Reflections on “Industrial decarbonisation where does it come from, where might it go?”

This is a repost from https://marchudson.net/

Last week I gave a seminar as part of the Sussex Energy Group’s seminar series. This was, for me, a Big Deal, because the Sussex Energy Group is a very cool collection of scholars, mostly from the Science Policy Research Unit but also from University of Sussex (the clue is in the name) more broadly.

I’d given my seminar the catchy title “Industrial decarbonisation: where does it come from, where might it go?

Attendance was good, the questions were good, it was all okay (I think). This blog post, written out of narcissism disguised as reflexivity/iterativeness, will cover (not briefly enough) the process, the product – though you could watch it here) and the outcomes. The “what would I do differently” question gets a run too.

Process

A couple of months ago I offered to do a seminar on the industrial decarbonisation project that I am a research fellow on. The date of March 8th was pinned down and I made plans to spend some time putting it together, bit by bit so it wouldn’t be a mad rush at the end.

I then of course ignored those plans. Then came the strike (a whole week, and half of a week over the next two weeks).  It was all a bit like that odd scene in Monty Python in the Holy Grail where the guards in the room are looking out the window at some guy in the distance charging towards them. He never seems to get any closer, and so they don’t do anything and then – suddenly, impossibly quickly – he is in the room killing them….

And who am I kidding – if it hadn’t been the strike, there’s have been Something Else.

So there is the Six P rule – “Proper Planning Prevents Pretty Poor Performance”

And then, in the real world – or my real world – there’s the Four Ps.

Procrastination (which is more disorganisation and fear than straight-up laziness)

Pivotting away from other important stuff I was doing (trying to get my head around clusters and their internal workings)

Productivity – Initially I thought to write my script and then do the slides. I found that a bit alien, and couldn’t sustain it, so I created the slides, and then the script. Over time I refined the slides, talked it through to myself a couple of times, consolidated some stuff. I thought about throwing the International Women’s Day stuff overboard, but then chose to keep it, and am glad I did

Panic – there wasn’t too much of this. I knew that as long as I didn’t go over time, then then it wouldn’t be a disaster.

Product

You could watch the whole thing here if you wanted.

So, after a nice introduction, there was a tolerably smooth 30 minute talk, which covered a lot of ground.  I put in a “questions of clarification” moment about halfway through, but nobody availed themselves, so I ploughed on to the end

There was then about 25 minutes for questions (I absolutely hate those talks where someone says they are going to leave plenty of time for questions and then they keep going and going and there’s only time for two or at most three.  I think it’s either rude or cowardly or both. I am sure I’ve been guilty of it in the past, but at least on the 8th I was not).

Immediate Outcome

Some really good questions (which I could have answered more clearly and concisely)

I also got sent two very useful sources, one known and one not.

Hydrogen Enabling Green Hydrogen: Industrial Policy, Certification Systems, and Inclusiveness (irena.org)

Green hydrogen for industry: A guide to policy making (irena.org)

And a reminder of a paper called “Moving policy implementation theory forward: A multiple streams/critical juncture approach” by Michael Howlett, 2019 (sagepub.com)

As a semi-direct outcome of delivering the seminar, I also am now supervising a Masters dissertation (my first, and here’s me without an actual Masters myself…)

Doing the seminar also contributed to further discussion between me and the PI about the project, which is now significantly different (in an improved way).

Next time

I should

  • improve my image creation skills – there was a slide which created confusion about windows and entanglements
  • get more confident with screen sharing so that I don’t dump any work on anyone else.

And voila,  it turns out that I will be doing another seminar in October – will let you know. Right now I am pretending that it will be 6Ps instead of 4Ps.  Wouldn’t it be pretty to think so.

Coda

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The Sussex Energy Group Research Showcase: March 8–22

The Sussex Energy Group Research Showcase in March will focus on two exciting research projects led by the Sussex Energy Group at the University of Sussex . The series will outline IDRIC’s insights on the politics of decarbonisation processes in the UK, and JUSTNORTH’s work on the energy transition and its prospective impact on Artic communities.

You can see the full list of events below, and we hope to see many of you there.

Industrial decarbonisation: where does it come from, where might it go?
Mar 8 13.00-14.00

Marc Hudson outlines the University of Sussex IDRIC project looking at the politics of industrial decarbonisation policy in the UK.

This seminar will explain the processual approach they are taking to examine how five overlapping policy domains – climate, energy, industrial strategy, regional strategy, innovation strategy.- came to be spoken of in the same sentence. He will share some initial findings, and offer reflections on how industrial decarbonisation will be shaped by the policy histories and the ongoing mobilisation of political, economic and cultural interests at sub-national, national and international levels.

