Energy Futures: An event about the Research Councils UK Energy Programme

On May, the 11^th I went to an event about the RCUK Energy Programme at the House of Commons. The event was organised by the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology and RCUK and hosted an interactive exhibition of the latest developments in UK energy research. The RCUK Energy Programme ‘Energy for a Low Carbon Future’ is currently investing over £530 million in energy research targeting a wide range of topics from the latest nuclear, maritime and wind technologies to carbon capture and storage (CCS), fuel cells, domestic retrofitting and low carbon transport.

Two highlights from this event are of interest to the CLUES Project.

First, I had an interesting discussion with Professor Jon Gibbins of University of Edinburgh about the challenge of CCS in the context of decentralised energy systems. He suggested that that there is potential for decarbonising buildings by indirect use of gas and biomass. That’s to say that instead of current decarbonisation efforts within the built environment, directed at energy efficiency and decentralised initiatives such as renewables and small-scale combined heat and power plants fuelled by natural gas or biomass, the same result could be obtained by the same fuels used in centralised plants to generate electricity that can then power heat pumps. In turn, a greater emphasis on the use of heat pumps would facilitate the use of non-fossil electricity and the future application of carbon capture and storage to reduce emissions from any centralised fossil fuel use. He also highlighted the compatibility between centralised hydrogen production with carbon capture and storage and CHP (combined heat and power) and the need for further research and understanding of combined centralised/decentralised approaches. Always interesting to look at energy decentralisation with a centralisation twist!

Second, I was interested in Professor Adisa Azapagic’s (of Manchester University) ‘sustainable nuclear energy’ decision support tool: SPRING. The tool considers a range of technological, economic, social and policy aspects employed when deploying nuclear energy. The CLUES Project also aims to deliver a tool for local authorities to support decision making on decentralised energy and so, the methodological aspects of SPRING could be relevant here. Watch out this space!

Catalina Turcu, UCL

12 May 2011