In September 2009, DPA will celebrate the start of its thirtieth year of publishing with a special Anniversary Issue. Over this period of thirty years we have seen extraordinary leaps in technology that have quite simply changed the way we live – the personal computer, mobile telephony and the Internet, to mention just a few. Manufacturing industry, too, has enjoyed the benefits of remarkable technological advances, and to celebrate this, we have been asking suppliers and manufacturers to nominate products that they believe are representative of these advances for an online ‘virtual’ awards event, which we have dubbed, the DPA 30th Anniversary issue Innovation Awards.
Many companies have now made their nominations, selecting one product each from their product portfolios, which they feel deserve recognition in one or more of ten product group categories. With the competition deadline now just past and all nominations published on the DPA website, we call upon you, the readers, to spare a little of your time to vote for the product or products that you want to go forward as prime examples of technological innovation.
Simply visit the Innovations Award page on the DPA Website where you will find the ten categories of engineering and manufacturing technology, which we have identified for our competition. Beneath each of these category headings are the nominations – the companies that have chosen to take part and their nominated products.
You can vote within any or all of the ten categories but you can only make one choice per category by ticking the appropriate box. There is an option to view each candidate’s short product description to help you make your choice, but this is not a requirement of the voting procedure. The voting page is now open and we do urge you to take part. Voting remains current from now until later in July (a final date will be announced in this newsletter), so there’s plenty of time for you to think about your choices.
The results of the Innovation Awards will be announced online and in a special editorial spread to be published in the September issue of DPA.
Before I sign off this week, I thought it worth noting the publication of a new independent report on ‘clean coal’ technology published last Wednesday. The report’s authors believe that clean coal technology could bring between £2-4 bn a year into the UK economy by 2030, and support between 30,000-60,000 in jobs in engineering, manufacturing and procurement
The Futre value of coal carbon abatement technologies to UK Industry report was compiled by AEA Group, and its release coincides with the publication of the government’s consultation document ‘A framework for the development of clean coal’, which was foreshadowed by Energy and Climate Change secretary, Ed Miliband back in April. This consultation details how the Government proposes to reconcile the need to curb emissions of carbon dioxide from future coal fired power stations with the need to maintain a secure diverse energy mix. It proposes up to four government-funded, commercial-scale demonstrations of post-combustion carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, with options to support three further projects, including pre-combustion CCS demonstrations.
A lot will depend on the outcome of these demonstrations. Should they prove successful, the government wants all new coal fired power stations to implement CCS retrofits to their full capacity within five years of CCS being proven, a point that is expected to be reached by 2020.
In the event that CCS takes longer than expected to be judged proven, further measures may be needed to ensure emissions from coal are substantially reduced. These measures could include an annual cap on individual power stations’ emissions, a limit on running hours or an emissions performance standard that would limit the amount of carbon dioxide that could be emitted per unit of electricity generated. Ed Miliband believes the UK has established a lead position in this endeavour, which he made clear at the launch of the report and consultation.
“The conditions we’re proposing for new coal are the most environmentally ambitious of any country in the world, requiring the demonstration of CCS on a substantial proportion of any new power station and the 100% retrofit of CCS when it’s proven. At the same time, by providing funding for demonstrations, we can maintain coal as part of our energy mix, supporting diversity and therefore security of supply.
“By acting early, jobs will also be created as Britain develops the expertise in what could be a major new industry, with CCS projects offering the potential to form the hubs for clusters of low carbon industries. By driving the development of CCS in this country, we are also, as a country, playing an essential role in the battle against climate change.”
Well, the race is on. Mitsubishi Heavy Industry’s CCS technology is to be put to the test at a coal-fired power plant in Alabama, USA, where some 25MW of power generation capacity will capture 100,000 to 150,000 tonnes/year of carbon dioxide – and it is expected to be operational by 2011. In Britain, the first CCS project will be undertaken at ScottishPower’s huge Longannet plant, where a pilot scale facility is currently extracting carbon dioxide from 1MW of the plant’s 2.3GW generating capacity. A full CCS demonstration project at Longannet will not be operational before 2014.
Meanwhile in the rest of Europe, there’s quite a bit of dithering over what technologies to adopt, when and where funds are to be allocated and how risk is to be apportioned. The EU’s timetable looks forward to the first CCS demonstrations in mainland Europe coming on stream by 2015 – but that will depend on overcoming the inertia of the EU decision mill and the speed with which the necessary funding is put in place.
Last week, Liberal Democrat MEP, Chris Davies received the Eurelectric Award 2009 at a ceremony in Bucharest for his work on CCS and, in particular, his contribution towards the Directive on geological storage of carbon dioxide. While Mr Davies’ commitment to improving the performance of our present electricity generating infrastructure is to be applauded, in accepting the award, he took pains to remind his audience that CCS technology only offers a medium term solution that may buy the world the time it needs to develop alternative sources of electricity production.
Les Hunt
Editor