The Role of Engineering in Addressing Climate Change

#transitionengineering

Aim: Identify ten key priorities, innovations and actions to mitigate the climate crisis

Professor Susan Krumdieck

Chair in Energy Transition Engineering, Heriot-Watt University

We know that the technical enterprise has delivered all the water, food, energy, housing transport, buildings and products that we in the OECD countries current completely rely on to meet all of our needs. We also know that this successful technical enterprise is responsible for the climate crisis and biodiversity collapse. Our engineering success, and the economic system built on that success is not sustainable. In 2015, the World Federation of Engineering Organisations (WFEO) issued a statement in response to the COP21 Paris Agreement. The statement of ethical responsibility applied to all engineers to take actions required to safeguard humanity’s future. In November of 2021, the COP26 Glasgow Accord gave unambiguous requirements for action: 80% reduction of emissions must be accomplished within the next two decades. Engineers can clearly understand the IPCC 5th Assessment Report of the probability of exceeding 2 oC global warming as a “failure limit” on loading the atmosphere and oceans with CO2. 

The role of engineering in addressing climate change is clear from the top-level view:

·     Change every engineered system to use 80% less fossil fuels and materials

·     Adapt end use and economic activities to the new climate-safe consumption levels

·     Re-develop assets to be resilient to the locked-in climate hazards

·     Innovate and deliver regenerative technical enterprises

At this point we could make a long list of “solutions” technologies. As engineers we are hard-wired to get to solutions, step up and get on the job. But in this case, that would be the wrong response. History provides the evidence that the “solutions” currently at the top of the list being put forward by lobbyists have not reduced fossil fuel production. The 2021 Hutton Series on Climate Change Final Report included the list of solutions. But it also included a hint of something new. Now, one year later, there have been research papers exposing the false promises of the solution technologies; the unintended consequences, the hidden costs and the technical incongruities. But there was one key innovation highlighted in the 2021 Final Report that has grown, gained traction, and become the foundation for a corrective trans-discipline in engineering.

There is one key priority, innovation and action that has always been the way that unsustainable practice was downshifted effectively, and rapidly. This is the corrective trans-discipline. A corrective trans-discipline is a duty of care practice that emerges within engineering fields in response to failures of engineered systems that were contemporaneously successful, profitable and legal. An early corrective trans-discipline is sanitation engineering, which followed the cholera outbreaks caused by successful water supply and drainage systems. Another is boiler safety engineering in response to widespread boiler explosions. The corrective trans-discipline of most interest is Safety Engineering which emerged shortly after the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory disaster in 1911 in Manhattan USA. The figure below gives a sample of corrective trans-disciplines and the dimensions of safety, security and sustainability that they address. The term corrective refers to the duty of care work to prevent what is preventable. Unfortunately, failures that injure or cause loss of life, loss of property or access to resources, and failures that commit future generations to degraded wellbeing and lost opportunities become clear after they happen. That said, one of the hallmarks of corrective trans-disciplines is the diligent attention and investigation of the “worst case scenario” and seeking to understand possible hazards and failures. The head-in-the-sand is not allowed. The term trans-discipline refers to the fact that the core processes and tools are common to application in any field, even though the particular standards, technologies require specialist expertise. For example, Safety Engineering is always a duty of care to protect life and health by preventing accidents and hazards.  But, safety in electric power plants is different from safety in highway traffic.

Corrective Trans-Disciplines have emerged in response to disasters over the past century, the duty of care discipline may address failures of personal health and safety, personal and public security, and biophysical sustainability.  

Transition Engineering

 In 2010 it became clear that the Kyoto Protocol agreement to stop the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere above the climate safety limit of 350 ppm. The disaster of irreversible and intensifying climate change due to thermodynamic energy forcing triggered 62 engineers to begin the work of developing the corrective trans-discipline of Transition Engineering. This next logical corrective trans-discipline in engineering is the innovation necessary to address climate change. Now the key priority is to rapidly develop Transition Engineering and the key actions are to carry out the communications, negotiations, diplomacy and professional arrangements necessary to establish the field and deliver the work into the technical enterprise.

