August 2010
SPED in the UK & Eire
Promoting SPED
It is too early to say if we are at last making progress in getting SPED off the ground in the UK. But there is a flicker of light at the end of the tunnel to our first UK Training Day. It has been a long time since the joining of our two Irish engineers.
During the summer holiday we decided to seek opinions upon where and what we should hold. The message came back, Level I Review Day on a weekday. There was less consistency on where, as not unexpectedly, all respondents wanted the event on their doorstep. However 2 well known contractors are, at this moment, considering hosting the event. If these get signed up then we could be on the way as with their names, on the billing, getting to the break-even numbers should be less difficult.
UK Energy News Carbon Capture & Storage
I majored in this newsletter last time on CCS and will add only a footnote.
The UK Government Minister responsible for Carbon Capture has agreed to give the Keynote Address at the 2 day seminar in October that I have organised. For those interested or with UK links, this is the link to the event brochure.
www.imeche.org/events/s1516
UK Process News
These comments are items that caught my eye in Professional Engineering (the Institution of Mechanical Engineers magazine), The Engineer (supported by the Royal Academy of Engineers) and Process Engineering.
One lead story is the $15m of fines for the Buncefield explosion of 2005. In this accident, the UK was lucky that in the largest peacetime explosion in Europe, no deaths were caused. Largely because it occurred at 6AM on a Sunday morning.
BP easily tops this fine and the impact on lives with the $50m fine for Texas City. Watch the space for Gulf figures.
One of the largest coal fired power stations, 4000MW, in the UK is converting 500MW of its capacity to burn biomass. The technical issues on the corrosiveness of the ash are still being worked upon. Plans could develop to produce half the power output from biomass. There are still discussions going on if government support will be available.
Another major coal fired power station has launched a research project to develop a control system that optimises plant operations based on the live readings of carbon emissions.
Norman Harris