Chris Baraniuk
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chrisbaraniuk.com
Chris Baraniuk
@chrisbaraniuk.com
30K followers 1.7K following 5.4K posts
Freelance science and technology journalist. 11+ years experience. Irish/Polish. I write for the BBC, Wired, the BMJ, The Guardian, and others!

Newsletter: thereengineer.pro

Portfolio: chrisbaraniuk.com

HQ: Belfast, Northern Ireland
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chrisbaraniuk.com
Yes - as I mentioned...
SF6 has a long list of other industrial applications, perhaps chiefly as an electrical insulator in switchgear. It has also filled tennis balls, truck tyres and double glazing. Many, many tonnes of SF6 are still in use in electrical equipment and other systems all over the world. “Some people deem it the most perfect man-made gas – if it wasn’t for the environmental impact,” says Tony Chen at the University of Manchester.
January 12, 2026 at 9:48 AM
chrisbaraniuk.com
And unit of measurement is a choice! Of course you can measure SF6 in parts per million or the equivalent.

share.google/q7KIFepiRBEP...
Because SF6 can be accurately measured, its overall concentration can be reduced. When SF6 is mixed evenly in the tunnel, its volume in 1 m3 of tunnel gas should be less than 100 mL, thus the units of SF6 concentration are expressed in parts per million, namely mL/m3.
January 12, 2026 at 9:43 AM
chrisbaraniuk.com
Am happy to hear more about this and how the two gases compare - but this is what the EPA says, and was my source:

www.epa.gov/eps-partners....

The article makes clear the climate impact was small but it's an opportunity to think about how we use materials like this.
Greenhouse Gas Sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) is a synthetic fluorinated compound with an extremely stable molecular structure. Because of its unique dielectric properties, electric utilities rely heavily on SF6 in electric power systems for voltage electrical insulation, current interruption, and arc quenching in the transmission and distribution of electricity. Yet it is also the most potent greenhouse gas known to date.
January 12, 2026 at 9:37 AM
chrisbaraniuk.com
Haha! 2026 is going to have to work hard to top this!! I have now beaten all the main levels in GoldenEye (N64) on 007 difficulty. Expecting a call from secret agent recruiters any minute.
A photo of a CRT TV screen showing the credits rolling in the N64 game GoldenEye, based on the 1995 James Bond film of the same name (which in my opinion is the best Bond film ever). Pictured on the screen are a blocky 3D Bond and Natalya kissing in a jungle setting from the later stages of the game.
January 6, 2026 at 9:46 PM
chrisbaraniuk.com
Also, if you're REALLY concerned about radar - why not use the wind farm to *augment* it, and security, by extension?

www.thereengineer.pro/p/church-org...
Engineers to the rescue. There’s a chance that wind farms could actually help military surveillance. A story in The Times in January described efforts to develop passive projectile-detecting sensors for the top of wind turbine masts: “The sensors would interpret incoming signals from across the electromagnetic spectrum making the turbines an extension of air defence, rather than an impediment.”
December 23, 2025 at 3:18 PM
chrisbaraniuk.com
And nice to see this piece in print in today's Guardian as well!!

A lovely Christmas present for thereengineer.pro!
A photo of a newspaper page. The headline reads "Data in harmony: Church organs reveal surprise climate 'goldmine' ". The byline reads "Chris Baraniuk". There is a picture of a church. The story begins, "A treasure trove of environmental data, spanning decades, has been discovered..." A close up picture of the end of a news story in a newspaper. A caption below the end of the story reads, "This article was first published by The Reengineer".
December 23, 2025 at 11:13 AM
chrisbaraniuk.com
Today I have some time off. Among my gardening tasks is moving a pampas grass plant but I'm saving these - will put them out in early spring as the sparrows love to come and get tufts for their nests.
A photo of about two dozen fluffy pampas grass fronds, freshly cut and placed in a somewhat dirty wheelbarrow in a garden.
December 19, 2025 at 9:41 AM
chrisbaraniuk.com
🥳🎄 Merry Christmas!!! It’s time for my annual freelancer’s office Christmas party! 🎉☃️

Yes, it’s just me 😂 but I’m having fun! 2025 has been quite a year. I’ve covered lots of stuff. This time, I thought I’d share a selection of things people have said to me that have stuck in my head.

DEEP BREATH…
A ridiculous picture of me smiling while wearing a santa hat. I'm in front of our Christmas tree, which is visible with its twinkly lights and colourful baubles in the background.
December 18, 2025 at 1:02 PM
chrisbaraniuk.com
Yeah, my dad grew up with an actual Soviet centralised heating network connected to his family's apartment building.

