Category: Low Carbon Energy

IPCC blog series – Working Group 3 – Mitigation of climate change

Posted on by janet.crompton

This blog is part of a series on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s recent 6th Assessment Report, with this post covering the output of Working Group III and the proposed solutions and mitigations for the climate crisis. This article also features a chat with IPCC Lead Author Dr Jo House and contributor Viola Heinrich, researchers at the University of Bristol and Cabot Institute for the Environment. 

Of the three Working Groups, the third makes for the most positive reading. As the title suggests, this one is all about the mitigation of climate change and preventing the disastrous climate futures explained by Working Groups I and II. Whilst remaining focussed on the impending nature of the climate crisis, this report spells out that we have the solutions.

As discussed in the previous posts, massive behavioural changes are needed at government and societal levels. When I spoke to academics, they were positive that we were well past the point of whether climate change is real or has an impact on humanity and that economically minded leaders are starting to see the benefits of sustainable practice and the economic security it brings. Governments and states are listening and looking at policy to mitigate the crisis.

Let’s look at some of the solutions and mitigations proposed:

The quicker we act, the less economic impact

This follows on nicely from previous reports that stated the effects of warming increase with each incremental global average temperature increase. That is to say, a +1.5 degrees C future will see less devastation than a +2 degrees C or even a +1.7 degrees C rise in temperature. Such disasters (drought, extreme weather, flooding) require huge amounts of money resources to sort out. From an economic security point of view, it makes complete sense to act with great urgency. The climate crisis is already here, and therefore already having an economic impact. Action immediately will mitigate against the future potential costs of a climate disaster.

Relative to the economic impact of climate disaster in the future, the investment of reducing the impact of the crisis and securing a liveable planet is small.

The immediate reduction of fossil fuel production and limitation of greenhouse gases in the pursuit of Net Zero

As discussed before, the greatest culprit of the climate crisis is unequivocally greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from fossil fuels. Therefore, in an ideal world, the immediate halt of fossil fuel extraction, production and consumption would be enough to prevent an overshoot +1.5 degrees C (as discussed in the first report, there is a lag between emissions and warming). Unfortunately, this is not an ideal world, so significant policy to pursue a Net-Zero will be needed.

Going further, carbon must also be removed from the atmosphere somehow, to allow the planet to return to preindustrial atmospheric carbon levels.

Carbon removal, naturally and technologically

A key aspect to the third Working Group is its arguments for carbon capture. This could be either through natural carbon removal through plants and trees, or by using carbon removal technology through direct air capture.

Carbon capture will be essential to solving the climate crisis, as carbon needs to be removed in order to return to the pre-industrial levels of atmospheric carbon. As well as this, proposed tech allows for carbon to be captured at the source of emissions. The issue is that carbon capture could lead to a dependence on the technology.

Companies, understandably, are drawn to the idea of “planting trees” to offset their emissions. It’s visible, tangible, and easy for the public to grasp. However, it’s not always the most efficient use of land and resources, and some worry that these methods will be exploited as a crutch to not reduce emissions output. While an extremely important step in mitigating climate change, some worry that there may be a resultant reliance on carbon removal over carbon emission reduction, allowing the world’s most prolific polluters to continue maintain their carbon output.

One of the most cost-effective mitigation techniques is simply the protection of existing forests and natural sites. The IPCC also stresses that decisions of protection like these must involve the input of the indigenous communities living there.

From the policy level to the personal level

It’s brilliant to be making the personal decisions to limit your own carbon impact, but individuals have limited impact on the climate system. What these reports suggest is wide reaching policy at state level to incentivise populations to make better climate conscious choices, by making things easier through improved infrastructure and methods of “demand management”, reducing the consumption of resource intensive products like meat and dairy. Diet changes at a population scale will be needed to combat the emissions of methane (another greenhouse gas) in particular.

In urban environments, investment in public transportation and cycling infrastructure would go a long way to reduce emissions. As would policy that makes retrofitting buildings to be more energy efficient and building new infrastructure with energy efficiency in mind.

For a great bit of further reading, the IPCC Special report on Climate Change and Land goes into much further detail about the impact of changing diets and consumption habits at scale.

Read the IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Land

As previously discussed in the blog post on the WGII report, the impacts of climate change are not equal or in proportion to climate impact of the nation affected. Therefore, much of the mitigation will need to take the form of humanitarian aid, improving infrastructure for nations without the resources to do so themselves.

The IPCC reports end on a poignant note: “International cooperation is a critical enabler for achieving ambitious climate change mitigation goals”.

Insight from IPCC Lead Author Dr Jo House and contributor Viola Heinrich

Dr Jo House

Dr Jo House is Reader in Environmental Science and Policy, Research Lead of Cabot Institute for the Environment’s Environmental Change theme and a Lead Author on the IPCC’s AR6 Working Group III report.

Viola Heinrich is a Physical Geography PhD Candidate at the University of Bristol, studying the emissions and climate mitigation potential within the land use sector in the tropics, especially the Brazilian Amazon. Viola assisted Dr House in her AR6 work, producing figures for WG III.

How did you get involved with the IPCC and WGIII?

Dr Jo House – “I have been working on IPCC reports for 20 years. I was first employed as a chapter scientist to support the chapter team for working group I, 3rd assessment report carbon cycle chapter. I was then made a lead author for the synthesis report for AR3. Since then, I have been a lead author or contributing author on all three Working Groups, as well a lead author for the Special Report on Climate Change and Land. I am also a lead author twice for the IPCC Task Force on Inventories, who provide methodological guidance to countries on how to produce their greenhouse gas inventories, for reporting to the UNFCCC, as well as accounting under the Kyoto Protocol.

Viola Heinrich

Despite the long hours and the many thousands of comments we must respond to, I do IPCC because I care about climate change, and IPCC gets the science into the hands of people who can do something about it.”

Viola Heinrich – “I’m a PhD student working on understanding the emissions and climate mitigation potential within the land use sector in the tropics, especially the Brazilian Amazon. Jo, as my supervisor, approached me in 2019 to help produce some figures for her work on AR6 and WGIII.

It was a great learning experience seeing how these report cycles work and one bonus was that the work I produced for the IPCC reports was able used in the introduction to my PhD thesis”

What’s one key message you’d like to highlight from WGIII?

Dr Jo House – “We are nearly already too late to stay within 2 degrees, so we need to reduce fossil fuels usage drastically and rapidly to avoid even worse impacts.

Also specifically from a land perspective: The land has potential for mitigation, but it cannot do it all, planting trees is not a get out of jail free card for continuing to burn fossil fuels.”

Viola Heinrich – “This report has followed nicely on form previous cycles in that it has reaffirmed what we know about the land use component and the mitigation potential of the land use sector (20% to 30% by 2050). The big caveat of course is that the land can’t do it all and we need to be actively reducing emissions rather than relying in capture methods from trees for example.

Another interesting factor about the report is that it stresses the importance of considering the local communities in places where solutions and mitigations take place, seeking their expertise in protection, and understanding how these actions will affect them.”

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As always, we recommend taking a look at the IPCC’s full reports and report summaries for yourself if you seek to further understand the evidence and reasoning behind their headline statements.

That wraps up the blog series, I hope that it was enjoyable and informative.

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This blog series was written by Cabot Communications Assistant Andy Lyford, an MScR Student studying Paleoclimates and Climate modelling on the Cabot Institute’s Master’s by Research in Global Environmental Challenges at the University of Bristol.

Andy Lyford

 

 

IPCC blog series – Working Group 2 – Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability

Posted on by janet.crompton

 

 

This blog is part of a series from the Cabot Institute for the Environment on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s recent sixth Assessment report, with this post covering the output of Working Group 2 and the impacts of climate change on society and ecosystems. This article also features a chat with Prof Daniela Schmidt, a Professor at the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol, and a Lead Author on the IPCC’s AR6 report. For links to the rest of the series, see the bottom of the post.

Welcome to the next post in this series on the IPCC sixth Assessment Report (AR6). Now that we’ve covered the background science to climate change, the next phase looks at the impacts on society, ecosystems, and the intricate fabric of everything in between – combining the science and aiding the transition of translating to policies that governments can implement to better the planet and mitigate the impacts.

This report is, in my opinion, the most alarming of the bunch – some scientists referring to this as the “bleakest warning yet”. Here are the key points:

The increased frequency of Extreme Weather and Temperature will have a cataclysmic impact – Everywhere will be affected

There is no inhabited region on earth that escapes the impacts of climate change. It’s estimated that over 3.3 billion people are living in areas highly vulnerable to climate change effects – largely extreme temperatures, leading to food insecurity and water shortages. Extreme weather events, such as tropical storms and flooding, are also set to increase in both frequency and severity.

As we’ve seen in recent years, wildfires have become more common (Australia and California making international news) and will continue to rise in frequency – wreaking devastation on communities and wildlife. This, along with the retreat of glaciers and polar ice caps, also results in a release of even more carbon to the atmosphere as the Earth’s natural carbon sinks continue to be dismantled. The ensuing feedback loop amplifies the warming, only serving to increase the severity of these events.

However, the impacts of climate change won’t be experienced uniformly across the planet…

The Impacts of Climate Change will not be experienced equally

This is one of the most important statements from all three Working Groups. It’s been well reported that sea level rise will be existentially cataclysmic for atoll island nations such as Kiribati and the Maldives, but there are other effects of climate change that will be unequally experienced. At the other end of the scale, Britain and other western European nations will see less drastic impacts, despite having some of the greatest contribution to the emissions at the root of the climate crisis. In summer, some parts of the globe are already becoming unliveable due to the extremely high temperatures. In India and Africa for example, where temperatures can exceed 40 degrees C, the number of deaths due to heat are increasing year on year. Poorer communities, especially those who work outdoors, are disproportionately affected as their occupation puts them at greater risk.

Some of the nations with the lowest development and therefore lowest contribution to climate change will experience the impacts more than some of the greatest contributors.

A Climate Crisis exacerbates other ongoing Crises

The effects of a climate crisis add an extra layer of complexity to all sorts of problems the world is already facing. Threats to food and water security because of climate change will increase pre-existing geopolitical tensions as resources become more and more scarce. Therefore, the likelihood of conflict and war increases – which in turn shift focus from fighting climate change. To some extent, we are seeing this already with the war in Ukraine, for example. In summary, climate change can increase severity of a crisis and limits the efficacy of response.

Impacts on ecosystems are already happening as well

Mass die-offs of species are well underway, particularly in oceanic ecosystems as sea temperatures rise and ocean acidification takes place. Deforestation and wildfires are destroying ecosystems.

When I spoke to Professor Daniela Schmidt, a lead author on the WGII report (more from her at the end of the article), she was quick to point out and stress the connections between nature and society, links often underestimated – “Negative impacts on nature will negatively impact people”. Nature, land-use, and conservation will be some of the key tools in helping mitigate the effects of climate change.

This is something to explore further with the next blog in this series on Working Group 3: Mitigation of Climate Change.

Insight from IPCC AR6 Lead Author Professor Daniela Schmidt 

Daniela Schmidt is a Professor of Palaeobiology, Cabot Institute member and a key author on the IPCC’s WG2 report.

How did you get involved with IPCC AR6 and Working Group II in particular?

“I was a lead author on the fifth assessment report, working on the ocean chapter. I have since worked on reports for the European Commission on food from the ocean. I volunteered for this cycle with the expectation of working with WGI but I was assigned work on WGII, which was challenging because it was way out of my comfort zone. Working on this report has changed the way I will conduct research in the future, and has taught me to be more open to the complexities of life”

What’s one key point you’d like to get across from the WGII report?

“The official key strapline from AR6 is that the evidence is clear, climate change is real and happening right now. It’s a rapidly closing window of opportunity to do something about it.”

“One of the main things I like to communicate is that if we don’t hit 1.5 degrees C targets, then 1.7 degrees C is still better than for 2 degrees C example. The point is that every increment matters and that we can’t give up if we miss targets. I think it’s important to tell people that if we are overshooting 1.5 degrees C, yes, there will be consequences, some of which are irreversible, but we can still come back.”

“I also try not just to talk about climate change. Much of the adaptation action for climate change incidentally will, in my view, help to make the world a better place – providing clean drinking water, clean energy, habitable homes and ensuring there is nature surrounding them”

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We recommend taking a look at the IPCC’s full reports and report summaries for yourself if you seek to further understand the evidence and reasoning behind their headline statements.

Going further, potential solutions and climate change mitigations will be covered in greater detail in our summary of WG3’s report titled “Mitigation of Climate Change”, will be the next blog in this series, featuring a chat with IPCC AR6 Lead Author Dr. Jo House and contributor Viola Heinrich.

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Andy Lyford

This blog was written by Cabot Communications Assistant Andy Lyford, an MScR Student studying Paleoclimates and Climate modelling on the Cabot Institute Master’s by Research in Global Environmental Challenges at the University of Bristol.

IPCC blog series: Working Group 1 – The Physical Science Basis

Posted on by janet.crompton

This blog is part of a series from the Cabot Institute for the Environment on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s recent AR6 report (IPCC, AR6), with this post covering the output of Working Group 1 and the physical scientific basis of climate change. This article also features a chat with Professor Dan Lunt, a Climate Scientist at the University of Bristol who focusses on paleoclimates and climate modelling, and a Lead Author on the IPCC’s AR6 report. For links to the rest of the series, see the bottom of the post.

The IPCC begins their 6th Assessment Report by explaining the physical science basis and publishing the finding of Working Group 1 (WG1) in August 2021. This means that, rather than considering the impact on humans, ecosystems and societies covered by later working groups, this report only looks at the effects on the planet from a physical standpoint. Consider this part of the report to be describing the problem, where later reports describe the impacts and then the possible solutions.

Here are the key points from WG1, detailing the physical science basis:

Human activity has unequivocally caused a change in the global climate.

If you were in any doubt before, let this be the sole key message you take away from this report.

Human activity has caused widespread warming of the land, ocean an atmosphere, affecting weather systems, ecosystems, and the cryosphere (areas covered by ice such as mountain glaciers and the polar regions).

One of the main drivers of this change has been Greenhouse Gases (GHGs), which have been observed to be increasing in atmospheric concentration since as far back as 1750 and the beginning. These gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), come from human processes that burn fossil fuels – transport, energy production, intense cattle farming for example.

Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere act like blanket, trapping rather than heart from the sun, warming the Earth. We also know from studying past climates that the Earth will get warmer with greater atmospheric CO2 levels.

Changes to the climate are happening at an unprecedented rate.

Figure 1: Graph from AR6-WG1 showing the unprecedented levels of warming seen in the last 2000 years.

You may have heard that the Earth’s climate has naturally ebbed between periods of hot and cold. This is completely true, however it can be a misleading statement that completely undersells the issue. Human activity has caused the planet to warm at an unprecedented rate. We are currently undergoing thousands of years of warming in just a few decades (fig.1) – much to fast for adaptation from the world’s ecosystems.

As such, the Earth will take millions of years to recover and reach an equilibrium. I highly encourage you to check out climatearchive.org’s simulations of the next million years using cutting edge modelling data – created by the Cabot Institute for the Environment’s Sebastian Steinig.

Climate change is ALREADY affecting every inhabited region on Earth, with observed increases in extreme weather and climate extremes.

Many people believe that the climate crisis is far off in the future, a problem to prevent before it arrives. However, this is not the case. It’s already happening under our noses. And everywhere. Every inhabited region in the world currently experiences an increased likelihood of an extreme weather event, extreme heat drought, or extreme precipitation. This summer for example, temperatures in the UK have been modelled and subsequently measured to creep above 40°C, unprecedented for a region with a usually temperate climate and setting national records.

Increased warming leads to an increase in effect and creeps towards a tipping point from which recovery is impossible.

You might have heard phrases like “2 degree C future” or “1.5 degree C rise” in the news, but what do these really mean? These numbers refer to the global mean temperature rise using a rolling average of the previous 20 years, relative to the temperature measured between 1850-1900 when climate change started to begin. Currently, the average global temperature anomaly sits above 1 degree C of warming (fig.1).

The Earth system is remarkably robust, but not quite robust enough to maintain an equilibrium with such rapid warming in a short space of time. One place where this is most stark is the cryosphere – parts of the Earth usually covered by ice all year round (glaciers, polar regions for example).

Melting has already begun and will continue to happen for decades even if emissions magically ended tomorrow. This is incredibly troubling, since the cryosphere also happens to be huge carbon store in the form of methane trapped in the ice. This creates what’s known as a feedback loop, where the effects of warming lead to greater warming in themselves.

Through studying paleoclimates, the IPCC reports that climate sensitivity and therefore “tipping point” sits at around 3 degree C, resulting in total climate breakdown.

Significant and immediate action limiting Greenhouse Gas emissions will be a major key in fighting climate change.