JUSTNORTH – The energy transition and justice in the Arctic: Part 1
Mar 15 13.00-14.00

JUSTNORTH is an EU Horizon 2020 project which investigates the ways in which the multitude of ethical systems that coexist in the Arctic can be used as a critical element for assessing the viability of new economic activities (including energy development) in the region.

Part I will focus on the barriers to the ongoing energy transition:

• “Stranded Assets, Path Dependencies & Carbon Lock-in: Short/Medium/Long Term Implications of Oil & Gas Development in the Russian, Norwegian and U.S. Arctic ” by Anna Badyina and Roman Sidortsov (SPRU) and

• “Corporate Cultures & Geopolitical Aspirations: Exploring Socio-Political Barriers to the Energy Transition in Russia & Norway” by Darren McCauley (Erasmus University of Rotterdam).

JUSTNORTH – The energy transition and justice in the Arctic: Part 2
Mar 22 13.00-14.00

This is part two of a two-part seminar series based on the results of JUSTNORTH, an EU Horizon 2020 project.

Part II of the series will focus on the opportunities for the energy transition in the High North, as well as the challenges that come with these opportunities. The following three presentations will comprise the second seminar:

• “Sustainable Digitisation & Resilient Communities: Low Carbon Data Centres in Greenland, Iceland & Norway” by Chukwuka Monyei (SPRU)

• “Renewable and Ethical?: Motivation for Wind Power Resistance in Sápmi & the Norwegian Arctic” Ragnhild Freng Dale (Western Norway Research Institute)

• “Liabilities into Assets—Reviving Post-Industrial Communities Through Repurposing Industrial Infrastructures in the Swedish Arctic” by Anna Badyina (SPRU) and Timothy Scarlett (Michigan Technological University)

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10 Recommendations for Direct Air Carbon Deployment Policy in Europe

These ten recommendations were submitted as Supplemental Testimony to the Technological Innovations and Climate Change: Negative Emissions Technologies Inquiry held by the UK Parliament’s Environment Audit Committee in January 2022.

Follow the Bellona Principles

Principle 1 is to emphasize collection of CO2 from the atmosphere. Principle 2 is to store it in a manner intended to be permanent – see also the need to prioritize utilisations which are more durable.  Principle 3 is that monitoring, reporting, and verification approaches must look at all upstream and downstream emissions (regarding both the full life cycle of the product or process and along supply chains), as well as to comprehensively estimate and include them in the balance.  Principle 4 is, at the end of the day, to remove more CO2 than is emitted. 

Prioritize long-term carbon storage and ensure robust life cycle assessment

Removal and long-term storage of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere should take precedence over less durable/stable utilizations of removed carbon.  Utilisation should focus on where it is important to move away from fossil carbon to sustainable carbon, for example, feedstock for building materials (e.g. concrete) or in synthetic aviation fuels in the scope of  Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) mandates.  . 

Appreciate and incentivise scale

Set an aspirational objective of 5 million tonnes per year for permanent carbon removals by 2030. Move towards large-scale demonstration for first-of-a-kind installations, with possible domestic matching support from the EU Innovation Fund and Breakthrough Energy Catalyst, or the Energy Systems Catapult in the UK.

Co-develop with upscaling for CO2 transportation and storage infrastructure

New Direct Air Carbon Capture and Storage (DACS) approaches rely on much of the same energy, storage, and utilization infrastructures as point-source carbon capture – which was already introduced to climate policy in 2005, and upscaling of which has been slow to date. Deploying DACS requires building out open access CO2 transportation and storage infrastructure.  It also adds financial longevity to pipelines, given it is a growing industry.

Phase in a robust, reliable carbon price

Carbon is ultimately a waste product, with a limited scale of cascading uses, and as such needs to be treated, and adequately priced, as a pollutant.  Waste removal must be treated as a public good, or it will not occur.  DACS deployment therefore demands a suitably high carbon price to provide a signal to markets and encourage innovation, upscaling, and economies of scale – such activities and aims must be underpinned by strong government funding, incentives, and regulation. 

Ensure coupling with locally appropriate and renewable sources of electricity and heat

DACS should be subject to robust life cycle assessment to ensure its full climate-mitigation potential to be served – and to avoid social legitimacy issues. Innovative couplings of direct air capture with hydroelectricity in Canada and Norway and with geothermal energy in Iceland are already being developed, along with potential couplings with wind energy in Texas and solar energy in New Mexico. Regional deployment across the UK must consider other geographically relevant couplings with renewable energy, possibly in line with the devolved powers, for instance with wind energy in Scotland or even tidal and marine energy in North Wales.

