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We need your help to tackle the transport challenge!
Former Community Member
Our aim is not to “drain the ocean” in a few months but to add a voice of engineering insight to the debate, demolish potential myths and legends and suggest some sensible ways forward. We don’t expect to achieve pinpoint accuracy in our investigation, but we can be honest about that. We want to establish some genuine truths and point to where more work or funding should be focussed. We need more information and guidance to existing reliable reports and research on carbon in materials mining and manufacture, infrastructure provision, renewal and maintenance, and end of life recycling. Please share your thoughts by commenting below.
This has also been previously posted on here looking at the overall problem. It is encouraging that the engineering comunity is actually starting to look at the reallity:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ OK so we have a problem that requires engineering solutions. The engineering community should be part of the solution but I don’t see any concrete action. There is a lot of rhetoric and virtue signalling but no planning, no road maps of how to reach a solution, no estimates of resources and time scales.
Ms Thunberg can berate as many political leaders as she likes, but without engineering nothing will actually change. Resources will always be limited and these will control the time scales. Moving the ‘CO2 Neutral’ target from 2050 to 2100 may not be ‘kicking the can down the road’, it may be the optimum way. Is it sensible to shut down generating stations before the end of their useful life and so waste some of the energy and materials used in their construction, probably not.
Firstly what is the problem to be solved? The UK shall be ‘CO2 Neutral’ by 2050. What does that actually mean? What does CO2 Neutral mean?
1) Don’t burn anything that contains carbon?
2) Burn things containing carbon and then stick the carbon back in the ground somehow?
3) Burn things containing carbon and buy carbon credits (indulgences)?
The technology for 2) does not exist in an industrial form yet and probably won’t by 2050. It might be available by 2100. If the whole world is trying to become CO2 neutral there won’t be enough carbon credits to go round for 3) to be practical so that leaves 1).
1) means don’t burn coal, oil or gas (possibly wood as well) for:
a) Electricity generation b) Process heating c) Domestic heating d) Transport
The technology generally exists to replace fossil fuelled transport with electric/hydrogen power. The electricity and hydrogen need to be produced somewhere which increases the load on a) Electricity generation. A large amount of infrastructure need to be built for charging EVs and distributing hydrogen for fuel cell or combustion engined vehicles. We need to increase our ability to produce battery or fuel cell powertrains, including the supply chain, by a factor of 100. Is this possible by 2030, 2040 or 2050 depending on which rhetoric you choose?
How do we replace oil and gas for domestic heating? The first step is obviously to reduce demand by reducing heat loss. This is quite difficult with a lot of the UK’s housing stock and previous attempts at improving insulation have resulted in numerous problems with damp etc. There will still be a need for heating so how can this be achieved?
i) Ground or air source heat pump.
ii) Electrically heated storage system.
Both of these increase the load on a) Electricity generation and may be difficult to install in existing UK properties. Changing cooking from gas to electric is relatively easy but further increase the load on the electricity generation and distribution systems.
I don’t have any answers for process heating. How can we manufacture concrete and smelt metals without burning gas or oil? Aluminium smelting and some of the refining processes can be done electrically but that also increases the load on a) Electricity generation.
How to proceed with electricity generation and distribution? The load on the system has been increased by the other solutions and we have to shut down more than half of our existing capacity. What are the alternatives?
Nuclear is a good start for base load but the current generation of reactors have slow response times to changing loads. It’s unlikely that newer generation systems will be available in time to be on stream by 2050. They will be available by 2100. The fuel cycle will also need to be supported by breeding and reprocessing. Could we build ten or more nuclear power plants by 2050?
I don’t think Solar PV is viable at the UK’s latitudes, in southern Spain it may be.
Wind is an option, however the low energy density and moderate capacity factor will require many turbines spread over large areas. The intermittency will remain a problem and will require a complementary system of storage or back up. The concrete and steel requirements for wind power are greater than those for nuclear power which offers a significantly greater service life. Could we build and install enough wind turbines by 2050?
Tidal barrages/pumped storage. Tidal barrages also require vast areas due to the limited head (tidal range) and slow cycle time (11hrs). They also have an intermittency but it is plannable and can be managed by multiple basins with some loss of total efficiency. A useful contribution to the problem would require a barrage on all the UK’s major estuaries. The barrages could also be used as pumped storage facilities to support wind power but that removes the generating capacity. Separate pumped storage facilities could be built to support wind power but the likely, mountainous, regions are well away from the generation sources and end users. This will require expansion and reinforcement of the grid system. Are there enough places to install tidal and pumped storage systems? Could enough be built by 2050?
If the above can supply enough electricity what about the distribution system. In another thread it was noted that domestic distribution is based on an average 6 or 7 amps single phase per property. In a CO2 Neutral world that is not enough. Additions are required for EV charging, cooking and heating. Will doubling the value be enough? How can that sensibly be achieved? I would suggest reinforcing at higher voltages and doubling the number of substations to reduce the disruption of the 415/240V system to a minimum. How many new substations would that be to be built and installed, 1000s?
