The UK government's new Industrial
Strategy is fine as far as it goes, but it lacks detail: its mainly about
abstract higher level policy, within the framework set by its new Clean Growth Strategy. It says ‘We are investing £162m in innovation for
low carbon industry, and developing a new strategy for the bio-economy. We will
work with industry to stimulate further market investment in clean and
efficient technologies and process, including through all manufacturing Sector
Deals, and through developing a new scheme to support investment
in
industrial energy efficiency’.
http://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/662541/industrial-strategy-white-paper-print-version.pdf
What we now need is to out some
industrial flesh on this broad outline- and not just in terms of products like
wind turbines and electric vehicles, but also manufacturing processes. Renewable
sources can be used to power product manufacture, but there are also some
options, perhaps surprisingly, in the primary material sector e.g. steel
production. Though that’s very energy intensive, so maybe it isn’t so
surprising, if they can cut cost by greening up. For example, the GFG Alliance has a ‘Greensteel strategy’ which aims to cut the amount
of raw steel imported to the UK by dramatically increasing the amount of scrap
steel which is recycled and use renewables for its processing. It aims to use electric
arc furnaces part-powered by renewable energy to melt scrap steel so it can be
reused, a process which is more environmentally friendly than primary
steel-making in a blast furnace powered by coal. ‘Greensteel, made using renewable energy, has only one tenth of
the carbon footprint of blast furnace production’: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/11/27/gfg-alliance-reveals-strategy-increase-uk-steel-production-5m/
There are many more similarly welcome plans. A forge in Sheffield aims to use biogas,
supplied from an anaerobic digester fed with food and other waste
from a nearby waste recycling centre: http://www.renewableenergymagazine.com/biomass/sheffield-forge-could-be-the-first-in-20171117
And up to 54 wind turbines are to
be installed at the UK’s last aluminium smelter in Scotland. The Lochaber
Smelter near Fort William is to get power from a wind farm at nearby Glenshero,
which may also supply Liberty’s Dalzell steel mill in Motherwell. That could
make some of the steel for the turbines: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/wind-turbines-scotland-smelter-steel-plants-mills-highlands-gfc-alliance-motherwell-a7932946.html
Less dramatically, there are big savings possible from a range of process efficiency upgrades,
although a recent study of 30 UK companies found that, in their investment
appraisals of energy efficiency measures, they tended to be risk averse: they
focused on short-term economic benefits and incremental changes that wouldn’t
interfere with production.
You can see why companies setting up new
plants on green field sites have the advantage- they can adopt the latest manufacturing
technology wholesale, rather than adapt the existing plant incrementally.
That’s one reason why China has done quite well in recent years. But the old
has to give way to the new everywhere. Though, in many sectors, that can be
relatively easily done by just investing in green power supply, as in the
primary materials production examples above. Although the level of innovation can get quite radical: an Australian
steel works is to have 1GW of renewable power supply, including
680MW of PV, with 100MW of batteries, 100MW of demand response and 120MW of
pumped hydro storage:
In the UK, some while back, Ford installed Ecotricity-supplied
wind turbines at the its engine plant in Dagenham in East London. Avon Docks in
Bristol did the same. And PV roof arrays are widely deployed on many industrial
warehouses and parts centres around the world- they have the roof space. And
retail companies are following suit: greening their energy use. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/energy-efficiency/renewable-energy-sources-for-businesses/
A parallel set of development options exist
in the chemical sector. As renewable electricity gets cheaper, it will be
possible to use it to produce ‘green’ hydrogen, by the electrolysis of water, then
perhaps converting that, along with biomass and/or captured carbon dioxide, into
a range of syn-fuels like methanol and other useful products. A whole new
bio-chemical industry could emerge, with ‘carbon capture and utilization’ being
one new buzz phrase . There are also interesting ideas for using cheap surplus wind-derived
electricity to make ammonia (NH3) via the Birkeland-Eyde
process, using green hydrogen and air-captured
nitrogen as feed stocks. Unlike the more familiar Haber-Bosch process used
widely for fertiliser production, this would not produce carbon dioxide.
Neither does burning ammonia, when it is used as a fuel: http://www.sonnenseite.com/en/future/fertilizing-with-wind.html
So, in addition to offering ways to avoid
fossil fuel use in industrial product manufacturing, there are a range of new options for using
renewables to make basic materials- the chemicals and metals that underpin much
of the rest of industry- and life.
Some greens will say wait a minute- even if
we can produce it with less impact, do we really want a lot more of all this
stuff? Well wind turbines need steel. So do tidal projects. And railways. You
can overdo selling this idea, but we can’t avoid the need for some metals: https://theconversation.com/nine-ways-steel-could-build-a-greener-economy-57506
And
probably also for green fuels and almost certainly for chemicals, for a wide
range of uses. What we actually do with all this then is another matter. We can
make it into war planes and bombs, or lots of frivolous junk we don’t
need. Or we can make it into socially
useful and needed things. Including green energy systems.
That
does mean there still has to be some primary extractive industry- to supply the
feedstock, e.g. metal ores and minerals. And that will need careful attention.
We will need to recycle key rare materials. We may also have to find
substitutes for stuff that really is hard to extract without causing eco-damage
e.g. using carbon fiber composites and graphene from bio-sources. But what we won’t need anymore is coal mines,
oil wells, or shale gas fracking sites- arguably the worst eco-damagers. Instead,
we can use renewables, which, in time, can supply all we need in terms of
energy, with energy return on energy invested ratios improving all the time. So
the demand for energy to make these new and better energy convertors should
reduce.
Even
so, there will still be environmental constraints to our industrial activities-
despite recycling and substitution, some key materials may be scarce, and there
will be land use conflicts, fresh water scarcity issues and so on. There are
limits to growth. So we still need to think about sustainable consumption - not
something mentioned in the UK governments strategy- which is all about endless
growth. That can’t be done on a finite planet!
A
proper green industrial strategy would of course work backwards from what resources
we have, and how much we can safely use
them, relating that to what we need and how then we might go about meeting
needs. A way to go on that..with all sorts of difficulties. Not least that we
don’t all want the same things…. But we do all want a planet that we can still
live on!
Greening
industry is part of that… Though there is plenty of room for debate
over options and outputs, ends and means: http://www.postcarbon.org/are-we-doomed-lets-have-a-conversation/