The one silver lining the report alludes to is that IPCC scientists are confident that the climate crisis is caused primarily by greenhouse gas concentrations, therefore we know the solution – reducing emissions quickly and effectively will mitigate against the worst warming in a big way. Pursuing a net-zero CO2 strategy and limiting other GHG emissions will be absolutely necessary. Working Group 3’s report on the Mitigation of Climate Change goes into greater detail on how governments can work together to go about this. This will be published on 29 August 2022.

Insight from IPCC WG1 author Professor Dan Lunt

Professor Dan Lunt is a Professor of Climate Science, Cabot Institute member and a key author on the IPCC’s WGI report.

How did you get involved with IPCC AR6?

Dan Lunt

“I was involved with the previous IPCC report, AR5, providing some data and graphs for a section on polar amplification in past and future climates (the disproportionate warming of the polar regions relative to the rest of the Earth system). This time round, a call went out around four or five years ago for authors to work on the upcoming Sixth Assessment Report. I applied for and was chosen to be a Lead Author on Chapter 7 of the AR6 report – a section focussed the Earth’s radiation budget and Climate Sensitivity, as well as on paleoclimates as evidence for the patterns of global warming, such as polar amplification.”

What’s one key point you’d like to get across from the work of Working Group 1?

“For me, what I would interpret as the key message would be climate change is already happening, and it’s happening all over the globe. It’s unprecedented in terms of its magnitude and its speed of change, relative to the past tens of thousands of years. It’s unequivocally caused by human activity.”

“One of the new key points in this assessment report is that there’s a lot more evidence now that there are changes in the frequency of extreme events. We now have enough data to say that this increased frequency is human induced. So that’s more droughts, floods, extreme heat events etc.”

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We recommend taking a look at the IPCC’s full reports and report summaries for yourself if you seek to further understand the evidence and reasoning behind their headline statements.

As we’ve discussed the scientific basis for climate change, you may be wondering what the real-world impacts. The specific impacts on ecosystems, global health and on human society will be covered in greater detail in our summary of WG2’s report titled “Impacts, Adaption and Vulnerability”, publishing tomorrow (Thursday, 28th of August).

 

This blog was written by Cabot Communications Assistant Andy Lyford, an MScR Student studying Paleoclimates and Climate modelling on the Cabot Institute Master’s by Research in Global Environmental Challenges at the University of Bristol.

Andy Lyford

 

 

Tyre Extinguishers: activists are deflating SUV tyres in the latest pop-up climate movement

Posted on by janet.crompton
JARUEK_CH/Shutterstock

A new direct action group calling itself the Tyre Extinguishers recently sabotaged hundreds of sports utility vehicles (SUVs) in various wealthy parts of London and other British cities. Under cover of darkness, activists unscrewed the valve caps on tyres, placed a bean or other pulse on the valve and then returned the cap. The tyres gently deflated.

Why activists are targeting SUVs now can tell us as much about the failures of climate policy in the UK and elsewhere as it can about the shape of environmental protest in the wake of Extinction Rebellion and Insulate Britain.

The “mung bean trick” for deflating tyres is tried and tested. In July 2008, the Oxford Mail reported that up to 32 SUVs were sabotaged in a similar way during nocturnal actions in three areas of the city, with anonymous notes left on the cars’ windscreens.

In Paris in 2005, activists used bicycle pumps to deflate tyres, again at night, again in affluent neighbourhoods, again leaving anonymous notes. In both cases, activists were careful to avoid causing physical damage. Now it’s the Tyre Extinguishers who are deflating SUV tyres.

In the early 2000s, SUVs were still a relative rarity. But by the end of 2010s, almost half of all cars sold each year in the US and one-third of the cars sold in Europe were SUVs.

In 2019, the International Energy Agency reported that rising SUV sales were the second-largest contributor to the increase in global CO₂ emissions between 2010 and 2018 after the power sector. If SUV drivers were a nation, they would rank seventh in the world for carbon emissions.

At the same time, the Tyre Extinguishers’ DIY model of activism has never been easier to propagate. “Want to get involved? It’s simple – grab some leaflets, grab some lentils and off you go! Instructions on our website,” chirps the group’s Twitter feed.

Changing activist strategy

Though the actions led by the Tyre Extinguishers have numerous precedents, the group’s recent appearance in the UK’s climate movement does mark a change of strategy.

Extinction Rebellion (XR), beginning in 2018, hoped to create an expanding wave of mobilisations to force governments to introduce new processes for democratically deciding the course of climate action. XR attempted to circumvent existing protest networks, with its message (at least initially) aimed at those who did not consider themselves activists.

In contrast, activists in the Tyre Extinguishers have more in common with groups that have appeared after XR, such as Insulate Britain, whose members blockaded motorways in autumn 2021 to demand government action on the country’s energy inefficient housing. These are what we might call pop-up groups, designed to draw short-term media attention to specific issues, rather than develop broad-based, long-lasting campaigns.

After a winter of planning, climate activists are likely to continue grabbing headlines throughout spring 2022. XR, along with its sister group, Just Stop Oil, threaten disruption to UK oil refineries, fuel depots and petrol stations. Their demands are for the government to stop all new investments in fossil fuel extraction.

An industrial scene with three cooling towers and various chimneys lit up with yellow lights.
UK-based activists have threatened to block oil refineries in April 2022.
Orxy/Shutterstock

The Tyre Extinguishers explicitly targeted a specific class of what they consider anti-social individuals. Nevertheless, that the group’s action is covert and (so far at least) sporadic is itself telling.

In his book How to Blow up a Pipeline, Lund University professor of human ecology Andreas Malm asked at what point climate activists will stop fetishising absolute non-violence and start campaigns of sabotage. Perhaps more important is the question that Malm doesn’t ask: at what point will the climate movement be strong enough to be able to carry out such a campaign, should it choose to do so?

Given the mode of action of the Tyre Extinguishers, the answer on both counts is: almost certainly not yet.

The moral economy of SUVs

For now, the Tyre Extinguishers will doubtless be sustained by red meat headlines in the right-wing press. It’s still probable, however, that the group will deflate almost as quickly as it popped up: this is, after all, what has happened with similar groups in the past.

The fact that activists are once again employing these methods speaks to the failure of climate policy. Relatively simple, technical measures taken in the early 2000s would have solved the problem of polluting SUVs before it became an issue. The introduction of more stringent vehicle emissions regulations, congestion charging, or size and weight limits, would have stopped the SUV market in its tracks.

SUVs are important because they are so much more than metal boxes. Matthew Paterson, professor of international politics at the University of Manchester, argues that the connection between freedom and driving a car has long been an ideological component of capitalism.

And Matthew Huber, professor of geography at Syracuse University in the US, reminds readers in his book Lifeblood that oil is not just an energy source. It generates ways of being which become culturally and politically embedded, encouraging individualism and materialism.

Making SUVs a focal point of climate activism advances the argument that material inequality and unfettered individual freedoms are incompatible with any serious attempt to address climate change.

And here lies the crux of the conflict. The freedom of those who can afford to drive what, where and when they want infringes on the freedoms of the majority to safely use public space, enjoy clean air, and live on a sustainable planet.

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This blog is by Graeme Hayes, Reader in Political Sociology, Aston University and Cabot Institute for the Environment member Dr Oscar Berglund, Lecturer in International Public and Social Policy, University of Bristol

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Energy landscapes and the generative power of place

Posted on by janet.crompton

Spring 2020 will be remembered for the global Covid-19 pandemic. While in Britain people  were ordered to stay at home in a national lockdown, the nation also experienced its longest run of coal-free energy generation since the Industrial Revolution – 68 days of coal-free power. This wasn’t unconnected: as the economy shrunk almost overnight some of the major industrial energy uses stopped; steady low usage meant that the ‘back-up’ coal-fired generators of the national grid weren’t needed. Nor was this fossil-free: oil, alongside nuclear and gas, continued to fuel power plants. But, more than ever before, our energy was produced by renewable sources, and on 26 August 2020, the National Grid recorded the highest every contribution by wind to the national electricity mix: 59.9%.

This shift out of fossil dependence is both a historic moment, and the product of historical processes. The technological and scientific work that underpins the development of efficient turbines has taken decades – and it is what I’ve written about in my article, ‘When’s a gale a gale? Understanding wind as an energetic force in mid-twentieth century Britain’, out now in Environmental History. I look at how interest in the wind as a potential energy source (by the British state, and state scientists), generated the need for knowledge about how wind worked. Turbine technology needs airspace to operate, but it also needs land – to ground the turbines in, to connect to the grid by – and people to install and operate the devices. And so when looking at energy landscapes, we really need to think beyond the technology and consider the people and places with which it interacts,  to understand how energy is produced and used.

Hauling wind measuring equipment up Costa Hill, Orkney. In E.H. Golding and A.H. Stodhart, ‘The selection and characteristics of wind-power sites’ (The Electrical Research Association, 1952). Met Office Archive.

This was certainly the case for understanding wind energy. In 1940s and 50s Britain, scientists surveyed the wind regime at a national scale for the first time. They relied on the help and cooperation of local people to do this. In the brief mentions of this assistance in the archival record, we gain insight into the importance of embodied, localised knowledge in scientific processes which can at first seem detached from the actual landscapes of study.

The surveys determined Orkney as the best place to situate a test turbine. Embodied knowledge, knowledge that is learnt from being in place and from place, is very tangible in accounts of a hurricane which hit Orkney in 1952, during the turbine tests. By looking at how the islanders made sense of a disastrous wind, and brought the turbine technology into their narratives of the storm, we learn that it is not only electricity generated by the development of renewable energy, but also new dimensions to place-based knowledge and identities.

Seeing beyond the technology to consider its interactions with environments and societies is something that the energy humanities considers as essential. I’ll be working on this subject from this perspective for some time to come, and would love to hear your thoughts on the article.

Costa Hill from the coast path. Photograph by Marianna Dudley, 2017.

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This blog has been reposted with kind permission from the Bristol Centre for Environmental Humanities. View the original blog. This blog was written by Cabot Institute for the Environment member Dr Marianna Dudley. You can follow Marianna on Twitter @DudleyMarianna.

#CabotNext10 Spotlight on Low Carbon Energy

Posted on by janet.crompton
Dr Paul Harper (left) and Professor Tom Scott (right)

In conversation with Professor Tom Scott and Dr Paul Harper, theme leads at the Cabot Institute

Why did you choose to become a theme leader at Cabot Institute?

T.S: There is no single technology solution for our low carbon energy and net zero ambitions. Therefore, being a theme leader gives me the chance to work and coordinate research from all areas, such as wind, solar, nuclear and hydro, so we can work together to develop solutions.

P.H: I became increasingly inspired by renewable energy during my time at Bristol studying Aerospace Engineering (2000-2004, a long time ago now!). I know this is a real cliche, but I wanted to do something with my career that would help tackle some of the major challenges facing society around climate change and environmental sustainability. After completing my undergraduate degree and a PhD at Bristol in composite materials, I began a postdoc research post linked to tidal energy devices and also became involved in some the early development work of the Cabot Institute, so it has always had a special place in my heart. 10 years on and it is great to look back on so many new research developments in Low Carbon Energy and environmental sustainability more generally that have taken place across the University because of Cabot.

In your opinion, what is one of the biggest global challenges associated with your theme?

P.H: This is biased towards my interests in renewable energy, but I think the following are all major challenges associated with the Low Carbon Energy Theme:

  • Bringing down costs of both mainstream technologies (wind, solar) and more novel, less mature technologies (e.g., wave, tidal).
  • Applying circular design principles to prevent material going to landfill at end-of-life.
  • Designing improved ways of storing energy and integrating many distributed energy supply sources.
  • Electrification of the heating and transport sectors to increase the potential contribution of renewables.

T.S: Replacing fossil fuels with a mixed portfolio of viable and renewable alternatives. This is the fundamental challenge to tackle if the UK is to reach its 2050 Net Zero target, and if we are to provide reliable energy sources for future generations globally.

As we are looking into the future, what longer term projects are there in your theme?

T.S: In my specialist area of nuclear energy, there are several major projects and technologies in development to support low carbon energy production:

STEP – the Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (STEP) programme will develop the world’s first commercial fusion plant in the UK, with a site set to be selected by the end of 2022. Complementary, large scale international consortia fusion projects ITER and DEMO are already underway.

Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) siting – The UK has begun the search for a site where radioactive waste can be stored permanently in a way that doesn’t burden future populations. We have to show we can deal with the waste produced by nuclear fission energy production to ensure support for nuclear power as a key low carbon energy source.

Advanced Modular Reactors (AMR) – We need to get the most from existing fission power, wherein there is much more value we can get from just producing electricity. Heat, Hydrogen and direct air-capture of CO2 are all viable from nuclear and AMRs, which operate at higher temperatures are the way to best exploit these other opportunities which will provide much more value than the current electricity-only proposition.

What’s more, Hydrogen will be the largest growth commodity in the next few decades. It gives us the opportunity to address issues around energy storage and transfer and especially, decarbonisation of transport, either directly as fuels for cars or indirectly as a precursor substance for making ammonia which can be used in heavy transport e.g., shipping.

Alongside all these technology developments, we will need to see a change in energy transport and storage infrastructure. For example, hydro or battery storage can help mitigate the intermittencies suffered by solar or wind. Equally, we cannot immediately swap methane for hydrogen in our domestic gas network and hence we need to upgrade or replace our infrastructure, with the former being much preferable and affordable.

Bringing the public along on this transitional journey will be incredibly important because they need to understand and support some of the tough technical decisions that need to be made.

P.H: A huge proportion of the world’s population has no existing access to a sustainable electricity supply and working on international development projects is vital to ensure communities can improve quality of life through access to low carbon energy. We currently have a rapidly growing portfolio of projects linked to international development and I think this trend is likely to continue in the future.

We are lucky to have a very large number of projects across a wide variety of different areas. The Cabot website gives a very good flavour of our diversity of projects (Energy | Cabot Institute for the Environment | University of Bristol) and these involve collaborations with a range of multinational companies, SMEs and start-ups, NGOs and policy makers.

Across the portfolio of projects in your theme, what type of institutions are you working with? (For example, governments, NGO’s)

T.S: The Government and its research organisations including National Nuclear Laboratory, UK Atomic Energy Authority.  I am also a member of the Nuclear Innovation & Research Advisory Board (NIRAB).

Working with other Universities in the UK and overseas as well as government research organisations and industry. It’s important that all these parties are talking and working together to ensure that there is both a push and a pull for the research we are doing towards net zero carbon by the middle of the century.

Please can you give some examples and state the relevant project.

T.S: My fellowship awarded earlier this year (Research Chair in Advancing the Fusion Energy Fuel Cycle) has the remit of doing just that. Being funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering and UKAEA, but with the remit to work with (and pull together) other academics with companies across a wide spectrum, from Cornish Lithium, to Rolls-Royce, EDF, Hynamics, Urenco and many others to advance the fuel cycle for future fusion power stations but also to develop spin-off opportunities in hydrogen storage, isotope production and even diamond batteries!

The South West Nuclear Hub provides a focus for civil nuclear research, innovation and skills in the South West of the UK, bringing together a strategic alliance of academic, industrial and governmental members, creating a unique pool of specialist talent and expertise that can be tapped into by industry

What disciplines are currently represented within your theme?

P.H: I’m sure I’ve missed some out but the main ones that spring to mind Engineering (all disciplines), Physics, Chemistry, Geography, Sociology, Economics and Law. We also have particularly close link with Cabot’s Future Cities Theme.

In your opinion, why is it important to highlight interdisciplinary research both in general and here at Bristol?

T.S: It’s quite simply because some of the big societal challenges are so multifaceted that they de facto require a multidisciplinary solution! At UoB we have a wealth of expertise and a wide network of collaborators that we can draw on to address key aspects around energy.

We can’t do everything, but we have been working hard to understand what we’re good at, our USPs and we’ll be concentrating on strengthening these going forwards as well as developing new opportunities.

P.H: In order to implement effective low carbon energy systems in society, interdisciplinary research is vital. You can design the most innovative and technically brilliant energy technologies but if they are not well suited to the social and economic environment where they will be deployed, they are of very limited value. For example, the type of energy system best suited to a UK community can be very different to the best solution for a community in the developing world, which may have no existing electrical grid infrastructure, relatively little access to skilled labour for installation/maintenance and relatively low incomes.

Are there any projects which are currently underway in your theme which are interdisciplinary that you believe should be highlighted in this campaign?

T.S: STEP is a classic example; you’d be forgiven for thinking it was just a big physics project (because this is what it was for many years) but now it is actually a huge interdisciplinary effort involving engineers, computer scientists, materials people (like myself), environmentalists, economists, and social scientists. The Physicists are still there working very hard too, but they are complemented by all this other activity which will help deliver this big scientific ambition into an actual working power station.

Is there anything else you would like to mention about your theme, interdisciplinary research and working as part of Cabot Institute?

P.H: It is essential to remember importance of teaching alongside research; the University are training the next generation of graduates who can address society’s environmental challenges and Cabot can play a key role in this through initiatives such as the Cabot MRes programme. I’m very pleased that within the Low Carbon Energy Theme, our members are playing a very active role in supporting both undergraduate courses and postgraduate study opportunities linked to Low Carbon Energy topics such as renewable energy.

T.S: The Cabot Energy theme is open and inclusive for anyone and any discipline! We enjoy a healthy debate about energy and the pros and cons of how we produce it, distribute it and use it. We’re proud to have different opinions and an open forum for discussion.

Please do come and join us even if you’re the tiniest bit curious and would like to help contribute to our collective efforts.

For more information, visit Low Carbon Energy.

Why green jobs aren’t good jobs – yet

Posted on by janet.crompton
Image credit: Oakland Images

In his speech at the October Conservative Party Conference, Prime Minister Boris Johnson spoke of his vision of a transition of the UK national economy to one of high wages, high skills, and high productivity. One day later, the government unveiled its plans to decarbonise the UK power system by 2035.

These two events are not unrelated. A key plank of government environmental policy is how it might function to create new jobs (and save others). The ‘Net Zero Strategy’, also released in October and ahead of COP26, is a case in point, promising 440,000 jobs by 2030. Johnson’s Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution pledged 60,000 jobs from offshore wind, 10,000 from nuclear, 50,000 in retrofitting and energy efficiency, and 30,000 in nature protection and restoration.

A ‘green’ job is a broad category – ranging from renewable energy production to organic agriculture and environmental education. They are the electricians, the roofers, the horticulturalists, the refuse and recyclable collectors. These jobs are fast-growing. Globally, there may be 24 million such jobs by 2030.

Yet, it is essential to question what these ‘green’ jobs might look like – and how they may differ from current work. If Johnson hopes for green jobs to be driving force towards a new decarbonised economy, current trends suggest that such words and hopes may dissolve into hot air.

Green jobs as a new environmentalism?

Decarbonisation will create new sets of winners and losers across the UK. These will not just be fossil fuel companies but also communities dependent on carbon-heavy work. One in five jobs in the UK may be affected by the transition to net-zero, with impacts heavily skewed by geography. Many regions, towns and communities are economically dependent on industries that others may see as dirty and in need of change. From airport towns like Hounslow to the oil and gas jobs in Aberdeen, a move away from fossil fuels will change the livelihoods for many.

‘Transition’ and ‘decarbonisation’ are words that are often met with fear – of jobs lost, local economies disrupted, and communities broken. The decline of fossil fuel industries elsewhere have proved traumatic – a loss of jobs in the Appalachia coalfields coincided with an opioid epidemic. History can also loom large. In the region of Latrobe Valley, Australia, memories of privatisation and redundancies remain central when discussing what comes next in the wake of decarbonisation agendas.

Contemporary environmental movements have often found themselves bogged down in a false decision between jobs and environmental health. Extinction Rebellion’s targeting of Canning Town underground station in 2019 is symbolic of a vision that has not only failed to make space for working people – but can also have a distinct lack of sympathy for their concerns. In France, the efforts of the Gilets Jaunes have highlighted what happens when decision-makers fail to understand how environmental policy (in this case increased fuel taxes) intersect with patterns of inequality.

Yet, working-class environmentalism can – and does – exist. The Green Bans movement in New South Wales in the 1970s provides a powerful example of how coalitions can be built by labour movements and environmentalists – to protect green spaces and local communities from re-development. For such a coalition to emerge today, environmentalism needs to move beyond a focus on communities making sacrifices – and towards comprehensively addressing people’s fears of lost jobs, unemployment, or loss of income.

A green job represents a key site at which such a coalition can be built. Whilst Johnson calls for such work should not be understood as motivated by the desire to build such an alliance, it does represent a repurposing of decarbonisation agendas. Moving them beyond shuttered industries and lost jobs and towards new forms of work.

This is not necessarily new. Previous economic transitions involved direct government action to protect livelihoods in flux. In the USA, government policies have supported communities in the wake of the closure of nearby military bases (redeveloping bases into university campuses or new business quarters) and awarded billions of dollars in compensation to tobacco farmers facing lost income due to government regulation. In the UK, the forced decline of the coal mining industry was accompanied by schemes that aimed at retraining redundant miners, encouraging entrepreneurialism, and creating coalfield ‘enterprise zones’, although none proved successful.

All such schemes demonstrate that government policy must be enacted to mitigate the impacts of policies elsewhere. New jobs and livelihoods aren’t magicked out of the air. This necessity remains evident in today’s quest for net-zero. Recent research commissioned by the Scottish Trade Union Congress has shown the importance of such concerted policy –an active industrial strategy, public ownership and significant investment can lead to up to 367,000 energy jobs in Scotland alone.

Low wages, lost skills

For all the talk of the ‘good’ jobs to be created by decarbonisation, the tangibility of such gains remains unclear.

Decarbonisation can also happen without such job creation and with any new jobs being poorly paid and precarious. In Germany, regional unemployment levels led to solar panel manufacturers imposing low wages. In the USA, non-unionised workers working on utility-scale solar projects are paid substantially less than others working elsewhere. Offshore wind projects in the UK have been found to used irregular migrant labour, paying substantially below the minimum wage and demanding extensive working hours.

A further complicating factor is how skills and training can be transferred from carbon-heavy industries to the renewables sector. Whilst the latter demands new skills and training programmes, there do remain some skills that are transferable. Plumbers and pipefitters in the gas sector may be able to move over to green hydrogen with limited fuss. Oil rig workers already have the skills and awareness of working at height to find a new home in the offshore wind sector.

Whilst the core skills may be the same, they are often treated as distinct. Recent work shows the roadblocks put in the way of workers moving from the oil and gas sector to the offshore wind industry. The two sectors often fail to recognise the training courses completed by workers in the other –requiring enrolment in a new course that significantly overlaps. The result is the need for two qualifications, with workers paying for training costs out of their own pocket. The only winners here are the training companies themselves.

What next?

81% of oil and gas workers surveyed in the UK would consider leaving the sector but are concerned about job security. This is understandable. Once a solar park or offshore wind plant is built – it reverts to skeleton staffing, for maintenance only. Community, small-scale and rooftop solar often involve ad-hoc and localised projects – with where the next job might come from uncertain.

In the USA, trade unions have sought to provide their own vision of decarbonisation – evident in Climate Jobs New York and the Texas Climate Jobs project. Such projects are centred on the protection of current working conditions and practices and the stemming of any circumvention of union labour. This has led to a series of project labour agreements, with renewable energy companies pledging to work with unions to provide good, secure, well-paid, high-skilled green jobs.

Supply chains and manufacturing are also key – with the parts required by the renewables sector stimulating job creation elsewhere. The success of any transition (and, with it, the provision of new forms of job security) depends on the continued health of local and regional economies. It is this that can assure a longer-term benefit of green job agendas.

Such moves represent substantial investment. The announcement of the BritishVolt electric vehicle battery factory in Blyth represents the biggest investment in the north-east since the 1980s.

In New York, a ‘Buy American’ provision has been extended to renewable energy projects – encouraging the use of national supply chains. This can also help avoid the use of forced labour elsewhere, as well as the collapse of locally significant employers. The debacle in Scotland surrounding the closure, the manufacturing firm, BiFab has demonstrated the sanctity of protecting renewables supply chains in national visions of decarbonisation.

Green jobs can be transformative. They can be targeted to address youth un- and under-employment. They can provide key points of transition for people leaving the armed forces and provide new lines of work for marginalised communities. Yet, they are not yet at the point where they represent ‘good’ jobs for all.

Transitions are rarely smooth processes. Jobs are lost and new lines of work must emerge. For a transition to net-zero to be inclusive, governments must adopt proactive frameworks to tie jobs created by moves to renewables to wider patterns of employment and economic support. Policies that decarbonise must be complemented by policies that stimulate new jobs and economic support.

The two come together. If they don’t, the jobs that power our route to net-zero will merely add to the list of losers of decarbonisation – and the split between environmentalism and labour will persist.

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This blog was written by Cabot Institute for the Environment member Dr Ed Atkins, Lecturer, School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol. This is reposted under the under Creative Commons CC BY-NC 4.0 licence. Read the original article.

Dr Ed Atkins

 

 

What Europe’s exceptionally low winds mean for the future energy grid

Posted on by janet.crompton

 

Shaggyphoto / shutterstock

Through summer and early autumn 2021, Europe experienced a long period of dry conditions and low wind speeds. The beautifully bright and still weather may have been a welcome reason to hold off reaching for our winter coats, but the lack of wind can be a serious issue when we consider where our electricity might be coming from.

To meet climate mitigation targets, such as those to be discussed at the upcoming COP26 event in Glasgow, power systems are having to rapidly change from relying on fossil fuel generation to renewables such as wind, solar and hydropower. This change makes our energy systems increasingly sensitive to weather and climate variability and the possible effects of climate change.

That period of still weather badly affected wind generation. For instance, UK-based power company SSE stated that its renewable assets produced 32% less power than expected. Although this may appear initially alarming, given the UK government’s plans to become a world leader in wind energy, wind farm developers are aware these low wind “events” are possible, and understanding their impact has become a hot topic in energy-meteorology research.

A new type of extreme weather

So should we be worried about this period of low wind? In short, no. The key thing here is that we’re experiencing an extreme event. It may not be the traditional definition of extreme weather (like a large flood or a hurricane) but these periods, known in energy-meteorology as “wind-droughts”, are becoming critical to understand in order to operate power systems reliably.

Recent research I published with colleagues at the University of Reading highlighted the importance of accounting for the year-to-year variability in wind generation as we continue to invest in it, to make sure we are ready for these events when they do occur. Our team has also shown that periods of stagnant high atmospheric pressure over central Europe, which lead to prolonged low wind conditions, could become the most difficult for power systems in future.

Climate change could play a role

When we think about climate change we tend to focus much more on changes in temperature and rainfall than on possible variations in near-surface wind speed. But it is an important consideration in a power system that will rely more heavily on wind generation.

The latest IPCC report suggests that average wind speeds over Europe will reduce by 8%-10% as a result of climate change. It is important to note that wind speed projections are quite uncertain in climate models compared with those for near-surface temperatures, and it is common for different model simulations to show quite contrasting behaviour.

Colleagues and I recently analysed how wind speeds over Europe would change according to six different climate models. Some showed wind speeds increasing as temperatures warm, and others showed decreases. Understanding this in more detail is an ongoing topic of scientific research. It is important to remember that small changes in wind speed could lead to larger changes in power generation, as the power output by a turbine is related to the cube of the wind speed (a cubic number is a number multiplied by itself three times. They increase very fast: 1, 8, 27, 64 and so on).

World map with dark blue (less wind) in Europe, North America and China
Change in wind speed compared to 1986-2005 if we were to limit global warming to 1.5C. Areas in blue will have less wind; areas in green, more wind.
IPCC Interactive Atlas, CC BY-SA

The reductions in near-surface wind speeds seen in the above map could be due to a phenomenon called “global stilling”. This can be explained by the cold Arctic warming at a faster rate than equatorial regions, which means there is less difference in temperature between hot and cold areas. This temperature difference is what drives large-scale winds around the globe through a phenomenon called thermal wind balance.

With all the talk of wind power being the answer to our energy needs, amid spiralling gas prices and the countdown to COP26, the recent wind drought is a clear reminder of how variable this form of generation can be and that it cannot be the sole investment for a reliable future energy grid. Combining wind with other renewable resources such as solar, hydropower and the ability to smartly manage our electricity demand will be critical at times like this summer when the wind is not blowing.The Conversation

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This blog was written the Cabot Institute for the Environment member Dr Hannah Bloomfield, Postdoctoral Researcher in Climate Risk Analytics, University of Bristol. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Read all blogs in our COP26 blog series:

We Need to Talk About Transport

Posted on by janet.crompton

 

The transition to zero-carbon is essential to the mitigation of climate change, but despite Paris Agreement commitments, transport emissions are still on the rise. The transition to clean forms of transport is a hot topic for the upcoming climate change conference COP26, which will take place in November 2021 in Glasgow.

Researchers agree that there are solutions to the transport problem, both simple and innovative, but we need to act fast. That much is clear from a local example; Bristol needs to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 88%, to meet its ambitious net zero targets by 2030. For National Clean Air Day (17th June), I have been finding out about research on clean transport from experts at the Cabot Institute for the Environment at the University of Bristol.

Professor Martin Hurcombe, ‘Access and Active Leisure in a Time of Pandemic: Tales of Two Cities’

Self-proclaimed ‘MAMIL’ (middle-aged man in lycra), Professor Martin Hurcombe from the Modern Languages department is a keen cyclist, a passion he has integrated into his research. As an offshoot of his research in literary studies, Martin became fascinated by the French sports press and the way it represented cycling. As a result, he is currently writing a book exploring attitudes towards cycling from the late nineteenth century up to the present.

Martin is also working with the Brigstow Institute on an exciting project entitled ‘Access and Active Leisure in a Time of Pandemic: Tales of Two Cities’. This comparative study of Bristol and Bordeaux is exploring how the pandemic has highlighted longstanding issues around access to and enjoyment of urban spaces via active leisure. Both cities reflected profound inequalities, entrenched geographically, economically, socially and culturally, many of which originate in the cities’ parallel histories of empire, trade and industrialisation. Martin and his fellow researchers are investigating the ways in which the pandemic has heightened these structural inequalities, but also led to some positive re-shaping of the urban environment, from reduction of road traffic to a massive increase in cycling with recent government statistics show that cycling levels during lockdown rose by up to 300% on some days.

While the benefits of cycling are clear; a healthier population, decreased congestion and a cleaner urban environment, Martin laid out various key challenges faced in its promotion and uptake. These include the attitudes of drivers towards cyclists, infrastructural challenges and issues of safety.

Why is it important to conduct cultural, qualitative research in the transport sector?

To change attitudes, we need to take a broader cultural approach, not just an infrastructural one; issues of who has a ‘right’ to occupy the streets play out on a daily basis in how a cyclist or a runner feels and acts on the roads. Despite the challenges revealed by his public engagement research, Martin seemed determined that this kind of research will be valuable in ‘finding a way we can all share this space’. Research like this can be used to draw out diversity in active leisure and dispel the traditional image of the cyclist, to broaden it to include people of all sectors of society. Martin also recently worked on ‘Putting a Positive Spin on the Story of Cycling’ (PPS), that was developed with local charity Life Cycle.

We want to demonstrate that cycling was, and is, something for everybody.

Georgina de Courcy-Bower, E-scooters in Bristol

Georgina completed her Master’s in Environmental Policy and Management during the pandemic. Following the legislation of e-scooters in the UK on 4th July 2020, a change in law brought forward to reduce crowding on public transport as a result of COVID-19, she chose to write her dissertation on this new micro-mobility. Georgina explained that the Voi scooters, introduced to Bristol as part of a shared mobility pilot scheme in UK cities, were considered and promoted as a ‘last mile’ solution to fill gaps between transport links and homes or offices, in hopes to draw more people away from their cars and tackle congestion and air pollution – two key issues associated with the car-dominated transport system known to Bristol.

Georgina decided to investigate the viability of these e-scooters as a solution to sustainable urban transport in Bristol, by conducting a policy analysis to explore the successes and failures of implementation of e-scooters in cities around the world. Overall, e-scooters were found to be a positive alternative to cars. However, Georgina did come across certain roadblocks to their success in her research; for example, the lifecycle analysis of e-scooters shows that they still produce significant emissions, particularly compared to active travel, because of their production and dissemination.

Are e-scooters a viable part of the solution to sustainable transport?

 The most effective way to encourage a modal shift away from cars will be to reallocate space to all other road users, such as forms of public transport or active travel. She suggested that we need to begin ‘designing cities around people’, proffering the local example of Cotham Hill, where the road has been closed to through-traffic to allow restaurants and businesses to expand onto the street and create a safer space for pedestrians and cyclists. Georgina concluded that when e-scooters are paired with other ambitious policies, they are more likely to provide public benefit. However, e-scooters cannot act alone in decarbonising the transport system.

Understanding the city as a complex system and taking a more holistic approach to environmental transport sustainability is likely to be the most successful strategy.

Dr Colin Nolden, Riding Sunbeams

Dr Colin Nolden is the non-executive director of Community Energy South, an umbrella organisation for community energy groups. A member organisation pioneered the idea of connecting community-owned solar farms to the railway traction system, realising that it would be possible to repurpose existing solar PV technology to do so. This idea led to the formation of a spin-off company, now known as Riding Sunbeams.
The current railway system’s electricity is supplied through supply points to the national electricity grid. Therefore, decarbonisation of electrified railways currently hinges upon the decarbonisation of our electricity grid. Riding Sunbeams provides an alternative to this with huge rail decarbonisation potential; supplying renewable energy directly into railway electricity substations and overhead rail gantries, bypassing the grid entirely. This can be achieved without the need for costly electricity grid reinforcements. Network Rail seemed like the obvious choice to approach with Riding Sunbeams’ innovation, especially given that they are the UK’s biggest single electricity user.

What are the social benefits of renewable, community energy?

Colin was in charge of conducting a Social Impact Framework (SIF) for the project and found that there is great potential for positive social impacts; community energy groups that could be developing solar traction farms are strongly rooted in local communities, and provide local jobs, volunteering opportunities and reduce economic leakage from geographical areas. So far, Riding Sunbeams has successfully implemented one pilot project, in the summer of 2019, a solar array of just over 100 panels connected to the railway outside Aldershot station in the UK. Since April 2019, Riding Sunbeams have also been exploring the potential for integrating other clean energy technologies like wind power.
There has been significant support for the technology from the government and people championing it within Network Rail, and as a result Riding Sunbeams has procured funding from Innovate UK and the Department for Transport. Colin explained that the SIF demonstrated a variety of positive social impacts to community-owned traction supply that could tick a lot of the boxes Network Rail want to tick. Nevertheless, he concluded that

Despite good will and innovation, ‘it takes a long time to disentangle things and implement new systems.

Emilia Melville, Moving Bristol Forward’s Transport Manifesto

Researcher, Emilia Melville, is one member of the team behind Moving Bristol Forward’s Transport Manifesto and its vision for a better transport future for Bristol. Moving Bristol Forward is a collaboration between Zero West and Transport for Greater Bristol Alliance (TfGB). Emilia became involved through Zero West, a community interest company, whose mission is to get the west of England to zero carbon. Teamed up with TfGB, it was important to them that this project had a significant participatory element. As a result of consultations with the public, a manifesto was written that envisions a different future for our cities; one that integrates many voices and imagines streets not overcrowded by cars, but filled with active travellers and efficient, clean public transport. To read the Manifesto’s 8 key aims, click here. The goal is to gain endorsements from organisations and policymakers, along with support from the public.

How Bristol measures up to other cities in terms of moving towards clean transport?

There is a lot of good will, citing such schemes as Playing Out Bristol, a resident led movement restoring children’s freedom to play out in the streets and spaces where they live. However, Bristol faces many challenges, not least because of its heavy car-dependency. This is partly due to car-oriented planning and construction that happened in the 1960s. Commuters face issues such as a lack of connections between the outskirts and the centre, and not feeling safe on public transport or in active travel has been a recurring problem cited in public engagement sessions. The city lacks a combined transport authority, like TfL in London, that would allow for integrated ticketing, better-connected routes and an overall better coordination. Nevertheless, while the issues Bristol faces do require serious thinking about major urban planning changes, there have been examples of successful conversions in the past. Queen’s Square, now a beautiful and well-loved park, once had a dual carriageway and major bus route running through it! In 1999, the City Council made a successful grant application to restore it as a park as part of the Heritage Lottery Fund’s Urban Parks Programme.
Queens square, Bristol, before and after dual carriageway was removed to create the well-loved park it is today (Photo by Bristol Live).
To get behind the manifesto, you can write to your local representatives, share it on social media platforms or tell your friends and family about it.

My Thoughts on Our Talks About Transport

I asked Emilia what she would say to the person that does not believe in the power of the individual, for example, someone who thinks ‘it won’t make a difference if I ride my bike versus drive my car, so I’ll just drive’. She replied that, firstly, riding your bike is great! You inhale much less air pollution than someone in a car, can make eye contact with fellow road-users and get a good burst of exercise. She concluded that change needs to happen at different levels: it is important that we show policymakers that we want to see change, whether that be by writing to them to endorse the manifesto, or increasing the presence of active travellers in the streets. As Martin explained in our conversation, critical mass is key! The same can be said for using public transport; the higher the demand is for it, the more likely we are to see policy changes that increase investment in it, thus resulting in greater regularity and efficiency of services.
As the UK hosts COP26 for the first time, this is a key opportunity to galvanise efforts to achieve the UK’s legally-binding net zero emissions goal by 2050. Speaking with the four transport experts led me to these conclusions:
• The Department for Transport needs to encourage the public to avoid journeys by car that can be taken by other means of transport.
• There is a need to shift necessary journeys to the most sustainable modes, and alongside this, clean up motorised journeys by transitioning to Zero Emissions Vehicles.
• Alternatives to private cars need to be made more readily available, accessible and attractive.
• Finally, we should build on the momentum of the shift towards active travel brought around by the pandemic, encourage a return to public and active transport and a shift away from motorised travel.
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This blog is written by Lucy Morris, Master’s by Research (MScR) student at Cabot Institute for the Environment. Lucy is currently researching ‘Why Framing Animals Matters: Representing Non-human Animals On-screen’ and produced this blog as part of a part-time role as communications assistant at the Cabot Institute.
Lucy Morris

 

 

Interested in postgraduate study? The Cabot Institute runs a unique Master’s by Research programme that offers a blend of in-depth research on a range of Global Environmental Challenges, with interdisciplinary cohort building and training. Find out more.

 

 

Hydrogen: where is low-carbon fuel most useful for decarbonisation?

Posted on by janet.crompton
FrankHH/Shutterstock

Is hydrogen the lifeblood of a low-carbon future, or an overhyped distraction from real solutions? One thing is certain – the coal, oil and natural gas which currently power much of daily life must be phased out within coming decades. From the cars we drive to the energy that heats our homes, these fossil fuels are deeply embedded in society and the global economy. But is the best solution in all cases to swap them with hydrogen – a fuel which only produces water vapour, and not CO₂, when burned?

Answering that question are six experts in engineering, physics and chemistry.

Road and rail

Hu Li, Associate Professor of Energy Engineering, University of Leeds

Transport became the UK’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in 2016, contributing about 28% of the country’s total.

Replacing the internal combustion engines of passenger cars and light-duty vehicles with batteries could accelerate the process of decarbonising road transport, but electrification isn’t such a good option for heavy-duty vehicles such as lorries and buses. Compared to gasoline and diesel fuels, the energy density (measured in megajoules per kilogram) of a battery is just 1%. For a 40-tonne truck, just over four tonnes of lithium-ion battery cells are needed for a range of 800 kilometres, compared to just 220 kilograms of diesel.

With the UK government set to ban fossil fuel vehicles from 2035, hydrogen fuel cells could do much of the heavy lifting in decarbonising freight and public transport, where 80% of hydrogen demand in transport is likely to come from.

A fuel cell generates electricity through a chemical reaction between the stored hydrogen and oxygen, producing water and hot air as a byproduct. Vehicles powered by hydrogen fuel cells have a similar driving range and can be refuelled about as quickly as internal combustion engine vehicles, another reason they’re useful for long-haul and heavy-duty transport.

Hydrogen fuel can be transported as liquid or compressed gas by existing natural gas pipelines, which will save millions on infrastructure and speed up its deployment. Even existing internal combustion engines can use hydrogen, but there are problems with fuel injection, reduced power output, onboard storage and emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOₓ), which can react in the lower atmosphere to form ozone – a greenhouse gas. The goal should be to eventually replace internal combustion engines with hydrogen fuel cells in vehicles that are too large for lithium-ion batteries. But in the meantime, blending with other fuels or using a diesel-hydrogen hybrid could help lower emissions.

It’s very important to consider where the hydrogen comes from though. Hydrogen can be produced by splitting water with electricity in a process called electrolysis. If the electricity was generated by renewable sources such as solar and wind, the resulting fuel is called green hydrogen. It can be used in the form of compressed gas or liquid and converted to methane, methanol, ammonia and other synthetic liquid fuels.

But nearly all of the 27 terawatt-hours (TWh) of hydrogen currently used in the UK is produced by reforming fossil fuels, which generates nine tonnes of CO₂ for every tonne of hydrogen. This is currently the cheapest option, though some experts predict that green hydrogen will be cost-competitive by 2030. In the meantime, governments will need to ramp up the production of vehicles with hydrogen fuel cells and storage tanks and build lots of refuelling points.

Hydrogen can play a key role in decarbonising rail travel too, alongside other low-carbon fuels, such as biofuels. In the UK, 6,049 kilometres of mainline routes run on electricity – that’s 38% of the total. Trains powered by hydrogen fuel cells offer a zero-emission alternative to diesel trains.

The Coradia iLint, which entered commercial service in Germany in 2018, is the world’s first hydrogen-powered train. The UK recently launched mainline testing of its own hydrogen-powered train, though the UK trial aims to retrofit existing diesel trains rather than design and build entirely new ones.

