Through the queens speech the coalition government announced a series of energy market reforms, in the form of the energy bill, that they hope will provide an adrenaline boost to the flagging industry, mainly in the form of complex subsidies. However, as has been apparent with most announcements regarding the energy industry from the government, there are still large areas of policy shrouded in mystery.

The system the government is trying to implement works around low-carbon electricity (from renewable or nuclear sources) can sign long-term contracts to supply at a preferential rate, so effectively legislating against carbon emissions. While this on the face of things looks like a step in the right direction the head of climate change at WWF-UK had some harsh criticism of the legislation, while saying it was a step in the right direction he indicated that it did not nearly go far enough.

One significant implication of the legislation is that it will effectively subsidise the Nuclear Industry as it is a low carbon source of electricity, which is at odds with the coalition agreement, that there would be no state subsidies for nuclear power. Incentives have been shared across, what the government has been to classify as, low-carbon industries; though surely a worry is that the renewable industry will be stifled in the UK, compared against more established technologies.

If we take a look at the German Company Strabag’s development of serialised wind turbine installations, and the speed of that development, we can see what can be achieved focus is placed on renewable energy. This goes to highlight that while the renewable industry is growing in this country at a very healthy rate more can be achieved with greater support.

The Nuclear industry by its very nature is a slow developing beast with small evolutionary design changes targeted towards safety rather than taking revolutionary design steps. This approach being taken to ensure that we have the safest plants possible, as we are dealing with radiation sources after all. If we take a look at the development on the EPR plant at Flamenville in France we can see how slow Nuclear can progress.

The government is worried, and so should we all, about the impending likelihood of black outs and, with the nuclear renaissance faltering, needed to promote growth within the energy sector. With the energy bill they hope to achieve that, unfortunately as the bill seems to be lacking in detail in some areas and over complex in others, the likelihood of success is uncertain.

The future energy balance in the UK must be made up from a mixture of renewable and nuclear in order to be anywhere near the targets set for 2050 on reducing carbon emissions and we must develop a smart grid in order to deliver electricity to where it is needed. That is why clear direction is needed from the government on such issues and while the UK may not ever be a major contributor to global nuclear technology we still have the opportunity to be world leading in renewable/clean technology .

Also posted @ therenewablefuture.

Once again it’s time to look at my five favourite engineering stories from around the internet. This week I’m pointing you to articles on building colonies in space, seventies-style, how engineers can save the British Isles from water disparity, the experience of working in Government for a sustainable energy engineer, how the film “Dr No” apparently killed nuclear’s image and, of course, to mining asteroids.

Colonies in space

If the TV shows, films and books of 50s and 60s were to be believed, by now we should be living like the Jetson’s, flying our space-cars and getting our nourishment from pills. Whilst the images on TV and in comics were fanciful, one book went out of it’s way to make a business and engineering case for the construction of orbiting colonies.

“Colonies in Space” by T. A. Heppenheimer, published in 1977, went into extraordinary detail of both the engineering and societal requirements for building space colonies, complete with fabulous period illustrations and diagrams.

This book has now been released online in its entirety on the website of the “National Space Society“. Head over there and see what the future might still look like.

Engineering can save us from drought

James Dyson argues in the Telegraph that just as the Victorians engineered their way out of the terrible problems presented by poor sanitation via the construction of the enormous sewers, we can now engineer our way out of the disparity between rainfall and consumption requirements across the UK. He goes on to add, that we should look at our water consumption and take serious steps to reduce it.

Sustainability by numbers

David MacKay’s book “Sustainable energy without the hot air” brought some much needed rationality to the renewable energy debate. Impressively and very usefully, the entire book is available free online in a variety of formats.

More recently he’s been working for the British government to advise on energy policy. In this month’s issue of the the IMechE’s Professional Engineering magazine, he discusses his experiences in working in government and how his viewpoint has changed and evolved since working there.

Dr No killed the nuclear industry’s image

The Royal Society of Chemistry have blamed the James Bond film “Dr No” for destroying the public’s previously positive image of nuclear power. In 1962. Head over to Power Engineering International where the absurdity of this statement is tackled and followed by a train of James Bond villain puns…

Mining asteroids

I couldn’t let this week’s news round-up pass without mentioning the James Bond villain-esque-meets-Jetson’s plan to mine asteroids by a billionaire. Yet like James Cameron exploring the oceans and Richard Branson blasting off on Virgin Galactic, I’m rather glad that we have billionaires who want to push the boundaries. Head on over to The Engineer magazine to read Stuart Nathan’s amusing and positive peace on the subject.

That’s your lot for this week. Let us know what you think in the comments and check back again this time next week for another news round up!

Right, I’m off to plot my path to world and galactic domination. I shall be in my space colony if anybody needs me.

This week the UK government announced a new initiative to promote the development of Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS) technology, after the total flop of the last scheme. The CCS roadmap can be split into three distinct parts: the first provides research and development funding, the second grants for the construction of plants and the third funds the running costs, which makes this an attractive scheme for industries looking to develop CCS.

