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The potential role of science and technology in determining future energy strategies



while the GO-Science organised this workshop and commissioned the associated state-of-science papers, the views in this document reflect those of the participants at the workshop and discussions with the authors of the state-of-science papers, and do not constitute government policy.

Based on a workshop convened on 5 July 2006 by the UK Government's GO-Science Foresight Horizon Scanning Centre and on discussions with authors of the state-of-science papers

Table of contents

Executive summary

Introduction

In order to consider how science and technology could help meet future energy challenges, the GO-Science Foresight Horizon Scanning Centre convened a workshop on 5 July 2006. Each presentation was supported by a detailed state-of-science paper. These papers are available online and this report does not reproduce their results. In commissioning the papers, it was not our intention to provide exhaustive detail but to give a robust overview of current options and future possibilities for increasing energy efficiency, reducing demand, and turning to new, low-carbon technologies.

Key points from discussions

The UK is not yet on a trajectory to meet its voluntary target to reduce CO2 emissions by 60% by 2050. Since there will also be a potential further shortfall of low-carbon energy generation when current nuclear power plants come offline in the next decade, there is an urgent need to determine new energy strategies.

An important theme to emerge from this workshop was the challenge of changing people's behaviours and the consequent role for the social sciences in developing future energy strategies. Even though there have been many improvements in efficiency of energy generation and use in recent years, overall use is rising. This is because the increases in efficiency coupled with increased gross national product (GNP) tend to drive the urge to consume more energy, particularly in the transport sector. The social sciences will need to be fully integrated with the physical and technological sciences to help address what lies behind this culture of increasing energy consumption and to identify what potential policy levers might help to reverse the trend.

Some technologies for providing low-carbon energy are already on the horizon. These include:

  • wind. The UK is already providing some 1.7 gigawatts (GW) of energy through large-scale wind farms, most of which comes from onshore installations. Challenges for increasing onshore capacity include improved approaches to planning applications to enlist local approval and co-operation and, in the longer term, improvements in energy storage technology. The UK also has considerable potential to make use of offshore wind resources, but the remoteness and harshness of the environment makes this option more difficult to exploit. Currently some 300 megawatts (MW) come from offshore wind facilities, and more applications are under consideration. However, there are fears that the impetus for offshore facilities appears to have stalled in recent months. Wind energy could also become important on a domestic scale, with individual turbines on homes and public buildings, although this approach is currently in its infancy.
  • carbon capture and storage (CCS). This could enable the UK to use its remaining reserves of fossil fuels such as coal, while removing and burying the CO2 emissions before they can reach the atmosphere. Many delegates in the workshop saw this as an excellent bridging technology to move from fossil fuels to inherently low-carbon alternatives. Challenges include the relatively high cost of capture, and setting up legal frameworks for storage.
  • nuclear fission. Delegates believed that nuclear fission would form part of the UK's future energy portfolio in the near and medium term, though they recognised that there are risks that need to be managed. Any new plants built would be 'Generation III' reactors; designs like the European Pressurised Water Reactor (EPR) and the Westinghouse AP1000. Both of these designs are available now, although neither has yet been used on a commercial scale. They both offer economic and safety benefits over existing reactors operating in the UK. Another possibility would be the South African Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR), which is gas cooled, can operate at higher temperatures and has the additional safety benefit that the core cannot melt down. This design is at an earlier stage of development and will not be available commercially for several years.
  • marine renewables. The UK has considerable potential to develop its offshore wind and wave resources for low-carbon generation. There are no technological barriers and some prototypes are already in place. Challenges include accurately predicting the capacity of the available resource, and possible technical and social barriers to transporting the electricity generated from remote areas to centres of demand.
  • bioenergy and biofuels. The UK generates over 80% of its renewable energy from biological sources, in particular from burning landfill gases and municipal waste. There is considerable potential to generate more electricity from additional waste products such as wood shavings, as well as for growing specialist energy crops on agricultural land that is currently set aside. Biological sources could also provide the means for generating liquid fuels for use in transport. Challenges include the suitability of the available land for growing such crops, the need to develop new crops that are more energy efficient, the social and biological effects on the landscape of a reduction in the biodiversity of agricultural crops and the potential negative effect of climate change on agricultural conditions such as the availability of water.
  • combined heat and power (CHP). The heat generated by electricity power plants is generally wasted. CHP technology allows the heat to be collected and delivered directly to end users through a local heat network. In principle, this could allow large industrial sites to do away with their boiler plants, and thus achieve a considerable saving in carbon emissions. Some industrial sites are already close enough to power plants for this to be feasible in the near future. However, the challenge for CHP remains the need to have power plants and end users sited sufficiently close together, and also to have a larger number of smaller power plants than in the present infrastructure. In the future, CHP could also be useful for delivering heat to district heating networks, which could supply individual towns with their heat.
  • microgeneration. Individual homes or buildings could generate some of their energy requirements on site by using small-scale CHP units, solar thermal cells, integrated wind turbines and photovoltaic solar panels. Small CHP units will soon be on the market. Costs are one factor limiting the take-up of microgeneration. Other issues are the need for developments in electricity and heat storage technology, and a more flexible electricity grid network.

