The 2025 lecture by Harry Bhadeshia was at the invitation of the South Wales Institute of Engineers Educational Trust. It was held at Cardiff University's at a building named after the Nobel Laurate Professor Sir Martin Evans, who created a way of passing on genetically modified DNA between generations.

Food, air and water are essential for life, and notwithstanding the consequences of war, technology and science have enabled a population of some 8.2 billion humans to be nourished, in contradiction to the predictions of the Club of Rome’s limits to growth report in 1972. Dramatic increases in food production became possible with the introduction of agricultural heavy machinery that owes a lot to steel. Even making smartphones, medicines, things that fly, crucially rely on steel. The quality of modern life therefore depends on steel to a greater extent than any other material. Is there really a way to solve a significant part of the CO2 problem while maintaining the quality of life and keeping industry and consumers happy?