Heralded by the government and fossil fuel companies as a panacea for CO₂ reduction; they say it’ll enable polluting fossil fuel plants to run with ‘zero’ carbon emissions (an 80-90% reduction), a view many will question. Now I will try and answer some key questions: what are the merits of CSS, will it actually work on an industrial scale and what part does it have to play in reducing global warming and aiding theUK in meeting its 2020 and 2050 targets?

As you may know, the idea behind CCS technology in power generation is to enable the stripping of CO₂ from the emissions from fossil fuel fired power plants (pre or post combustion) and to then store it , normally very deep underground or under the sea. The technology behind CCS is largely unproven on an industrial scale and the storage component is an unknown element. The injection of CO₂, and essentially the storage of CO₂, has been used to prolong the life of oil wells in enhanced oil recovery but if this method of storage is stable is unknown.

What has to be remembered is that with CCS we are still producing vast quantities of CO² by burning non-renewable fossil fuels, it doesn’t reduce emissions we’re just storing them away. We do not know how reliable the storage of CO₂ is, and whether or not it will escape or dissipate and rise to the surface adding to global warming in the future. Also, it’s virtually impossible to measure the success of the storage solution and/or any CO₂ escape from deep sea storage. This is also not to mention the problems that may be caused to the pH level of the sea and the effects that it may have on sub-sea ecosystems.

Ok, so if there are so many uncertainties surrounding CCS, and potential pitfalls, what place should it have as one possible solution to reach our 2020 and 2050 emission targets? Well while I do not under any circumstance see this as a long term solution to reducing emissions, especially as we will run out of fossil fuels before long, I do think in the short term it does have a key part to play if we want to have any hope of achieving the targets set for 2020 and 2050 as we are woefully behind with our development of low carbon and renewable energy.

While this new scheme will be welcomed by investors and will aid in meeting the UK’s targets in reducing CO₂ emissions we all have to remember that it still involves burning a fast depleting finite resource where security of supply is a significant concern. CCS isn’t the solution to climate change, or the energy gap, but it may have a supporting role.

If you’ve been reading my posts over the past couple of months, you’ll know that I’ve been involved in designing and building a whole load of bicycle-powered activities for the 22nd World Scout Jamboree (WSJ), which is currently going on near the village of Rinkaby in southern Sweden.  Well, this is the final post of my ‘mini-series’ to let you know how it finally went!

My trip to Sweden was, shall we say, a long one – starting with a 6.30am train from Sheffield, an IMechE Trustee Board meeting in London followed by a flight to Copenhagen and a train to Kristianstad in Sweden!  In any case I arrived at the WSJ site just before midnight – just in time for bed!

When we got working the next day progress was initially slow, with some quick re-designing needed to accommodate the new mountain bikes we’d been given, as well as difficulties keeping hold of our tools before they were inevitably ‘borrowed’ to be used a mile across site!  Added to having to assemble a 2m tall traditional Swedish Dala Horse (made in England), insulate an ‘airlock’ for a shipping container-come-freezer as well as come up with a hundred other ‘quick and dirty’ construction solutions across the WSJ site, for the first couple of days the bike activities did seem to be ‘at risk’!

However, once these other ‘distractions’ were out the way, we assembled a crack bike rig building team featuring:

Me! (designer and draughtsman)
Jakob (Swedish woodsman; master of all things sharp and pointy – can fashion literally anything out of a chunk of wood using only his knife)
Miles (British bloke who rather enjoys his power tools; after 27 years living in Sweden still desperately seeking a good cup of tea)
Dave (another mechanical engineer; creator of the Dala Horse!)

The air became thick with sawdust and sparks flew (yes, we bought an angle grinder to use in our workshop/tent) but after the dust settled, in no time at all (about 14 hours) we had built ourselves 10 beautifully crafted bike stands!

p.s. if anyone needs any carpentry tips, just give us a shout, ok?

With a couple of days left before the opening ceremony, we fitted our electric generators (DC motors) and attached our water heaters, LED ‘Race around the World’ maps, Scalextric set (James Bond 007 edition) and mechanical water pumps – just in time for our International Service Team (IST) to test them!  Which brings me on to a question:

“How many Scouts does it take to boil a mug of water using a bicycle, an electric motor and a small resistance heater?”

The answer: it takes EIGHT Scouts to boil a mug of water – and even then it took them almost 20 minutes in shifts to get the water to about 95C!  A perfect lesson in how we take for granted the energy we use every day, I’d say!

To try and avoid dragging this post out for too long (and it’s already pretty long!) I’ll simply finish by saying that this has been one of the most satisfying projects I’ve ever been involved with (as well as one of the most exhausting!), not only as a proper hands-on bit of engineering and manufacturing, but because of the people I’ve met and worked with.  As long as one or two of the 39000 Scouts at the Jamboree go away with some appreciation of how we use energy, how you can transform it and manipulate it and may be even decides to try building a bicycle-powered generator for themselves, I’ll be happy!

