UK could be at forefront of green Industrial Revolution with low carbon cluster plans

It is one of the world’s oldest Technologies but it provides one of the modern world’s most extraordinary spectacles the process of turning sand into glass heating it until there’s a river of white hot molten glass which shoots into mold and then is blown into bottles at a break neck rate but doing

This is not easy this furnace in chesa is actually the world’s biggest and it’s fed with natural gas meaning it’s very carbon intensity our furnaces have to go up to, 1600° and they run on a lot of gas so we think furnaces of the future will be very highly electrified actually but they’re

Always going to require that top flame to make millions and billions of glass containers every single year so hydrogen could is a great addition to the furnace hydrogen is the magic ingredient they think will cut their carbon emissions but creating a hydrogen economy is not something you can do

Alone all of which is why places like this matter because the Glass Factory isn’t on its own so that is one of the big refineries here in the UK makes around a six of the uh UK’s transport fuels uh they are going to transform themselves to be a low carbon Refinery

What you’re looking at here is one of the first low carbon clusters in the UK or for that matter the world at least that’s the plan we have hosted people here from America from other places from Europe as well as across the UK who are looking to see is this a blueprint that

We could then copy and replicate elsewhere we’ll take away 10 million tons of CO2 per anom in this region these are still plans there’s still no pipes in the ground yet but as plans go they’re quite promising the government’s always banging on about Britain being a

World leader in this or that sector well here’s an area where we actually are a world leader taking old industrial areas like this and building the blueprints to turn them into low carbon clusters the only problem is the funding that made this happen is ending in

March our funding comes to an end and our clusters some of them are moving forward to the next scale stage of investment I mean of course um this doesn’t help other emerging clusters in the UK but at least the program acts as a flagship for others who want to do something similar and

Clusters aren’t the only thing Britain has up its sleeve there’s also Strang as the sounds are salt because there’s lots of salt under the ground here and hydrogen can be stored in it I think our salt cavens are our secret weapon um uh you know in future how do we do long

Duration storage if we go to lots and lots of Renewables salt Cavern storing hydrogen is one potential solution to that and it looks like it may be um you know among the cheapest salt Cavern industrial clusters as you open that bottle and clink glasses over the festive season Ponder the fact that

These products often still made in Britain might also help the UK lead the way to Net Zero Ed comway Sky News

The UK’s detailed plans for how to fund, construct and run major carbon clusters across the country are genuinely world leading, with Britain’s clusters expertise admired far and wide.

Sky’s Ed Conway assesses whether industry can achieve its low carbon aims.

Read more here:
https://news.sky.com/story/uk-could-be-at-forefront-of-green-industrial-revolution-with-carbon-cluster-plans-and-heres-why-13039192

#uk #carbon #climate

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24 comments

  1. Most of the carbon is from heating the silica and then transporting the finished product. So, low carbon emiting heat source and trucks. The rest of the process and ingredients are moot.

  2. A fantasy world, it takes three times more power to produce hydrogen, and wind power is only at 5% …. And don't forget hydrogen is very dangerous….

  4. Cmon! It’s more expensive and the (fake) money is gone!

    Where will the Hydrogen come FROM?
    What does it TAKE and COST to make/extract it!?

  7. Hahahaha. Hydrogen. Let’s take a look.

    Currently 95% of commercial hydrogen is sourced from fossil fuels.

    To produce 1 kg of hydrogen from water requires 40 kWh of electricity in a 100% efficient system. Most systems are not 100% efficient and require around 50 kWh of electricity.

    1 kg of hydrogen has an energy density equal to 34 kWh.

    😆😂🤣🤣😂😆 – Go for it.

  13. Wow, lots of lefty haters on here again.. This is good news and there is lots going on in the UK regarding greener power. Shame the left controlled media does not write about it…

  14. China can pump toxic waste into the air unchecked but we can only invest in solar and wind. The Chinese are clearly running the U.S. and put us into a downward spiral toward extinction.

  18. Glass was first made 4000 years ago and its taken the industry this long to do anything different, well done glass industry, well done sky, net zero piffle!

  23. "low carbon" is a thinking error. There is absolutely nothing wrong with carbon chemistry. Our economies are based on it and we're really good at it. The UK has upwards of 2,000GW of wind potential in the North Sea, and we currently back up our electricity grid by burning methane ('natural gas') in power stations. Methane can by synthesised from air, water, and renewable energy, which makes it *net zero*. That would fix wind's intermittency, and give us a massive excess of net zero methane which we can sell into existing global natural gas markets and consumers *making them net zero too*. Yes, it's "not as efficient as hydrogen" but a global hydrogen economy is still a *fantasy*. We should do something that works, today.

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