I can tell you with *certainty* that today's heat networks - while not without flaws - are very, very different to those systems!

www.telegraph.co.uk/money/bills/...
A screenshot of a Daily Telegraph article from the Money section. The headline reads "The Soviet heating mistake Miliband risks bringing to Britain". The sub head reads, "Eastern European-style power systems could leave households 'stuck' with unaffordable energy". There is a picture of Ed Miliband, UK energy secretary.
December 18, 2025 at 8:32 AM
chrisbaraniuk.com
Frost feathers this morning. Worth snapping because we've hardly had any frost so far this year. January might be colder?
A photo of feather-like hoar frost on a glass window in the morning light.
December 16, 2025 at 1:35 PM
chrisbaraniuk.com
Belfast rainbow. (And sheep.)
A photo of Belfast taken from some distance on a hillside, looking down at the city. There are reasonably large hills on the horizon. A rainbow is visible in the centre left of the picture. In the foreground is a grassy field with roughly a dozen sheep grazing.
November 29, 2025 at 6:57 PM
chrisbaraniuk.com
This may or may not be in my study...

🤭
A photo of a Nintendo 64 console on an office desk. It has two controllers connected, one grey, one green. The current game in the console is GoldenEye. A Mario Kart 64 cartridge is nearby.
November 24, 2025 at 10:23 PM
chrisbaraniuk.com
It's gonna be great walking through this.
A photo of hundreds of white ox-eye daisy flowers growing in a sunny meadow.
November 23, 2025 at 12:28 PM
chrisbaraniuk.com
New path pretty much done! I cannot wait to see it when the meadow is back in bloom again...
A photo of a stepping stone style path snaking in an S shape through a small meadow area in a garden. The stones are 60cm square paving slabs. The plant stalks in the meadow, about half a metre high or more, are brown as winter approaches.
November 23, 2025 at 12:26 PM
chrisbaraniuk.com
Bob Dylan played a show in Belfast last night. I didn't have tickets but I have this LP to spin tonight!
A photo of the album cover for Subterranean Homesick Blues by Bob Dylan. It features a photo of Dylan holding a grey car and looking intensely at the camera. A woman in a red dress lounges behind, holding a cigarette. A grand fireplace is in the background.
November 21, 2025 at 8:32 PM
chrisbaraniuk.com
... then you might enjoy this chart, kindly shared by @twallinjames.bsky.social. It shows how an air-to-air heat pump can heat up a nearly 300 year-old church that is only used occasionally.

Source: www.linkedin.com/posts/activi...
A graph showing how internal temperature rises inside a church building during the course of a day, once an air-to-air heat pump is switched on. The heat pump provides heat between roughly 3pm and 6pm, raising the temperature from 12C to a peak of 19C.
November 20, 2025 at 6:25 PM
chrisbaraniuk.com
This is what I do for fun. Laying really heavy paving slabs on a miserable day.

Still, progress is progress!
A photo of some large square paving slabs clearly being installed along a garden path through a meadow area. There is a square wooden board to use as a guide for where to cut the turf and lay each slab. One slab is upright on a sack truck in the background.
November 15, 2025 at 12:35 PM
chrisbaraniuk.com
🥳 Hey everyone! It was a year ago today that I launched my newsletter The Reengineer - and it's been such fun! 🥳

thereengineer.pro

I'm getting closer to 1,000 subscribers and some have been kind enough to go for a paid subscription. THANK YOU!

🧵 Here are some highlights from the last 12 months...
A photo of me, wearing a grey T-shirt, while smiling at the camera. Taken against an olive-green background.
November 14, 2025 at 12:13 PM
chrisbaraniuk.com
This, by the way, is how you can visualise the massive ionospheric ripples caused by major tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. 🤯
A graphic labelled "Kamchatka Tsunami, July 29, 2025" showing the Earth. The Pacific Ocean is visible, with a large red and white undulating blob visible to the east of Russia. NOAA Center for Tsunami Research.
November 11, 2025 at 3:37 PM
chrisbaraniuk.com
It's PARSNIP TIME baby
A photo of a freshly picked parsnip with soil still on it. It's come from a raised bed where many other parsnips are growing, evident by their stalks and leaves nearby.
November 8, 2025 at 2:15 PM
chrisbaraniuk.com
As for heating and cooling, this chart spells things out... Rolling out renewables is a priority, but linking them up to heating and cooling systems lags behind in various countries' plans.

(Source: www.e3g.org/publications...)
Renewables ambition in power generation and heating and cooling in CEE countries. Line graphs showing higher ambition for rolling out renewable energy sources across countries such as Latvia, Hungary, Lithuania, Romania and the Czech Republic; versus ambition for powering heating and cooling systems with reneables.
November 5, 2025 at 5:57 PM
chrisbaraniuk.com
A screenshot of David Schneider playing the scientist in 28 Days Later. He is wearing a white lab coat and looking highly stressed.
October 28, 2025 at 9:32 PM
chrisbaraniuk.com
What's it like inside your head?
An Edward Hopper painting of a solitary man looking out of a large bay window towards city streets in the daytime. The room is sparsely furnished.
October 23, 2025 at 7:19 PM
chrisbaraniuk.com
A close-cropped photo of the late, great Sir Patrick Moore looking somewhat surprised.
October 23, 2025 at 9:16 AM
chrisbaraniuk.com
Cool thing I did recently = birdwatching in Portugal.

We saw loads of pink flamingos! AND spoonbills, which had been on my list for a long time. The Iberian azure-winged magpies were lovely, too.
A not very good photo taken through binoculars showing three pink flamingos, at varying distances, foraging in a wetland.
October 23, 2025 at 9:04 AM