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“What do you get if you add 8 years of mechanical engineering education, Scouting, 10m of Swedish timber, a ridiculous number of nuts and bolts, some garden hose, and about 100 man-hours?”

The start of a very poor joke?  No, I’m afraid not – but let me tell you what it does make…

A few days ago I set off for Sweden to spend a weekend building a prototype of some pedal-powered rigs for the World Scout Jamboree that’s going to be held near Kristianstad in August.  I thought I’d give a quick update about how we got on…

The weekend was a long one, but after starting on Friday with three hours sleep before our flight to Stockholm, and many hours spent in Swedish electronics and hardware stores, we were ready to go!

Powered by nothing but (illicitly smuggled) Yorkshire Tea, homemade Swiss role and the finest Swedish knock-offs of a famous American biscuit brand, we worked late into Friday night, were up bright and early Saturday (which was surprisingly easy as the Sun comes up at around 3am there) for a 14 hour stint… and then did the same again on Sunday! By around 9pm, we were finished.

What did we achieve? Well, our amazing spiral pump worked like a charm.  Running some rope off the bike’s rear rim and around a pulley wheel, we were able to make the pump spin beautifully via a custom made lubricated bearing (which I definitely think qualifies me to be called a tribologist!) and chuck out some water at a pretty good rate.

Even better than that, by mounting a DC scooter motor behind the rear tyre, and through a mere £100 (~1000SEK) worth of electronics, Dave (narrating), Miles and myself were able to achieve this…

Lighting a car bulb may not seem like much, but that’s a wonderfully smoothed and controlled 12.08V output you’re witnessing there – no mean feat, I can tell you! And yes, I am the slightly delirious, haggard looking idiot holding the bulb in the video.

Whilst there are some (a lot of) design changes to be made before we build the other 5-7 rigs in Sweden next month, it just goes to show what you can do with a bit of know-how and carpentry skills (and 10m of Swedish pine, a scooter motor, some garden hosepipe and plumbing fittings).  To be honest, for some therapeutic relaxation, I can’t think of anything better than your own DIY engineering project (though I suppose I would say that!)

To keep up with our progress, follow #WSJ2011bikes or @R_Thornton on Twitter.  More news to follow…

It’s been a while since my last post, one which you perhaps may have seen about volunteering that I wrote entirely whilst on a train.  Continuing this (so far one-off) tradition of blogging on public transport, I thought I’d write about my latest exploits whilst on a train and a plane (a McDonnell Douglas MD-82 if you must know) on my way to Sweden!  Why Sweden you may ask?  To build a prototype for a set of bicycle-powered generators of course!  Why else?!

This may sound like a fairly bizarre thing to do with your weekend, but I assure you it’s all in a good cause – the good cause being the bi-annual World Scout Jamboree which is being held in August this year, somewhere near the southern Swedish town of Kristianstad!  At this point, I feel it’s only fair to point out (mainly to avoid bringing shame on such a great organisation) that I’m not a Scout, I’ve never been a Scout and chances are, never will be a Scout.  Still, I’m not one to let such small details get in the way of a bit of good ol’ fashioned engineering.

The idea behind the Jamboree is basically this: 30,000+ Scouts from around the world will descend on an unsuspecting part of southern Sweden this Summer to get involved with and take part in a number of activities over the course of the 12 day Jamboree.  In order to make this a reality, hundreds of volunteers are needed to plan, organise, co-ordinate, design and build for the event – and that’s the bit where I fit in.

A friend of mine (who, incidentally is designing and building a large, traditional Swedish Dala horse, complete with horse-related music and terrible horse-related jokes) was asked if he knew anyone who could design and build a number of bicycle-powered generators to power a number of activities, not only to give the Scouts something to do, but at the same time raise awareness of some of the issues around energy supply and sustainability.

A horse walks into a bar and the barman says, “Why the long face?”

…anyway…

The challenge: to design and build 8-10 bicycle-powered rigs (some generating electricity, others utilised purely for their mechanical energy) to provide activities for 800+ Scouts per day to try out during the 12 day Jamboree.

The solution: remains to be seen….  Having come up with some beautiful designs for bike stands and mechanical pumps (with more than a little help from groups such as Engineers Without Borders: Sheffield Branch and Magnificent Revolution) based around some wonderfully sustainable Swedish timber, I’ve just been told by ‘our man in Sweden’ that we can’t easily get hold of cheap lengths of square-section (?!) – the first of many problems, I fear!

Over the next few weeks you can expect to see a few more posts like this, hopefully featuring such rich media content as photos, audio (horse music and jokes) and videos (comedy outtakes and possibly even some Scouts on a working bike rig or two!)

So watch this space!

Keep up-to-date with all Jamboree related matters by following the official Twitter feed @Jamboree2011, as well as my own exploits by following @R_Thornton and the hashtag #WSJ2011bikes (if I remember to use it!)