Skip to Content

Conservation Cooking

Electric ovens are not generally known for energy conservation. Researchers at England’s Cranfield University have built one that consumes 35 to 60 percent less electricity than those now available. Mechanical engineers Marcus Newborough and Bryan Shaughnessy lined the walls of the oven with a heat-reflecting aluminum alloy (photo). “About 93 percent of the radiation striking the chamber’s lining is directed back at the food being heated,” says Newborough. A second reflective lining between the cooking chamber and its outer insulation further prevents heat from escaping. The researchers are seeking partners to license the technology, which they expect to reach the market in about two years.

Keep Reading

Most Popular

How Rust went from a side project to the world’s most-loved programming language

For decades, coders wrote critical systems in C and C++. Now they turn to Rust.

The inside story of how ChatGPT was built from the people who made it

Exclusive conversations that take us behind the scenes of a cultural phenomenon.

Design thinking was supposed to fix the world. Where did it go wrong?

An approach that promised to democratize design may have done the opposite.

Sam Altman invested $180 million into a company trying to delay death

Can anti-aging breakthroughs add 10 healthy years to the human life span? The CEO of OpenAI is paying to find out.

Stay connected

Illustration by Rose Wong

Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Thank you for submitting your email!

Explore more newsletters

It looks like something went wrong.

We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive.