Long-running BBC radio soap opera The Archers might conjure images of an idyllic country life, but its storylines frequently highlight real tensions in British society.
The series, set in the fictional village of Ambridge, has been criticised in recent years for storylines which supposedly pander to younger listeners or fail to represent rural life accurately. But the Archers has never shied away from environmental issues, from the escapades of eco-warrior Tom Archer in the late 1990s to more recent episodes about soil health.
Lately, Ambridge has been gripped by a campaign to halt the construction of a new electric vehicle charging station, proposed on a parcel of land being sold by David and Ruth Archer – long-running characters at the centre of the series. This has provoked protests, debates about civic duty and police involvement in the rural idyll.
The placards and slogans of local opponents have fused topics of net zero and the energy transition with anxieties about the future of the countryside. What does this storyline tell us about real rural opposition to such changes?
Charging into trouble
The UK government has pledged to phase out the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030. If electric vehicles (EVs) are to replace them, charging infrastructure must be expanded to help people switch.
By some estimates there are over 35,000 active EV charging ports across the UK. The Department for Transport has pledged 300,000 public chargers by 2030 to stop a patchy network of charging points putting some drivers off buying EVs and allay concerns about their potentially shorter driving range.
Infrastructure built to fulfil national commitments to cut emissions will have important local consequences. The concerns voiced in Ambridge might resonate in rural communities playing host to new construction projects which can bring with them increased traffic, noise and damage to the landscape.
When researching opposition to energy infrastructure for a new book, we learned about Littlehampton in Sussex, a seaside town where residents successfully opposed an on-street EV charging scheme. Residents complained about not being consulted beforehand and argued that charging points, built without off-street parking, would draw drivers from elsewhere who would take spaces from them.
In The Archers – like in Littlehampton, Sussex – local opposition to new EV charging stations derives from a feeling that something is happening to residents, rather than with or for them. Some Ambridge residents are suspicious of the shell corporation behind the scheme. In real-life Sussex, residents said that they weren’t properly consulted.
Rural opposition is not inevitable, however. With amenities and services often clustered in bigger towns, rural households must travel further to access them, making them particularly vulnerable to rises in the price of petrol or diesel.
This vulnerability has been exacerbated by dramatic cuts to rural bus routes. An analysis by the Guardian found that one in ten routes were axed in 2022, with 42 routes lost from the west of England alone.
Withdrawing public transport funding cuts off rural communities from essential services and friends and family elsewhere. These same communities could benefit the most from an expanded EV charging network.
Some rural communities aren’t waiting for this to happen and have taken to sharing electric cars to fill the gaps left by lost services instead. For example, new EV clubs are being formed in Wales to give people easier access to shared transport.
These schemes ask people to pay an annual membership fee in return for being able to book a car 48 hours in advance. This is helping people get to GP appointments or job interviews.
But while those living in Greater London might access a charging point every mile on average, this number jumps to one every 16 miles in rural areas.
Plugging the gaps
One reason why rural areas are underserved by EV chargers concerns their cost-effectiveness. In areas where there might be less immediate demand, the upfront investment needed to install a charging point will take longer to pay off.
New subsidies and grants could help install more chargers in more places. But it will be necessary to work with communities to prevent conflict.
Despite the uproar in Ambridge, rural areas have a lot to gain from charging infrastructure. Residents will have differing views which planners must address.
This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment members Dr Ed Atkins, Senior Lecturer, School of Geographical Sciences and Dr Ros Death, Lecturer in Physical Geography, University of Bristol.
Last year, we had the pleasure of working with six excellent Master’s and PhD students in the run up to the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP26. They impressed us with the creativity in their applications and we recruited them as Cabot Communications Assistants – an exciting opportunity that doesn’t come up very often within the Institute to gain experience in communications, and work with the Cabot team. Covering COP26 themes, the ecological emergency and #CabotNext10, which celebrated the 10 year anniversary of the Cabot Institute and looked ahead to the next 10 years, our comms assistants designed and implemented campaigns for a variety of different audiences, drawing upon their own research as well as that of experts across the University.
With COP27 coming up later this year, these issues are still very much on the minds of press, the public and environmental professionals across the world. Keep reading to learn more about the work that some of our Cabot Communications Assistants created in response to the key messages of COP26 and the UN biodiversity conference COP15 and their reflections on their experience.
Dora Young – Climate Emergency and Mock COP26
I am undertaking my Master’s by Research (MScR) with the Cabot Institute in the hopes of contributing to a more equitable knowledge politics around environmental justice issues in Bristol. I aim for my work within the City Futures theme to enhance the inclusivity of urban ecological management strategies (specifically, addressing the intersections of action to restore healthy pollinator populations, improve the quality and accessibility of green spaces, and ensure food security in the city’s most deprived areas).
Dora’s reflections
I was pleased to have produced a 14 or so week long Twitter campaign, with weekly tweets to highlight crucial climate research being done by Cabot members, ahead of COP26. I was also very happy to be able to write a blog about our fantastic experience facilitating the Mock COP26, which involved 60 school students from Bristol and was a thoroughly enjoyable and inspiring day.
Lucy Morris – Clean transport, clean energy and the Mock COP26
I’m currently studying for a Master’s by Research in Environmental Themes, Sciences and Wildlife Filmmaking. I’m interested in the spectrum of framing strategies employed in wildlife films and how these shape our relationship with the natural world and in particular, non-human animals. I believe that film and other digital media, with their enormous affective power, are immensely important in confronting anthropogenic environmental degradation and demonstrating the intrinsic value of all species and natural spaces.
Lucy’s reflections
I worked on two projects throughout my time as a comms assistant. The first was a Twitter campaign promoting the work of Cabot researchers on clean transport in the run up to COP26. I interviewed 4 experts and produced videos of some of these interviews advertising the blog that would summarise them . I created a week-long Twitter campaign counting down the days to the blog release with facts about transport, links to more information and tagged amplifiers. I wrote up a blog that was released on the last day of the campaign that was read by more than 220 people. In the process, I learnt many new skills, worked as part of a great team and my own interest in the topic of transport only grew. I also worked to produce a creative output to summarise the process and events of the mock COP26 for sixth form students run by Cabot and Praxis research. Working with Jack Nicholls, I conducted qualitative research of all the notes made at the mock climate negotiations, drawing out themes of the day and learning outcomes. I produced a brief for illustrator, Ellie Shipman, who created amazing illustrations of the day. I also produced my own sketch illustrations as part of this brief, which were used in the final product – a web page all about Bristol’s mock COP.
Hilary McCarthy – Ecological Emergency
I’m an interdisciplinary PhD student working in laboratories across Life Sciences and Chemistry, investigating photosynthetic enhancement in plants and algae. My research involves investigating the role of both naturally occurring photonic nanostructures and artificially synthesized nanoparticles, called carbon dots, in photosynthetic processes such as light harvesting. A changing environment and increasing threats to biodiversity and global food and fuel supply puts increasing pressure on better understanding photosynthesis and its mechanisms, adaptations and potential routes to enhancement.
Hilary’s reflections
During my internship with Cabot, I worked on a campaign titled the ‘Ecological Emergency’, which was scheduled to run in October alongside COP15, a global convention on biodiversity. As part of the campaign I produced, I spoke with a number of academics in relevant research fields about their perspective on ecological decline and its drivers and projections. The campaign involved amplifying the academics statements, through a combination of blogs and visual social media posts. The visual content overlaid academic statements on top of staff and student photography and videography, of relevant wildlife and nature.
Olivia Reddy – #CabotNext10
Currently, I’m a few months into my PhD in Civil Engineering here at Bristol. My focus is on the infrastructure and management of sanitation systems in Ethiopia and Uganda, specifically looking at their resilience to climate change and the greenhouse gases they emit. I’m interested in creating sustainable, achievable change, and exploring the different ways in which to do so.
Olivia’s reflections
I think it’s really important that the work that Cabot does is understood and valued by a wider audience. That’s why I have taken the approach I have with #CabotNext10, to delve into why this research is important and what it means. Similarly, it’s important to see who Cabot is, and why the staff do what they do – which is why I wanted to re/introduce the core Cabot team. Science communication is a huge part of research which often gets overlooked, and I wanted to make sure those working here got highlighted. Read the #CabotNext10 blogs.
This blog is written by Joanne Norris, Cabot Institute Postgraduate Research Coordinator, and Adele Hulin, Cabot Institute Communications and Engagement Officer.
Joanne Norris
Joanne coordinates our Master’s by Research in Global Environmental Challenges, an interdisciplinary programme that brings together students from all disciplines to work on independent research projects tackling key areas of environmental change.
Adele Hulin
Adele manages internal and external communications and engagement at the Cabot Institute including recruiting and managing our Cabot Communications Assistants.
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.
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.
Voi e-scooter parked across the pavement outside Victoria Rooms in Clifton. Image credit: Georgina de Courcy-Bower
At the end of October this year, the Swedish company Voi launched their e-scooters in Bristol as part of a pilot scheme. The government brought the scheme forward in the hope that e-scooters would ease demand for public transport and allow for social distancing during the Covid-19 pandemic. Earlier in the year, Marvin Rees said that he hoped e-scooters would help the city reduce congestion and air pollution. These are two key issues associated with a car-dominated transport system present in Bristol and many other cities around the world.
I have been investigating whether e-scooters could help Bristol to meet its sustainable transport targets. These include meeting net-zero emissions by 2030 and simultaneously reducing inequality within the city. However, between 2005 and 2017 the decrease in CO2 emissions in Bristol’s transport sector was only 9%. To reach net-zero by 2030, there will need to be an 88% decrease from the 2005 baseline.
E-scooters have been called a ‘last mile’ solution to fill the gaps between transport links and homes or offices which could draw more people away from their cars. My research has found that policies towards the new micromobility focused on decreasing transport inequalities in the United States. Conversely in Europe, there was more consideration for the environmental impact, but both continents have policies emphasising the importance of safety.
E-scooters and the environment
Despite cities frequently referencing environmental sustainability, few were found to have policies or regulations to ensure this. There was often an assumption that e-scooter users would previously have made their journey by car. However, in Paris only 8% of users would have driven if e-scooters were not an option. This was higher in the US, with cities consistently having a modal shift from cars of over 30%. However, this was explained by the lower availability of public transport compared with European cities. Therefore, US policies would not have the desired effect in Bristol.
A second environmental consideration is the lifecycle analysis of e-scooters. This shows that e-scooters still produce a significant amount of CO2 emissions, particularly when compared to active travel. E-scooters used as part of a sharing scheme are also frequently vandalised which shortens their lifespan. In UK cities which started their trials before Bristol, operators have already complained of high rates of vandalism. Many are also thrown into rivers which causes ecological impacts.
E-scooters and inequality
Many cities in the US have regulations aiming to improve access to transport for low-income communities. This has included unsuccessful discounted services. Operators have often failed to comply or the schemes have not been marketed. A more successful regulation was rebalancing e-scooters to ensure that some are placed in deprived communities. However, operators have claimed that this is economically and environmentally unsustainable. Using large trucks to move e-scooters around the city will increase CO2 emissions associated with them.
It is important that environmental goals do not come at the cost of excluding certain communities in the city, and vice versa. However, overall the most significant factor for decreasing inequality or decreasing CO2 emissions is which mode the shift comes from.
The most effective way to encourage a modal shift away from cars is to reallocate space to other modes and start designing cities around people. However, making such a significant change in the way we live our lives will be met with backlash from some. E-scooters can help mitigate this by providing an alternative mode of transport that could make the reallocation of road space to micromobilities more politically feasible.
Safety of e-scooters
What can be agreed upon by everyone is that e-scooters must be safe for users and for those around them. The main complaints about e-scooters are that they block pavements for more vulnerable pedestrians and in most cities, e-scooters are banned from pavement riding. Nevertheless, casual observation shows that this is often ignored. However, in Portland it was found that the presence of cycle lanes and lower speed limits decreased e-scooter pavement use by around 30%. In Bristol, 70% of respondents for a Sustrans survey supported building more cycle tracks even if it took space away from other traffic. The presence of cycle tracks could also lead to more active travel which has co-benefits for individual health and wellbeing.
Governance of e-scooters
E-scooters and other shared mobility technologies are part of a change in governance. There is now collaboration between public and private and it is essential that communication between the two is transparent. Local authorities must make clear their goals and set boundaries for operators without restricting them to the extent that they are unable to provide their services.
Overall, e-scooters alone are not going to solve our dysfunctional urban transport systems. However, they might provide a catalyst for more radical change away from the car-dominated city.
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.
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.
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.
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.
As part of Green Great Britain Week, supported by BEIS, we are posting a series of blogs throughout the week highlighting what work is going on at the University of Bristol’s Cabot Institute for the Environment to help provide up to date climate science, technology and solutions for government and industry. We will also be highlighting some of the big sustainability actions happening across the University and local community in order to do our part to mitigate the negative effects of global warming. Today our blog will look at ‘Considering the actions businesses can take on climate change’.
Our University is justly famous for the breadth and depth of its work on Sustainability. This ranges from research on the effect of micro plastics on the oceans, through food and farming, to the effect of resource-driven migration. We are also tackling arguably the biggest problem of all: developing the tools and techniques that will help us to fight climate change.
Our Sustainability Policy is clear that we need to walk the talk and demonstrate that we are supporting a sustainable world in our operations and strategies.
The University of Bristol’s Sustainability team co-ordinates sustainability activity across the organisation, continually innovating to find ways of reducing our environmental impact against a backdrop of growing staff and student numbers, increasingly bespoke teaching and ever more complex research requirements. The team has particular responsibility for waste resource management, energy, water and transport, and engages with staff and students in many different ways through community engagement, biodiversity activities, sustainable food and sustainable procurement.
1. A changing landscape
The team is led by Martin Wiles, who has been with the University since 2001. “Innovation is at the heart of what we do,” says Martin. “Everyone in the sector knows that the fundamentals are changing, and that change is accelerating. It’s difficult to see what the pedagogical, economic or political landscape is going to be even a year ahead. So, we see our activities as being guided by three principles: how do we support excellence in teaching, research and the staff and student experience? How do we reduce resource use whilst saving money? How do we ensure that we are compliant with increasingly complex environmental legislation? We also feel that we have a role in distilling our findings and disseminating good practice to the wider sector.”
2. Sustainable Laboratories
A good example of how this thinking is applied in practice is the Sustainable Labs Initiative, which focuses on improving the safety, sustainability and success of our laboratories. Energy manager Chris Jones says, “We had known for a long time that our highly-serviced labs represent only 5% of our floor area but use 40% of our energy. In recent years, controls for air handling have improved immensely and we have started to roll out best practice, starting with our Synthetic Chemistry building. We have been able to reduce electricity consumption by 30% there whilst still delivering the same level of service.” The project has been implemented by Chris, working with Anna Lewis, the Team’s Sustainable Labs officer. A former Research Technician herself, Anna works closely with academic and research staff to minimise resource use by better management. “Staff understand the issues,” says Anna, “and they are very happy to help. We can usually achieve better environmental performance and better safety through relatively small changes to our way of working.”
3. Closing the loop on waste
This sentiment is echoed by Rose Rooney, the Environmental Management System (EMS) and Circular Economy Manager. “If we treat everything in isolation, the task of compliance becomes unnecessarily expensive and intrusive in people’s work. Adhering to the EMS processes saves time and aids compliance. A good example is waste. If we are informed early and fully that a consignment of waste needs to be removed, we can deal with it cheaply and easily, often finding a route for it to be reused or recycled. We are moving away from the idea of waste to becoming a circular economy, where the output from one process becomes the input for another.” She cites the University’s popular and successful Re-store programme, which allows furniture and equipment from one group to be used by another, and The Bristol Big Give, where students’ unwanted items that would normally go to waste at the end of term are collected and sent to be sold for charities. Many tonnes of items are now being reused that might otherwise have gone to landfill.
4. Be The Change
Bristol Big Give is just one example of a number of behaviour change initiatives delivered by the team to encourage the sustainable behaviours as part of work, study and home life. Maev Moran, Communications and Campaigns Assistant, oversees the delivery of these initiatives: “We have found that audiences respond more positively and proactively to messages of empowerment than to negative messages. Be The Change, a scheme we launched in June, has quickly become the most popular ongoing initiative among University staff. It covers all areas of sustainability while making rewarding everyday actions, creating a step-by-step guide towards reducing our environmental impact both at home and in the workplace. The breadth of the scheme also means we can factor wellbeing in to our ability to have a positive impact, particularly as part of a wider community.”
5. Travel and transport
Amy Heritage is responsible for Transport at the University, including managing the University’s travel plan, facilities for people who walk or cycle to work or study, the University’s bus services (Bristol Unibus), including the new U2 bus service to Langford and initiatives/incentives to encourage behaviour change on all other modes of travel. “Our Staff and students are great at making sustainable travel choices. Our job is to make this as easy as possible.” She says that our travel plan is a key part in ensuring we are acknowledged as a good corporate citizen, and her team is looking at ways of improving the management of University vehicles and making it more attractive to replace meetings that would otherwise have required flights with video conferences.
Future plans
The team are starting the new academic year with plans for plans for efficiency savings on heating, laboratory ventilation and lighting, making sure we are compliant with new legislation, and collaborative work with Computer Science staff on how the operation of building services translates to staff and student wellbeing. There are plans for more renewable energy generation, smart controls for buildings, and adding to our electric vehicle fleet. “Once more, it’s a project about reducing our environmental impact while freeing up resources for excellent teaching and research, and staff and student wellbeing,” says Martin Wiles, “and that’s what we’re here to do.”
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This blog is written by John Brenton, Sustainability Manager in the University of Bristol’s Sustainability Team.
