low carbon

The Prime Minister has today announced a long-term strategic partnership between Qatar and the UK as part of the UK Government’s commitment to forge new partnerships between hydrocarbon producing countries and consumer countries to help the move to a low carbon economy.

The Carbon Trust - set up by the UK Government in 2001 and one of the world’s leading experts on low carbon technologies - has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) on a new Low Carbon Innovation Partnership to set up a new £250m Qatar-UK Clean Technology Investment Fund and to investigate the creation of a Low Carbon Innovation Centre in Qatar.

Thanks for this alert from Anna Smee at the Responsible Business Club. Perhaps LCW researchers should be interesting Quatar in our work?

We are currently working with Judith Evans and her team from FRPERC* at Bristol University to explore new applications of a relatively ‘old’ technology called Air Cycle.

Air cycle refrigeration systems use air as their refrigerant, compressing it and expanding it to create hot and cold air.  This technology was originally developed in the late1800’s for transporting frozen food from the antipodes or the Americas on board ships.  With the invention of CFCs in the 1930’s there was then a shift away from air cycle technology.  Currently air cycle is utilised in most passenger aircraft and in the German high speed trains, both for air-conditioning purposes.

Recent concern about the damaging environmental effects of certain chemical refrigerants, along with a desire to reduce energy use, has prompted a resurgence of interest in this low-carbon technology.  We are working with Judith and a number of food companies on a Defra funded LINK project to develop a commercially viable prototype, which can be used in the food industry. 

There are many advantages of air cycle over conventional technology for cooking and cooling/fast freezing food including:

• Creation of very high cooking temperatures (250ºC) and very low cooling temperatures (-125 ºC) with just one integrated piece of equipment
• This combined heating and cooling facility results in a highly efficient production processes and lower energy usage
• Air unlike conventional refrigerants such as HCFCs/HFCs/ammonia is free, safe and environmentally benign.
• Air cycle equipment is more reliable than vapour-compression systems, and does not leak environmentally harmful refrigerant (meaning less maintenance and down time). 
• Air cycle has the potential to make significant carbon savings if it were used efficiently by food manufacturers since it is estimated that refrigeration systems use as much as 15 percent of the total energy consumed worldwide.

Lowcarbonworks is helping Judith and the project team to identify potential barriers to the adoption of this promising new technology, and to explore ways to overcome these.  So far we have identified barriers which are not just about the performance of the technology itself, but have as much to do with the ‘human’ and organisational issues surrounding its adoption, such as:

• Communication barriers - in a project team composed of experts in the technology and non-experts it can be challenging to find a universally understood language.
• Internal competition issues can sometimes crop up for project partner - where the new technology may threaten their existing business.
• There may be competition issues between project partners which need careful handling - for example, discussions about Intellectual Property rights.
• Representatives on the project team may find it hard to ‘sell in’ the project to their own companies - particularly where it does not immediately align with management priorities or these may have changed since the start of the project.
•  Previous studies of Defra LINK projects have shown the need for a customer to champion the project in order to pull it through effectively to commercialisation.  Projects are in danger of stalling where this role is not fulfilled.

As part of the project we are also interested in how niche technologies, such as air cycle, get adopted into the mainstream market, and the process by which ‘closure’ around a particular design or application occurs.  Air Cycle is an interesting example of a technology which has not yet become ‘locked in’ to its final form, as multiple applications for this technology remain open (i.e. for cooking, refrigeration/freezing and air-conditioning). There are also inquiries coming in about this technology from industries other than food (including the building and defence industries) which may well shape its final form.  As part of the Lowcarbonworks project we will be tracking the development path that Air Cycle takes, and inquiring into the influences around this, as a way of building theory about how the transformation to low-carbon technologies can be accelerated.

*FRPERC is the Food Refrigeration and Process Engineering Research Centre, attached to the University of Bristol.

 Action researcher, Gill Coleman creating a learning history with a MAS Intimates employee.

We are engaged in a learning history process to describe the development, construction and start up of the Thurulie low carbon factory (see video) in Sri Lanka which has been built by the Sri Lankan company MAS Intimates to supply lingerie to Marks and Spencer as part of the latter’s Plan A.

MAS Intimates in Sri Lanka has a longstanding reputation for innovative products and manufacturing and an equally longstanding concern for creating high employment standards. The company is a significant player in the Sri Lankan economy with considerable economic and political power. The wider Sri Lankan context presents both challenges and opportunities: wage and skill levels are relatively high and to compete in the global economy leading companies need to offer added value, often through contributing an ‘ethical’ dimension-social and environmental-to the supply chain.

The Thurulie factory has been designed to minimize energy through a set of design features that create a building appropriate to its tropical environment. The main green features of the building are:
- designed to sit lightly on the site, with minimum disturbance to ecology, on two floors to minimise footprint
-  ‘returned to nature’ at night
- set in a cool micro-climate to maximise thermal comfort and air quality, using native plants
- carbon neutral, using green power - hydro and solar PV
- low operating energy, using evaporative cooling, and natural lighting supplemented by LED task lights
- structure of re-usable steel framework and timber flooring to upper floors
- reflective roofing and partial green roof, to minimise heat absorption
- walls and roads built using cement stabilised soil with low embodied energy
- rainwater harvesting tanks to collect storm water
- anaerobic treatment system for waste water

As our theoretical orientation would suggest, the creative adoption of these technical features has only been possible because several stakeholder groups have collaborated to design and build this factory:
* Strategic thinkers within MAS looking for opportunities to add ethical value to the supply chain and strengthen relationship with a key customer;
* Marks and Spencer, whose need to create a novel strategic position in the UK high street aims to ensure that the goods it offers, and thus its entirely supply chain, reach high ethical and ecological standards. (See Plan A);
* A centre for energy studies at Moratuwa University in Colombo, whose members have been developing energy-saving practices in the tropics for many years, linked to an architect colleague with a passion for green design;
* A project management group able to act with energy and creativity to realize these strategic objectives in practice;
* A senior management team in MAS with a strong ‘can-do’ culture willing to give freedom and space to support innovation;
* A highly skilled and responsive building contractor able to respond flexibly and speedily to their client’s unusual requirements.

We have interviewed representatives of all these groups and at the time of writing are developing a draft learning history which we will take back to Sri Lanka for collaborative exploration in July.  The purpose of this learning history is to help those involved in a project reflect and learn, so that future projects may benefit from the experience.  Everyone involved has been extremely busy getting the factory to completion, and so it has been difficult to reflect on what has happened.  Further, each person involved has their own perspective, and it is difficult for individuals to have an overview and see how the different contributions have fitted together.  So our first objective in this visit is to help them in thinking about this, and noticing what has gone on.

We also have a second important purpose as part of the wider Lowcarbonworks research project.  Given the challenges of climate change and the importance of reducing carbon emissions, we wish to engage a wider audience in understanding interaction of technology and contextual factors in the achievement of a low carbon future. What has been achieved at Thurulie is important, and clearly demonstrates the systemic complementarity between several approaches to low carbon  with contextual factors including organizational strategy and inter-organizational relations in the supply chain, economic opportunity, national cultural conditions and the individual knowledge and agency of several important champions. We believe that the story of Thurulie offers important lessons for both business and policy audiences and contributes to our academic understanding of the adoption of low carbon technologies We hope the story will encourage business audiences to emulate it in their own original projects.�

Lowcarbonworks is an action research project aiming to tackle barriers which inhibit low carbon innovation. Our starting point was food and drink production as this sector is a heavy user of energy and has plenty of scope for further efficiencies.

Researchers from different disciplines from Bristol, Manchester and Bath Universities are working with industrial partners and other innovators in the public sector. They are working on a variety of projects logged in the Projects section.

A core principle underlying our projects is shared learning. We are not starting with answers but learning with partners. Some of these are focussed on running successful businesses, others may be creating the conditions for communities to flourish. What we aim to do together is to create further win/win opportunities for low carbon innovation.

This website is designed to encourage shared learning and inquiry. It also offers an opportunity to grow a wider community of people interested in working with us, formally or informally, virtually or face to face.

As a start or an experiment why not try adding something to the site? It’s quite easy to use once you’ve joined but for those more cautious we’ve compiled a beginners guide. (link to follow)

History
LCW came about in response to the challenge of climate change and in the context of the UK Government’s policy to reduce carbon emissions by 60% by 2050. This challenge was made more urgent by the recent Stern Review (Stern, 2006) and the fourth IPPC report.

The bid for funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council’s (EPSRC) Carbon Vision Programme was sparked by a meeting between climate change strategy consultant, David Ballard, Jonathan Aylen from the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research, Nick Morley from Oakdene Hollins, and a bunch of engineers in a “sandpit” event organised by EPSRC.

David was carrying out research into human and organisational change at the Centre for Action Research in Professional Practice at Bath University’s School of Management which now hosts this site. David could see how useful his insights and action research approaches could be to the challenge of low carbon technology transfer. Proven technologies exist which can save both money and carbon emissions but many have stalled, why?

LCW argues that:

1) The barriers to transformation do not lie in the technologies themselves but in the wider social, political, economic and organizational context; and that it is important to integrate economic and technical dimensions with social, organizational and psychological dimensions of change.
2) There is interplay between technological, economic, and human factors which creates conservatism in the system as a whole. Attempting to change one factor alone may be of limited impact. It may even be damaging if it causes the whole system to ‘lock in’ to a suboptimal path, but addressing several of these at the same time can result in a virtuous cycle of change.
3) To create change we need both awareness of the issues and a sense of agency—that we can initiate relevant change. Our experience is that while awareness of climate change issues has increased significantly, people generally feel powerless in the face of planetary level events such as climate change and the experience of human agency remains very limited.
4) However, there are moments—for example when technological, economic and political factors come together -which offer a window of opportunity; when the capacity to make change is significantly increased.

