I published my thoughts on delivering net zero in a series for The Chemical Engineer over the last couple of years. Recently net zero has reached the metaphorical status of a culture war, not least because of the cost, impacting consumers, businesses and industry alike.
The almost universal solution for net zero energy is deployment of renewables and electrification of everything; renewables because they are cheap, and electrification because it offers efficiency. However, as always, the devil is in the detail, and without full system analysis, generalisations can lead to grossly optimistic solutions. Furthermore, policy makers under-estimate the scale of our transition, and I will look to McKinsey’s latest energy study to identify trends.
In my presentation I will explore these headwinds and the public perceptions which are moving political aspirations, and industry’s response. I will also explain that solutions must be geographic, addressing the characteristics of the sun and wind belts. Further they must consider long duration energy storage, which is both market and energy source dependent.
I will conclude by addressing the importance of hydrogen to northern Europe, as it can be stored at scale and offer users more flexibility. In turn we must also look to see what chemical and gas process engineers can do to liberate a plan which can reduce costs through reutilisation of existing infrastructure and engineering skills, rather than building or creating new.
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