Harness hub deployment

CO2 storage is only available to certain countries. Hubs and spokes can be utilized to transport and store CO2, including through the kind of “Projects of Common Interest” approach utilized for renewable energy facilities, cross-border electric transmission networks, or smart grids.  Open access could be created for CO2 transportation and storage infrastructure, with possible support based on Trans-European Networks for Energy Regulation, or the Levelling Up agenda in the UK. Multiple modalities may be needed to transport CO2. In general, support of regional DACS hubs, for purposes of research, development, and deployment, also offer the means for promoting a just transition and levelling up of regions previously linked to fossil fuels.

Maintain separate targets, metrics, and emissions baskets between permanent carbon removal and conventional-emissions reductions

In order to prevent fungibility between measurements of carbon removal and mitigation activities and avoid the impression that the former can be understood to substitute for the latter.  In particular, ensure ‘residual’ emissions from ‘hard-to-abate’ sectors are robustly calculated, as these will demand the first slice of promised permanent engineered carbon removal. This could be one of the next big ‘gaming the metrics’ arenas by exacerbating the double-counting and limited additionality of emission reductions. Net targets must therefore be accompanied by ambitious mitigation action in the near term and safeguards for the role of high-integrity, permanent engineered carbon removal.

Embrace robust certification for carbon removal and integrate into compliance frameworks

This could be achieved through a system for the monitoring and management of captured CO2, through earth systems, along supply chains, and between sectors. Certification should be sufficiently granular to differentiate on the source of CO2 and the degree of permanence of the storage.  Robust certification is essential given the narrow timeline for climate mitigation and so that integration into compliance frameworks for high-integrity, sufficiently permanent carbon removals can be attained by 2025.

Recognize the criticality of social acceptance

DACS will not thrive in areas where it does not have a social license to operate.  Germany and Austria offer examples where the issue of CO2 storage is fraught, limiting the potential for transportation and storage services up to the North Sea. Public and regulatory engagement in line with the principles of a just transition and devolved powers is thus crucial for building legitimacy. This connects back to the need for a hub strategy adjacent to the pursuit of levelling up whereby carbon can be transported out of areas where storage may not be possible, and generally to develop a novel supply chain for a post-carbon society.

Benjamin K. Sovacool, PhD Professor, University of Sussex and Aarhus University

Helen Bray, PhD European Policy Director Carbon Engineering Ltd. EU Transparency Register: 598986244386-27

Dr. Amy Ruddock, VP Europe Carbon Engineering Ltd.

Chad Baum, PhD Research Fellow in Negative Emissions Policy Aarhus University

Sean Low PhD Research Fellow in Negative Emissions Policy Aarhus University

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Matthew Lockwood appointed as co-director to Sussex Energy Group

Profile photo of Matthew Lockwood

Dr Matthew Lockwood has been announced as the new co-director of the Sussex Energy Group replacing Professor Benjamin Sovacool who steps down after five years in the post.

Dr Lockwood, a political economy of climate and energy policy expert and former adviser to the UK government and Greater London Authority, will join Dr Mari Martiskainen and Dr Marie Claire Brisbois as SEG co-directors with effect from 1 January 2022.

Highly Cited Researcher Prof Sovacool will retain his Professorship of Energy Policy within the University of Sussex Business School and research projects including his co-directorship of the £20 million Industrialisation Decarbonisation Research and Innovation Centre (IDRIC) established earlier this year.

Established in 1971, The Sussex Energy Group aims to understand and foster transitions towards sustainable, low carbon energy systems and sits within the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) – one of the world’s leading science and technology think tanks.

Drawing on the SPRU traditions, the group undertakes academically rigorous, interdisciplinary and world-leading research that is relevant to contemporary policy challenges and also educates the next generation of energy policy professionals through MSc and PhD programmes.

Dr Lockwood, Senior Lecturer in Energy Policy in the Science Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex Business School, said: “I am honoured to be joining the team running the Sussex Energy Group, which has thrived under Benjamin Sovacool’s excellent leadership. There is an urgent agenda for this vibrant community of researchers, with its huge combined expertise. We face multiple challenges in the UK and globally, from managing spikes in energy prices to phasing out coal use, from ensuring justice in transitions to decarbonising heat and industry. I look forward to working with the group on all of these and more.”

