Engineers 'key to energy future'

The UK Government's Energy White Paper contains plans to meet future UK energy needs, backing a rise in renewable energy and the use of energy-saving measures.

Richard Coackley, the managing director of White Young Green Energy, discusses the role Scotland's engineers could play in solving energy problems.

The government's new Energy White Paper outlines a strategy for our future energy needs.

Richard Coackley believes there are untold opportunities to save energy.

It is a critical document.

Faced with rapid climate change, and concerns about the consequences facing future generations, energy is now one of the most important issues facing mankind.

Scotland could make a major contribution to resolving the growing problem of rising energy demand, whilst minimizing the impact on our fragile planet.

We have great untapped natural resources that offer the potential for Scotland to be self-sufficient in energy, and to support the rest of the UK.

We also have great engineering traditions and the expertise to find the technical solutions needed to transform energy efficiency, and to find new ways of creating and using energy.

To do so, we need to make much better use of our engineers and give them a central role in solving this major issue.

Pressing issues

Engineers have always been the true problem solvers in our society. Today we need them more than ever.

The Energy White Paper maps out a possible framework for the future, but it will be the engineers - and hopefully Scottish engineers - that play the central role in solving these pressing issues.

Scotland has the potential to become an exemplary nation, setting a worthy example to the rest of the world with a basket of different energy options like hydro electric, renewables, oil and gas, clean coal and, perhaps, even an extended life-span for the existing nuclear plants.

The decisions we make on the generation and consumption of energy today will have consequences for the next 50 years

Scotland's civil, structural, mechanical, electrical and chemical engineers are more than capable of meeting the challenges, if the politicians, planners and other legislators set the right conditions for them to work effectively.

An energy future mapped out by engineers doesn't mean squandering our scenic hills and braes with thousands more wind turbines. It will involve a balanced set of solutions determined by an intelligent assessment of the issues.

But we do need to use common sense with regard to planning and consultation.

A new fast-track planning body is to be welcomed but proper and timely consultation is essential.

Before we get caught up in the headline-grabbing ideas of carbon sequestration and tidal power, which is still several years away, a less fashionable but more practical and immediate solution is within our grasp.

Increasing efficiency

We are already missing a critical opportunity to transform the way we currently use heat, light and power.

There is so much wastage that it would be better to concentrate on increasing efficiency of the energy we already use, rather than spending tens of millions of pounds on carbon sequestration of power station emissions.

There are untold opportunities to save energy in society.

For example, every computer has a transformer, run by alternating current, which has significant inherent inefficiencies.

Engineers are already experimenting with distributing Direct Current (DC), which can reduce power consumption by more than 50%.

New generation

The world needs more hydro electric schemes. Scotland led the way with the great power stations at Cruachan and Foyers - built by Scottish engineers in the late 1940s and 1950s - and now producing green energy at very low cost.

Let's be bold and use more of our natural water resource - with the benefit of 21st Century technology and engineering expertise.

And if our existing nuclear power stations are given an extension, it will provide our engineers with time to bring on a new generation of highly efficient, sustainable renewables, such as offshore wind power and even tidal barrages.

We only have one chance - the decisions we make on the generation and consumption of energy today will have consequences for the next 50 years.

As we grapple with these problems engineers, and Scotland's engineers in particular, must be given a central role in delivering the answers.