A low carbon infrastructure strategy for Britain

Tim Fice
08 June 2015

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Britain possibly more than any other economy owes its prosperity to sending large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. We need to change, says Arup director Tim Chapman.

It is clear that Britain is on a path towards becoming a very low carbon economy, following a more aggressive path in that direction than any other large developed economy, exemplified in the legally binding commitments in the 2008 Climate Change Act.  

It does have a problem though – its development into the first industrial nation was based on exploitation of coal initially at Ironbridge, then from all over the UK, followed by oil much from the British Empire, and latterly from the North Sea along with much gas. 

So Britain possibly more than any other economy owes its prosperity to sending large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.  While Britain is responsible for less than 2% of current emissions, its legacy means that some 6% of the CO2 molecules floating above our heads is due to it (the US is responsible for almost 30% of them, and China is already responsible for 9%).

"Decreasing our reliance on imported fossil fuels is good for energy security and for our balance of payments, albeit at a penalty in terms of energy cost – freezing pensioners in power poverty annually vex our politicians"

Other advanced countries are already operating at much lower carbon intensities than the UK, either due to great geography (eg Norway where nearly all electricity is derived from hydro) or previous policies that have proved very prescient (eg France and its huge preponderance of nuclear power generated electricity).  So the move to low carbon will be a challenging one.  For those interested in the details and background of the perils and pitfalls of the path to low carbon, the superb book “sustainable energy without the hot air” by Professor David MacKay should be required reading.

Now the basis for how a low carbon economy works depends on its infrastructure, firstly on its energy infrastructure and secondly on its transport infrastructure, as by far the largest two sources of emissions.  The excellent BIS / Treasury / Green Construction Board (GCB) report “Infrastructure Carbon review” has tucked away in its technical appendix some very revealing figures for the UK, and shows that infrastructure by some interpretations is responsible for just over half of the country’s total emissions and of that half, that its energy sector is responsible for some 30% of the total and transport for a further 15%. 

Some of those figures are summarised in the ICE lecture http://www.ice.org.uk/low-carbon. 

The BIS / GCB “low carbon routemap” shows more broadly what can be achieved.

Therefore a nation seeking to fundamentally transform how it works must first tackle energy production and secondly tackle transport, and use those as a catalysts for further changes elsewhere.  

British electricity is mainly derived from coal and gas (about 30% each) with nuclear at about 20% and renewables of all types just beneath a further 20% (and imports making up some of the apparent shortfall).  To eradicate all of those fossil fuels from our energy mix will need a lot of other power sources – unless Carbon Capture and Storage can be harnessed quickly and effectively – and even then its efficiency means that such power will be relatively expensive. 

"Most of the UK’s transport carbon is expended on the road network, mainly for passenger cars and freight in HGVs.  Using vehicles that draw power from a decarbonised electricity grid is plainly a direction to be taken."

This raises several conundra – obviously decreasing our reliance on imported fossil fuels is good for energy security and for our balance of payments, albeit at a penalty in terms of energy cost – freezing pensioners in power poverty annually vex our politicians.  No one opposes renewables on any grounds apart from costs and environmental impact, so some use of them in the grid is good, apart from a need for either a large battery or for standby power generation (usually by gas) for when it is cold but not windy.

Energy from waste plants seem like an enigma in an era when we are trying to wean ourselves from burning things.  But actually their virtue is more hidden – the material used would otherwise putrefy emitting methane molecules, which are much more damaging than ones of CO2, so this is one of the few occasions when burning to emit CO2 is a good idea.

Transport policy is where there needs to be more vision!  But much of it is already happening in an apparently uncoordinated way.  Historical figures for the UK have omitted international aviation and shipping, which represent large proportions  - notionally these have been excluded from the binding commitments in the 2008 Act, but would make achieving the targets increasingly difficult, as the underlying figures for both of these modes of transport have been increasing.

Most of the UK’s transport carbon is expended on the road network, mainly for passenger cars and freight in HGVs.  Using vehicles that draw power from a decarbonised electricity grid is plainly a direction to be taken.  It will work well in the future when the grid has been substantially decarbonised, but currently a UK Prius is fuelled by 60% fossil fuels including 30% coal, so isn’t the greenest way to move about; while a French Prius is much more virtuous already in 2015.  So our current encouragement towards electric cars is just a step in a right direction, and relies on the UK electricity grid to change fundamentally its sources of energy.

Decarbonising road freight is much more difficult, as it is difficult for a HGV to carry enough of its own energy with it if not in liquefied diesel form.  Some proposals have been made to electrify with overhead wires the inside lane of motorways and allow lorries to draw power from that for much of their journey, like trolley buses.  Which begs the question – why not just use rail freight on electrified rail lines. 

Up until now, the UK’s slow pace of rail electrification has been mainly along the radial passenger lines emanating from London, so some 55% of UK train journeys are carried out on electrified trains, but only 5% of freight trains draw electrified power, because they cross so many chord and tangential lines, very few of which have been electrified.  So the UK’s rail electrification should target vital freight routes and build more road to rail freight depots at key transport nodes – the “Electric Spine” scheme running north from Southampton docks is an excellent example of such a programme of works.

"I believe that the UK is with some deliberation stumbling towards a future where its infrastructure will enable living at a much lower carbon intensity than we do today."

The second big problem is that much of the UK’s rail network is already at capacity, especially in the congested south-east corner of the country.  And HS2 could be the answer.  It should allow both the east coast and west coast main lines to be partially emptied, thereby allowing far more intensive rail to transport freight in the UK.  So current HS2 carbon projections assume a very modest freight policy on the classic network. 

A much more aggressive freight policy using the liberated capacity of the classic network could pay great carbon dividends for the UK, as well as freeing many of our motorways of the almost continuous walls of HGVs occupying the inside lanes, a move which would be highly popular with most drivers.

And the decarbonisation of the electricity supply starts to impact on other infrastructure sectors too.  Much of the power used in water supply is for pumping and our water grids were created in an era when fossil fuel generated electricity was cheap.  So running those pumps on decarbonised electricity immediately starts to have a big effect on carbon emissions from the water industry.  

I believe that the UK is with some deliberation stumbling towards a future where its infrastructure will enable living at a much lower carbon intensity than we do today.  We have some way to go to catch up with other countries which perhaps more unwittingly laid down the foundations for a low carbon economy some decades ago.  And we need to make brave decisions quickly. 

But most of the UK’s great plans to invest more widely in infrastructure do add up to almost a coherent low carbon national policy, just not enough people seem to be proclaiming it loudly enough!

Tim Chapman is a director at Arup