Prof Sovacool, Professor of Energy Policy in the Science Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex Business School, said: “It has been an immense privilege directing the Sussex Energy Group for more than half a decade. I can’t think of a stronger group around the world that does excellent, interdisciplinary, rigorous social science on energy and climate issues. Nevertheless, I can’t think of anyone better than Dr Matthew Lockwood to take my place. His knowledge of UK and European energy policy is exceptional, and I am confident he has the skills to allow SEG to further prosper and grow.”

Dr Martiskainen, Senior Research Fellow in the Science Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex Business School, said: “I would like to thank Professor Sovacool for his leadership, inspiration and enthusiasm in leading SEG for the past five years, and wish him well in stepping down as director and focusing on new avenues. As we are witnessing a worsening energy and cost of living crisis in the UK, Dr Lockwood brings extensive and invaluable policy expertise that will help guide our future direction particularly in terms of research impact.”

Dr Brisbois, Senior Lecturer in Energy Policy in the Science Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex Business School, said: “As Director of the Sussex Energy Group, Professor Sovacool has encouraged, and often led, the development of a broad research agenda into the pressing energy issues of our time. He has helped to foster the development of a new generation of scholars, many of whom have found a permanent home within the SEG. His focus and commitment will be missed, but I look forward to his continued participation as a regular member of the energy group. At the same time, I would like to welcome Dr Lockwood to the Co-Director team. His experience and expertise in academia and policy paves the way for a new wave of SEG contributions to ongoing energy challenges.”

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The conundrums of delivering low-carbon heating – TIPC blog repost

This blog is reposted from the Transformative Innovation Policy Consortium’s Making the Green Deal Happen blog series.

Decarbonising the heating in people’s homes is one of the trickiest areas of the climate transition. The European Commission’s Renovation Wave strategy highlighted the range of actions needed. Here Professor Martin Freer, Director of the Birmingham Energy Institute, discusses the options and difficulties governments and citizens face in the UK in making this transition, difficulties that are present in many other European countries.

Introduction

The passing of COP26 reveals just how challenging it is going to be to get to Net Zero with plenty of warm words, but specific, targeted and measurable actions being hard to come by. The art is a Net Zero transition which creates investment, jobs and economic growth. Perhaps the even more complex challenge is a managed transition in which the consumer, and voter, becomes an active participant. The decarbonisation of electricity to some extent has been done behind the scenes, as grid scale coal is transformed to grid scale wind and solar. As long as the grid does not become unstable, then the consumer does not notice a change.

However, other arenas of decarbonisation intrude more directly on the consumer through visible changes to established practices.  In some cases, such as the electric car, despite requiring a point of purchase decision, it is facilitated by the knowledge that sale of internal combustion engine vehicles is to be ended, that there is some kudos associated with electric vehicles and, for some, only the minor inconvenience of installing a home charging point.  In other areas the changes are more complex and in the absence of imaginative public policy appear far more challenging.  A significant illustration of this is domestic heating.

Decarbonising Heating

For countries with a non-interventionist political philosophy, such as the UK, decarbonisation of heating has been left to last. The UK has a fairly miserable housing stock in terms of energy efficiency, though improving. It has 28 million homes with 17 million (60%) below Energy Performance Certificate rating C, on a descending scale from A-G. Heating accounts for one third of all CO2 emissions, homes 20%. The UK relies almost exclusively on gas powered central heating systems with condensing boilers which, often as not, are installed such that they do not deliver optimal performance. This places the UK near the bottom of the pile in Europe in terms of the carbon intensity of domestic heating.

1: District heating networks.

There seem to be three main choices when it comes to low, or zero, carbon heating solutions. The Nordic civic model, in countries such as Sweden, Denmark and Finland has led to well-developed district heating systems which supply centrally generated heat through pipes delivering hot water or steam. Such systems have the ability to capture waste industrial process heat and heat generated from waste incinerators. The Amager Bakke energy from waste plant in Copenhagen able to heat 150,000 homes is an example of the art of the possible. Many UK cities, Birmingham being an exemplar, have district heating systems but these are mainly limited in connectivity to municipal buildings. This highlights the development challenge for district heating systems; the prevailing UK model needs a large anchor customer, otherwise the business case to develop the network does not exist.

The other pressing challenge with district heating is that it is often they powered by combined heat and power engines (CHP) which burn natural gas. This means they are not particularly low-carbon and making them zero carbon is not trivial. Moreover, the waste heat sources they connect to, e.g. waste incinerators, are not free from carbon emissions either and as the waste processing sector diversifies and develops, the way in which waste is used to produce energy and heat will evolve. At the very least carbon capture from incinerators will be required. The UK discussion around zoning may be the way ahead for the development of future district heating networks and overcoming the need for a large anchor customer. A level of mandation or incentivisation for consumers to connect to a district heating system will aggregate demand delivering an investable proposition. Consumer choice may be a casualty.

2: Green hydrogen

The UK is also toying with the idea that large scale, green hydrogen could pave the wave for heat decarbonisation. This would be a simple household intervention with a modification to the burner within the gas boiler and in principle much of the more modern parts of the gas network are hydrogen ready. This solution is attractive to government as it is a straightforward reconfiguration of an existing network.  And in a parallel to the decarbonisation of the electricity grid the switch for the consumer is easy. The main issue is the volume of green hydrogen required and the cost of producing it. Electrolysis is the main solution at present for green hydrogen production, and the efficiency of an electrolyser is about 70%, meaning that every unit of electricity produces less than the equivalent unit of heat energy. Electric resistance heating is essentially 100% efficient and so in energy terms alone it would make sense to use the electricity that would go to an electrolyser directly to an electric heater in the home.

3: Heat Pumps

A third option is the use of electricity powered heat pumps. Heat pumps work by pumping heat from one place to another, e.g. from the outside of a home to inside. Perhaps surprisingly, they can even work at very low temperatures to extract residual heat from the environment, e.g. the air, water or ground. The beauty of a heat pump is that they can have efficiencies of up to 300%, i.e. one unit of electrical energy can deliver three units of heat energy. Norway is a country that has championed the installation of heat pumps and indeed the greatest penetration of heat pumps in Europe is in Scandinavian countries. The majority of those installed in Norway are reversible – they can do cooling as well as heating.  They are also primarily air to air systems and do not rely on a ‘wet’ radiator system to distribute heat around the home.  Reversible heat pumps are the most commonly installed type of heat pump in Europe. The UK, on the other hand, has mainly wet heating systems. In other words, the heat is transported from the gas boiler around the house to radiators via hot water pipes. This means the that the most simple transformation is the installation of a ground source or air source heat pump connected to the hot water system.

The solution to decarbonising heat then seems pretty obvious; install heat pumps. So why isn’t it happening? The answer in the UK is it is just too hard and too expensive. Heat pumps cost over 5 times the cost of a gas boiler and given the poor thermal efficiency of typical (60%) homes installation needs to be accompanied by major investment in thermal efficiency improvements in order not to leave the homeowner in the cold. This means major interventions into the home which could last several days and require significant changes to the appearance of the building, inside and out. Typically, people replace their boiler at the point of the previous one breaking, a distress purchase, and hence will not wait for lengthy home energy efficiency improvements for their heating and hot water system to be restored.

Need for Government Action

The cost and inconvenience means that this is not going to be a consumer led transition and that there is a need for government to take a proactive role. The UK government released its Heat and Building strategy in October 2021. The reception was tepid at best. There is no mandatory end date for gas boiler installation; there is no complementary package of efficiency upgrades linked to low-carbon heating appliance; and there is no mandate on energy companies to install a quota of heat pumps. There is instead enough funding to pay for 90,000 heat pump installations in a country of 28 million homes and a proposed requirement that manufacturers produce low-carbon heating appliances, which there is a danger no one will buy.

The success of countries in the North of Europe points the way. Investment in infrastructure is key and ensuring that the costs of electric heat pump installation and running costs are competitive with gas is crucial. The price of gas has for a long time been a barrier to change and the addition of the UK government’s own policy costs associated with decarbonisation of electricity have been put on the price of electricity. Stronger intervention is required and the time for some hard decisions is now.

The politics of the low carbon transition needs creative solutions which combine technical realities with feasible transition pathways for consumers and citizens.  The policy players who rise to this challenge and escape from old habits will set the pace in the decade ahead. The aspiration to keep on a plausible track to minimise global warming depends on it.


Professor Martin Freer is Director of the Birmingham Energy Institute

This blog is produced by TIPC and partner, EIT Climate-KIC

The editors of this blog series are Fred Steward, Emeritus Professor, School of Architecture and Cities, University of Westminster, London; and Jon Bloomfield, Systems Innovation Policy Advisor, Climate Innovation Ecosystems, the European Institute of Technology’s Climate Knowledge & Innovation Community (EIT Climate-KIC).

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The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the individual authors and do not represent Sussex Energy Group.

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