LCW is concerned to identify and capitalize on these moments. One strand is the Learning History with Local Government which identifies the ways barriers to low carbon innovation are overcome on the local scale. A second strand is to work with industrial partners through a process of action research to more fully understand the contextual issues and find ways to respond to them so that stalled technologies and other business processes are more easily adopted. A third strand is to identify the opportunities that arise when capital stock is replenished. 

References:
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (2007). Climate Change 2007: The IPCC 4th Assessment Report. Retrieved February 4, 2007, from http://www.ipcc.ch/
Stern, N. (2006). Stern Review on the economics of climate change. London: HM Treasury.

A useful tool introduced to Low Carbon Works by David Ballard is a four quadrant matrix for barrier/opportunity mapping. David adapted it from the integral psychologist Ken Wilber.

I tried it out at a session facilitated at the Low Carbon Innovation Forum Exchange Event in Bristol on March 11th 2008. All ten people who attended my session said they’d found it useful and would be able to apply it in a number of situations.

So what is it and how does it work?

First of all, a story to explain how I’ve been using the tool.

Some years ago I offered to write a learning history of a sustainable development project starting up in a Wiltshire village. The scheme was for a small development of mixed social and private housing powered and heated by the waste generated by the village supplemented by waste streams from elsewhere in the County. The idea was to take the waste that ,after sorting for recycling and reusing, would normally have gone to landfill. The proposer of the scheme was a landowner and manufacturer who lived in the village and wanted to find a more environmentally friendly solution to the disposal of waste generated by his factory. However, he wanted to take soundings from the rest of his village and the local authorities before putting in a formal planning application.

The business case for the project was persuasive. A couple of developers were interested and prepared to work in partnership with the technology provider who had proven the viability of small scale gasification and pyrolis plants at nearby Avonmouth. Local authorities, MPs and politicians were supportive, the Parish Council were interested and an early survey by letter of the village showed that a majority of people felt positively disposed.

A further incentive that the proposer was prepared to work on was profit sharing so that profits generated by the scheme would be reinvested in a community fund.

However, despite all these green lights, the scheme was abandoned after some very vocal and well orchestrated opposition.

A four quadrant matrix to help make sense of the failure of this project

Individuals, societies and organisations can be very resistant to change. Barriers to change need to be overcome and it is helpful to understand whether these barriers are external or internal constraints. For instance, if the pyrolis and gasification technology to produce heating and electricity had not met emissions laws governing air quality, it would not have been an option. This would have been an external constraint. Similarly early in the project’s conception it was realised that the wood waste from the proposer’s factory would not have been of sufficient volume to feed the size of plant needed. That external barrier was thought through and an option to take waste streams from elsewhere proved to be cost-effective. However, when this became part of the proposal some people in the village opposed the idea because they did not want waste coming in from elsewhere, particularly clinical waste from the district hospital. Even when this was demonstrated to be a non hazardous option, it remained as what could be described as an internal barrier. The so-called group think or mind set seemed to be, “We don’t want other people’s dirty waste coming into our village”

Wilber describes these external/internal barriers as subjective or objective. They can also be seen as individual or collective. If you map barriers under the four headings Individual subjective; individual objective; collective subjective; collective objective it makes it easier to see:

1. What barriers need to be tackled by whom. For instance when another Wiltshire village wanted to know exactly how much electricity was coming into it from its sub stations, the various utilities approached refused to produce the information. This is a constraint to an incentive scheme for energy reduction it wanted to run. It may be that the local MP is better placed to tackle this barrier.

2. Where the blindspots might have been. In retrospect, two subjective barriers were not overcome in the sustainable housing project. Those were distrust of the proposer, and the proposer’s fear of alienating the village by putting in a formal planning application. If these two subjective barriers had featured in a mapping exercise they might have been identified earlier and attended to.

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This demonstration air cycle rig is being assembled at Bristol’s Food Refrigeration and Process Engineering Research Centre (FRPERC).

Air cycle is not a new technology but might be described as a rediscovered one. Air cycle or “cold air” machines were used in food stores and on ships a century ago but they were superseded by CFCs in vapour-compression refrigeration technologies.

Now that the contribution of CFCs, and their replacement HCFCs, to the depletion of the ozone layer and global warming is recognised, there is a strong case for the relaunch of air cycle.

 There are many advantages to air cycle:

• Air is free, safe and non-toxic.
• Equipment using air is reliable, reducing maintenance costs and system down-time.
• Performance does not deteriorate as much as the alternatives.
• Air cycle units can produce heat as well as chilling so efficient, low energy processing becomes possible.
• A much higher temperature differential can be produced.
• Air does not contribute to global warming or ozone depletion.

Many advances in air cycle technology have been made over the last century, including the use of rotary compressors and expanders similar to those used in car turbo chargers, the development of air bearings and ceramic components, and compact heat exchangers. These advances have improved the efficiency and reliability of air cycle making it technically competitive with existing vapour compression systems.