Aviation

Valeska Ting, Professor of Smart Nanomaterials, University of Bristol

Of all of the sectors that we need to decarbonise, air travel is perhaps the most challenging. While cars and boats can realistically switch to batteries or hybrid technologies, the sheer weight of even the lightest batteries makes long-haul electric air travel tricky.

Single-seat concept planes such as the Solar Impulse generate their energy from the sun, but they can’t generate enough based on the efficiency of current solar cells alone so must also use batteries. Other alternatives include synthetic fuels or biofuels, but these could just defer or reduce carbon emissions, rather than eliminate them altogether, as a carbon-free fuel like green hydrogen could.

Hydrogen is extremely light and contains three times more energy per kilogram than jet fuel, which is why it’s traditionally used to power rockets. Companies including Airbus are already developing commercial zero-emission aircraft that run on hydrogen. This involves a radical redesign of their fleet to accommodate liquid hydrogen fuel tanks.

Three aeroplanes of different designs fly in formation.
An artist’s impression of what hydrogen-powered commercial flight might look like.
Airbus

There are some technical challenges though. Hydrogen is a gas at room temperature, so very low temperatures and special equipment are needed to store it as a liquid. That means more weight, and subsequently, more fuel. However, research we’re doing at the Bristol Composites Institute is helping with the design of lightweight aircraft components made out of composite materials. We’re also looking at nanoporous materials that behave like molecular sponges, spontaneously absorbing and storing hydrogen at high densities for onboard hydrogen storage in future aircraft designs.

France and Germany are investing billions in hydrogen-powered passenger aircraft. But while the development of these new aircraft by industry continues apace, international airports will also need to rapidly invest in infrastructure to store and deliver liquid hydrogen to refuel them. There’s a risk that fleets of hydrogen aeroplanes could take off before there’s a sufficient fuel supply chain to sustain them.

Heating

Tom Baxter, Honorary Senior Lecturer in Chemical Engineering, University of Aberdeen & Ernst Worrell, Professor of Energy, Resources and Technological Change, Utrecht University

If the All Party Parliamentary Group on Hydrogen’s recommendations are taken up, the UK government is likely to support hydrogen as a replacement fuel for heating buildings in its next white paper. The other option for decarbonising Britain’s gas heating network is electricity. So which is likely to be a better choice – a hydrogen boiler in every home or an electric heat pump?

First there’s the price of fuel to consider. When hydrogen is generated through electrolysis, between 30-40% of the original electric energy is lost. One kilowatt-hour (kWh) of electricity in a heat pump may generate 3-5 kWh of heat, while the same kWh of electricity gets you only 0.6-0.7 kWh of heat with a hydrogen-fuelled boiler. This means that generating enough hydrogen fuel to heat a home will require electricity generated from four times as many turbines and solar panels than a heat pump. Because heat pumps need so much less energy overall to supply the same amount of heat, the need for large amounts of stored green energy on standby is much less. Even reducing these losses with more advanced technology, hydrogen will remain relatively expensive, both in terms of energy and money.

So using hydrogen to heat homes isn’t cheap for consumers. Granted, there is a higher upfront cost for installing an electric heat pump. That could be a serious drawback for cash-strapped households, though heat pumps heat a property using around a quarter of the energy of hydrogen. In time, lower fuel bills would more than cover the installation cost.

A large fan unit sits outside an apartment building.
Heat pumps, like this one, are a better bet for decarbonising heating.
Klikkipetra/Shutterstock

Replacing natural gas with hydrogen in the UK’s heating network isn’t likely to be simple either. Per volume, the energy density of hydrogen gas is about one-third that of natural gas, so converting to hydrogen will not only require new boilers, but also investment in grids to increase how much fuel they can deliver. The very small size of hydrogen molecules mean they’re much more prone to leaking than natural gas molecules. Ensuring that the existing gas distribution system is fit for hydrogen could prove quite costly.

In high-density housing in inner cities, district heating systems – which distribute waste heat from power plants and factories into homes – could be a better bet in a warming climate, as, like heat pumps, they can cool homes as well as heat them.

Above all, this stresses the importance of energy efficiency, what the International Energy Agency calls the first fuel in buildings. Retrofitting buildings with insulation to make them energy efficient and switching boilers for heat pumps is the most promising route for the vast majority of buildings. Hydrogen should be reserved for applications where there are few or no alternatives. Space heating of homes and buildings, except for limited applications like in particularly old homes, is not one of them.

Electricity and energy storage

Petra de Jongh, Professor of Catalysts and Energy Storage Materials, Utrecht University

Fossil fuels have some features that seem impossible to beat. They’re packed full of energy, they’re easy to burn and they’re compatible with most engines and generators. Producing electricity using gas, oil, or coal is cheap, and offers complete certainty about, and control over, the amount of electricity you get at any point in time.

Meanwhile, how much wind or solar electricity we can generate isn’t something that we enjoy a lot of control over. It’s difficult to even adequately predict when the sun will shine or the wind will blow, so renewable power output fluctuates. Electricity grids can only tolerate a limited amount of fluctuation, so being able to store excess electricity for later is key to switching from fossil fuels.

Hydrogen seems ideally suited to meet this challenge. Compared to batteries, the storage capacity of hydrogen is unlimited – the electrolyser which produces it from water never fills up. Hydrogen can be converted back into electricity using a fuel cell too, though quite a bit of energy is lost in the process.

Unfortunately, hydrogen is the lightest gas and so it’s difficult to store and transport it. It can be liquefied or stored at very high pressures. But then there’s the cost – green hydrogen is still two to three times more expensive than that produced from natural gas, and the costs are even higher if an electrolyser is only used intermittently. Ideally, we could let hydrogen react with CO₂, either captured from the air or taken from flue gases, to produce renewable liquid fuels that are carbon-neutral, an option that we’re investigating at the Debye Institute at Utrecht University.

Heavy industry

Stephen Carr, Lecturer in Energy Physics, University of South Wales

Industry is the second most polluting sector in the UK after transport, accounting for 21% of the UK’s total carbon emissions. A large proportion of these emissions come from processes involving heat, whether it’s firing a kiln to very high temperatures to produce cement or generating steam to use in an oven making food. Most of this heat is currently generated using natural gas, which will need to be swapped out with a zero-carbon fuel, or electricity.

A worker in silver, protective gear stokes a furnace spewing molten metal.
Furnaces in the steel industry are generally powered by fossil fuels.
Rocharibeiro/Shutterstock

Let’s look in depth at one industry: ceramics manufacturing. Here, high-temperature direct heating is required, where the flame or hot gases touch the material being heated. Natural gas-fired burners are currently used for this. Biomass can generate zero-carbon heat, but biomass supplies are limited and aren’t best suited to use in direct heating. Using an electric kiln would be efficient, but it would entail an overhaul of existing equipment. Generating electricity has a comparably high cost too.

Swapping natural gas with hydrogen in burners could be cheaper overall, and would require only slight changes to equipment. The Committee on Climate Change, which advises the UK government, reports that 90 TWh of industrial fossil fuel energy per year (equivalent to the total annual consumption of Wales) could be replaced with hydrogen by 2040. Hydrogen will be the cheapest option in most cases, while for 15 TWh of industrial fossil fuel energy, hydrogen is the only suitable alternative.

Hydrogen is already used in industrial processes such as oil refining, where it’s used to react with and remove unwanted sulphur compounds. Since most hydrogen currently used in the UK is derived from fossil fuels, it will be necessary to ramp up renewable energy capacity to deliver truly green hydrogen before it can replace the high-carbon fuels powering industrial processes.

The same rule applies to each of these sectors – hydrogen is only as green as the process that produced it. Green hydrogen will be part of the solution in combination with other technologies and measures, including lithium-ion batteries, and energy efficiency. But the low-carbon fuel will be most useful in decarbonising the niches that are currently difficult for electrification to reach, such as heavy-duty vehicles and industrial furnaces.The Conversation

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute member Valeska Ting, Professor of Smart Nanomaterials, University of Bristol, Tom Baxter, Honorary Senior Lecturer in Chemical Engineering, University of Aberdeen; Ernst Worrell, Professor of Energy, Resources and Technological Change, Utrecht University; Hu Li, Associate Professor of Energy Engineering, University of Leeds; Petra E. de Jongh, Professor of Catalysts and Energy Storage Materials, Utrecht University; and Stephen Carr, Lecturer in Energy Physics, University of South Wales.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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