the wind doesnt blow all the time but we want to use more wind power for electricity – he’s now working for a company that make huge battery storage systems to deal with this problem

    • Photo: Mark Gowan

      Mark Gowan answered on 14 Jun 2016:

      BrightSpark
      As Engineers, we all have a responsibility to protect habitats and do eco friendly things. Habitats are protected by law and it is a criminal offence to damage nesting birds nests. Construction projects have to put in protection and build new habitats to prevent loss of natural habitat for animals.
      My company have developed a tarmac surface which used vegtable oil instead of the normal oil based bitumen products.

    • Photo: Natalie Wride

      Natalie Wride answered on 14 Jun 2016:

      Hi BrightSpark 🙂

      As the others have said, we all have to consider the environment in our work. In Civil Engineering, when we build a project we have to make sure we do everything possible to not harm any animals and the habitats they have. This might include building new habitats for animals if the construction might affect their habitat. We might leave a patch of land with wildflowers that will encourage wildlife to move there or a reed bed for frogs and newts.

      If there are nesting birds or badgers and other animals near the construction then we can’t build there. This might only be for a couple of months when birds are building their nests and their eggs are hatching. Once the season is finished then there is an inspection to make sure it is ok to build there. We also have things like newt and frog boxes which mean that we can catch them and move them to a new habitat to stop them getting hurt on the construction site.

      We also sometimes build little tunnels beneath things like roads and railways (you might have seen them when you’re driving in the car!) that mean badgers, foxes, rabbits and hedgehogs can pass beneath the road like they did before it was built and tries to make sure they are not hit by any cars.

      Considering eco-friendly materials, companies are making a real effort to try and reduce the amount of concrete they are using (it uses up a lot of energy!!) We’re also using more recycled material on projects, especially when we’re landscaping projects once we’ve done all the building.

    • Photo: Jeni Spragg

      Jeni Spragg answered on 14 Jun 2016:

      Sort of!

      In my research I am looking at a process which produces hydrogen gas in a more environmentally friendly way. It is part of a big effort by scientists and engineers all over the world to reduce the environmental impact of all the energy and products we use, so that we can help to stop climate change. Climate change is one of the biggest threats to our environment and habitats all over the world, and it’s a complicated issue to solve.

      We are getting quite good at producing clean electricity (from sources such as the sun or wind) which doesn’t cause global warming, but we also need to think about how the products we use can have a lower carbon footprint.

      Hydrogen is already used to make lots of different things (such as margarine, converting crude oil to petrol and diesel or fertilizers for farming). It is going to be more and more important in the future – especially if we start using hydrogen in our cars as a clean fuel.

      Currently when we make hydrogen on a big scale, we do in a way that isn’t very good for the environment as it uses fossil fuels (like oil, coal or gas) and makes lots of carbon dioxide emissions. The process I am looking at will hopefully be better, as it will use fuel from biological renewable sources, and it will make less carbon dioxide emissions. Hopefully that way it will make a small difference to our environment all over the world.

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