Some technologies for generating low-carbon energy might form part of the UK's energy portfolio towards the middle of the century and beyond. These include:

  • nuclear fission: Generation IV reactors. An international collaboration initially spearheaded by the US, aims to develop a new generation of nuclear power plants, loosely termed 'Generation IV reactors'. Among other options, the research will explore alternative coolants for the reactors, and will re-investigate the possibility of using so-called 'fast' reactors. These make it possible to use the otherwise inactive uranium-238 as direct fuel, which would enable existing uranium reserves to be exploited for considerably longer periods than is currently possible. They would also make it possible in principle to destroy long-duration radioactive waste on site, thereby eliminating one of the more contentious issues surrounding nuclear fission.
  • hydrogen and fuel cells. The idea behind the so-called 'hydrogen economy' is that hydrogen is produced using a low-carbon energy source (probably solar or nuclear, or fossil fuel with carbon capture) and is then either stored or transported for use in fuel cells and internal combustion engines. The fuel cell generates power, and the only sizeable emission is water. Attractions are that hydrogen could be used as a storage medium for energy generated by intermittent renewable sources, and that hydrogen-fuelled vehicles are 'clean'. The technology is now reasonably advanced, though not yet in commercial operation. Significant difficulties lie in identifying the technologies for producing sufficient supplies of hydrogen, in finding effective devices for storage and, if it is to be used to power vehicles, in developing safe, effective and energy-efficient methods for its transportation and distribution. The compression of hydrogen or its conversion to liquid form are both expensive and potentially explosive. A solid-state storage medium such as a rare-earth hydride might be able to soak up enough hydrogen to be effective, but such a material has not yet been discovered.
  • photovoltaic cells. Solar panels made up of photovoltaic cells generate electricity directly from sunlight and could be a powerful alternative to fossil fuels. However, the cost of manufacturing photovoltaic cells, using the current single-crystal silicon technology, makes them a relatively expensive option and has so far limited their widespread use in the UK. Continuing increases in the cost of conventional fuels might make existing photovoltaic technology more competitive. If not, then it will require a breakthrough in materials to find an alternative to the single-crystal silicon if photovoltaic energy is to fulfil its potential.
  • nuclear fusion. Like photovoltaic cells, nuclear fusion has the capacity, in theory, to provide an infinite source of energy with virtually no undesirable carbon or radioactive emissions. The Joint European Torus in the UK (which is currently the world's largest fusion device) has already produced 16 MW of fusion power for short periods of time by confining gas in a magnetic 'bottle' and heating it to over 100 million ˆ°C. However, a fusion power station will need to be some ten times this size and operate round the clock. An international consortium is about to begin constructing an experimental device on the scale of an eventual power station. A materials test facility will also be built to design and test materials capable of withstanding the extreme conditions of temperature and pressure inside a fusion reactor. Given the necessary breakthroughs, particularly in material design, commercial fusion power could be available within the next 40 or 50 years. Most delegates felt that efforts made to develop fusion are worthwhile, given the potential benefits and the way the cost is spread between nations.

Another aspect of future energy strategies will be improvements in efficiency of energy use, and reductions in demand:

  • industrial energy use. UK industry has a good record for reducing energy usage, though this is partly due to the shift from heavy to lighter industries in recent decades. Some technologies are already available to provide immediate further improvements. These include variable speed drives for motors; the use of CHP systems to obtain heat directly from power plants; and internal 'heat cascading' to use waste heat from individual industrial processes to feed other processes within the same plant. Price is currently an issue for the variable speed motors, but all three technologies will be, in principle, available in the immediate future.
  • buildings and domestic energy use. New technologies for high-efficiency appliances and low-carbon building materials will be important in this sector. However, the most significant factor will be changing hearts and minds to reduce overall demand, as even existing technologies such as insulation are not being fully exploited. This will require moves to make low-energy usage fashionable (see above). Some technologies exist to assist in this process. For instance, smart, prominent meters that show consumers, in real time, relative energy use can be effective in encouraging more economical energy usage.
  • transport. Delegates agreed that this sector presents a big challenge. There is a very strong association between increased GNP and increased travel, including journeys by private vehicle and international journeys by plane. This is especially worrying, given that there are no immediate prospects for a new, low-carbon transport fuel. Hydrogen fuel cells might become effective towards the middle of the century, although there is some scepticism as to the likelihood of overcoming the practical obstacles referred to above. Biofuels can provide some respite for carbon emissions from cars, buses and perhaps trains. But there are as yet no alternatives even mooted for planes. Once again, the main approach to this sector seems to be finding ways to change people's habits and break the link between higher GNP and more travel (see above).

The development of future energy strategies will depend on the development of a number of supporting technologies:

  • new materials. These represent the most important developments. This area of research will underpin almost every aspect of new energy technology. In the immediate future, new materials are required for making turbines that are lighter weight and can operate at more efficient temperature regimes; low-energy forms of lighting such as light-emitting diodes (LEDs); more effective carbon-capture devices, etc., and in the future they could be required for making more effective hydrogen fuel cells, finding effective methods for generating, transporting and - especially - storing large amounts of hydrogen; new, cheaper photovoltaic cells; and containment walls for the high temperatures and pressures involved in nuclear fusion. One challenge is to ensure that enough funding is available and enough new students are attracted to this area.
  • storage devices. Many of the potential replacements for fossil fuels involve intermittent generation of electricity. This use will be greatly assisted by the development of effective storage devices, which could include scaled-up lithium batteries, electrochemical super-capacitors, simple flywheels, and, in the longer term, fuel cells. The amount of space taken up by the new storage devices, their efficiencies and costs are all important challenges.
  • network technology. More flexible electricity supply networks will be necessary in conjunction with generation sources such as renewables, which have intermittent sources of supply. Adaptive networks could also help to flatten out the peak demand that bedevils UK supply requirements.
  • Finally, an important point was raised about the economics of developing new technologies. An unforeseen consequence of liberalisation of the UK energy market is that energy research and development funding has plummeted. There was some discussion around the issue of considering energy funding of research and development as a 'public good' rather than as a private commodity, setting up public research laboratories and perhaps involving international collaboration. The delegates therefore welcomed the recent Treasury announcement of the creation of the Energy Technologies Institute.