Fifth Gear's Jonny Smith 'shaken' and stirred by process challenges

London - Fifth Gear presenter Jonny Smith will be seen getting dangerously close to the mechanics and engineering of some of Europe’s biggest process facilities in a new TV series called Industrial Junkie.

For the programme, which premieres 1 Oct on Freeview channel Quest, automotive journalist Smith got exclusive access to several enormous industrial locations. His mission was to try out some of the toughest jobs in the industrial world and interview the people who do them.

In each episode, Smith also takes the opportunity to operate some of the world’s largest and 'most dangerous' machinery, whilst revealing how each industry and the products they produce are central to everyday life.

Highlights of this series will include; digging for lignite in Poland to create coal which will eventually generate electricity, a trip to a Norwegian oil rig to collect crude oil to produce petrol and in Belgium, blowing up tonnes of limestone to eventually create glass.

“Making this series has been an amazing experience," said Smith. "The scale alone has blown me away. My highlights were being allowed to drive a 200-metre long, 8,000-tonne coal extractor in Poland, which looked like a mechanical dinosaur; and in Sweden pressing the button which set off 250 sticks of explosive – underground. I was still shaking hours later.”

*The Nov/Dec issue of Process Engineering will include an interview with Jonny Smith, in which he reflects on his experiences from Industrial Junkie and on the brave people he met during the making of the programme.