This is a possible road map to a CO2 Neutral future. It is full of assumptions that can be challenged. It contains many open questions. It does not contain estimates of the amount of raw materials involved. Is it possible by 2050? I don’t think so. Is it possible by 2100? Maybe. Is it necessary?
This has also been previously posted on here looking at the overall problem. It is encouraging that the engineering comunity is actually starting to look at the reallity:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ OK so we have a problem that requires engineering solutions. The engineering community should be part of the solution but I don’t see any concrete action. There is a lot of rhetoric and virtue signalling but no planning, no road maps of how to reach a solution, no estimates of resources and time scales.
Ms Thunberg can berate as many political leaders as she likes, but without engineering nothing will actually change. Resources will always be limited and these will control the time scales. Moving the ‘CO2 Neutral’ target from 2050 to 2100 may not be ‘kicking the can down the road’, it may be the optimum way. Is it sensible to shut down generating stations before the end of their useful life and so waste some of the energy and materials used in their construction, probably not.
Firstly what is the problem to be solved? The UK shall be ‘CO2 Neutral’ by 2050. What does that actually mean? What does CO2 Neutral mean?
1) Don’t burn anything that contains carbon?
2) Burn things containing carbon and then stick the carbon back in the ground somehow?
3) Burn things containing carbon and buy carbon credits (indulgences)?
The technology for 2) does not exist in an industrial form yet and probably won’t by 2050. It might be available by 2100. If the whole world is trying to become CO2 neutral there won’t be enough carbon credits to go round for 3) to be practical so that leaves 1).
1) means don’t burn coal, oil or gas (possibly wood as well) for:
a) Electricity generation b) Process heating c) Domestic heating d) Transport
The technology generally exists to replace fossil fuelled transport with electric/hydrogen power. The electricity and hydrogen need to be produced somewhere which increases the load on a) Electricity generation. A large amount of infrastructure need to be built for charging EVs and distributing hydrogen for fuel cell or combustion engined vehicles. We need to increase our ability to produce battery or fuel cell powertrains, including the supply chain, by a factor of 100. Is this possible by 2030, 2040 or 2050 depending on which rhetoric you choose?
How do we replace oil and gas for domestic heating? The first step is obviously to reduce demand by reducing heat loss. This is quite difficult with a lot of the UK’s housing stock and previous attempts at improving insulation have resulted in numerous problems with damp etc. There will still be a need for heating so how can this be achieved?
i) Ground or air source heat pump.
ii) Electrically heated storage system.
Both of these increase the load on a) Electricity generation and may be difficult to install in existing UK properties. Changing cooking from gas to electric is relatively easy but further increase the load on the electricity generation and distribution systems.
I don’t have any answers for process heating. How can we manufacture concrete and smelt metals without burning gas or oil? Aluminium smelting and some of the refining processes can be done electrically but that also increases the load on a) Electricity generation.
How to proceed with electricity generation and distribution? The load on the system has been increased by the other solutions and we have to shut down more than half of our existing capacity. What are the alternatives?
Nuclear is a good start for base load but the current generation of reactors have slow response times to changing loads. It’s unlikely that newer generation systems will be available in time to be on stream by 2050. They will be available by 2100. The fuel cycle will also need to be supported by breeding and reprocessing. Could we build ten or more nuclear power plants by 2050?
I don’t think Solar PV is viable at the UK’s latitudes, in southern Spain it may be.
Wind is an option, however the low energy density and moderate capacity factor will require many turbines spread over large areas. The intermittency will remain a problem and will require a complementary system of storage or back up. The concrete and steel requirements for wind power are greater than those for nuclear power which offers a significantly greater service life. Could we build and install enough wind turbines by 2050?
Tidal barrages/pumped storage. Tidal barrages also require vast areas due to the limited head (tidal range) and slow cycle time (11hrs). They also have an intermittency but it is plannable and can be managed by multiple basins with some loss of total efficiency. A useful contribution to the problem would require a barrage on all the UK’s major estuaries. The barrages could also be used as pumped storage facilities to support wind power but that removes the generating capacity. Separate pumped storage facilities could be built to support wind power but the likely, mountainous, regions are well away from the generation sources and end users. This will require expansion and reinforcement of the grid system. Are there enough places to install tidal and pumped storage systems? Could enough be built by 2050?
If the above can supply enough electricity what about the distribution system. In another thread it was noted that domestic distribution is based on an average 6 or 7 amps single phase per property. In a CO2 Neutral world that is not enough. Additions are required for EV charging, cooking and heating. Will doubling the value be enough? How can that sensibly be achieved? I would suggest reinforcing at higher voltages and doubling the number of substations to reduce the disruption of the 415/240V system to a minimum. How many new substations would that be to be built and installed, 1000s?
This is a possible road map to a CO2 Neutral future. It is full of assumptions that can be challenged. It contains many open questions. It does not contain estimates of the amount of raw materials involved. Is it possible by 2050? I don’t think so. Is it possible by 2100? Maybe. Is it necessary?
