'Engineering Developments are Mitigating Climate Change' - Part ONE
The entire article has been Published in the Lancashire Magazine and is available on request to norman@normanharris.co.uk
Engineering in all sectors is a continuous process of development. Generally small and continuous improvements, but sometimes, a breakthrough.
When I first entered engineering, I took an interest in the generation of electrical power. My Mechanical World Yearbook of 1965 still had its bookmark in the pages recording the thermal efficiencies of coal Power Stations. Efficiencies were measured by division of the heat value of the coal put in and the heat value of the electricity produced. Efficiencies ranged from only 30% to 35%, with a league table of stations provided. All those station names have now disappeared into their local histories and most of the sites have moved on to other uses. Coal stations are now on restricted use and will cease to operate at all in the next 2 or 3 years. Leaving a hundred years of coal in the ground and some areas of the UK still depressed and desolate.
The first white knight for electrical power generation was nuclear. But the high costs of construction and an emotional fear of what happens if something went wrong hampered their adoption. Everyone has heard of the Three Mile Island (1979), Chernobyl (1986), and Fukushima (2011) disasters. Fukushima should never have been built on a geological fault line, but the ensuing tsunami was unavoidable. This disaster making Germany decide to abandon nuclear and move to dependence on Russian gas, potentially dangerous politically and much to the justifiable chagrin of the US Government.
As I said engineering in all fields is a continuous process of development and the challenge of Climate Change is no exception. I monitor the technical press and since Oct 2019 I have posted over 285 of such engineering developments reducing the impacts of climate change on the social media sites of LinkedIn and Twitter. In the second Part of this article, I will provide a review of where the greatest progress has been made.
In this the first part, I will start with developments in how we produce energy.
Electricity Production
On any day, any member of the public can check on Gridwatch.co.uk, on how much electric energy we are using and how it is being produced. I did a spot check when developing the article and 48% of demand was served by gas generation, 14% by UK nuclear and a further 8% from France output which 90+% nuclear and solar 11% with wind at 2%. Overall, 19% 0f demand was served by renewable and a further 27% carbon neutral.
Add to this that the demand for electricity is forecast to go up fourfold as everything that moves goes to electric and if temperatures rise, more air conditioners will be installed.
Because it will take some time to develop and construct the new techniques of electrical energy production to safe operational standards. And also, because we need controllable, flexible sources and wind and solar despite their advantages are intermittent depending on the whims of Mother Nature. This should tell is that we will be using fossil-based fuels for a considerable time to come. If we are to meet out Climate Change commitments then we have to remove the carbon from the combustion oil fired generation produces. By “carbon” we always mean the gas “carbon dioxide” or CO2.
Carbon Capture
So, my first topic of engineering mitigating climate change is Carbon, Capture and Storage or CCS for short. There three principal processes vying for adoption based on safety and economics. About 10 years ago the UK was leading the world in this development with two pilot projects after around 6 years of development only for the Government to withdraw its support. But since we will need electricity in large quantities from fossil fuels for many years to come it has come to the fore again with some Government funding. The processes take the carbon and other harmful by-products out of the flue gases. Arguably the world now leads the UK, and it is proven technology as the slide below shows.
The full article is available on request