There are three pillars upon which effective engineering disciplines are built:

• Education: Here consider safety engineering or project management, all engineers are aware, some get training, some become leaders and put these fundamentals and tools to good use. People at all levels need to have access to appropriate training. Undergraduate engineering includes exposure to the relevant safety, risk management and other corrective trans-disciplines. Thus, the Transition Engineering basics and case studies need to be prepared and included into undergraduate engineering. This will require an awareness by teachers, and inclusion in accreditation by professional organisations. Professional training and specialist education centres will also need to be established.
• Academia: The research groups would be similar to risk management, fire safety, natural hazards, etc. There need to be research groups supported by industry delivering to the advancement of knowledge, tools, practice and enabling technologies. As with Natural Hazards or Air Pollution Engineering, it will be sufficient to have a few well-supported research centres. It will also be necessary to have awareness and participation across all fields.
• Professional: A professional organisation, branding, and demand for the duty of care needs to develop. Professionals must apply established science using accepted methods, comply with regulations, follow standards. They are asking for these tools in their fields to apply the discipline of preventing what is preventable as a normal part of the job. 

Progress

Education

In New Zealand, there isn’t much funding, but the government did set up a special tertiary funding scheme for universities to develop and offer on-line microcredentials in subjects that professionals need to tool up for Just Transition. 

Two microcredential courses and a MOOC are offered at University of Canterbury in New Zealand. In the last offering there were a number of engineers from the UK on the 20 point course. The 5 point course is for all professions. A full semester online course is launching at HWU as well as an Executive Education starting in September 2022

• Transition Engineering – Energy InTIME (20 points)
• Transition Engineering – Achieve NetZero Applying InTIME (5 points)
• Sustainability: Energy Transition (MOOC)
• Transition Engineering – Achieving Zero Carbon InTIME

The basic training and education has to be in place, or a field doesn’t exist. Transition Enigneering first appeared in Principles of Sustainable Energy, F. Krieth and S. Krumdieck (2014) CRC Press. And has since been invited for chapters in 3 more texts. The first full text was published in 2020. It is short and easy to read. It has the operational engineering approach to sustainability; the Interdisciplinary Transition Innovation, Management and Engineering (InTIME) methodology, the current suite of transition engineering tools and design approach, and transition economics. 

Transition Engineering, Building a Sustainable Future, S. Krumdieck (2020) CRC Press

At the publisher’s website (Rutledge) there are teaching resources. It is easy for academics to learn and add to their courses. Transition Engineering training has been endorsed for CPD in sustainability by a number of Engineering professional bodies. 

The next step is a UK conference of engineering academics to review the transition engineering and energy transition state of the art and agree to a standard core curriculum for professional, undergraduate and postgraduate education. 

Could UKRI EPSRC help to prepare the case to First Minister for Education to create a fund for tertiary education needed for Just Transition? Could UKRI EPSRC support a conference? Could EPSRC staff enrol in a Transition Engineering training? Could a “Tool Up for Just Transition” fund be established for firms and organisations to enrol transition leaders in a MSc, and to get training for whole teams? 

Academia

At this point, the Just Transition and Net Zero research funding has focused on technology “solutions” of last century. UKRI has been seeking “innovation” to try to make these last century technologies work. In fact, hydrogen, e-fuels, CCS, CCUS, DACS fundamentally cannot support a prosperous economy via substitution for fossil fuel. The body of research on this point is sufficient to justify a new funding direction that addresses the Net Zero policy more effectively. Transition to climate-safe level of hydrocarbon production is a new research direction that is about exploration, pathfinding and engineering changes at ground level. It is about processes and action research, and rapid dissemination and learning of the results. The UKRI funding model essentially cuts off this type of ground-up action research by preferring top-down technology research. 

At HWU, we recently hosted the UK Cabinet Minister for Net Zero. We outlined our global research institute initiative which uses the Transition Engineering approach, with research aimed at developing the processes for Realising Energy System and Economic Transition (RESET) across all areas of the economy and technical enterprise. I believe he was very receptive. 

Could UKRI EPSRC help to prepare a case to the Minister for Net Zero to establish a research fund for Transition Engineering? The RESET model pioneered at HWU is meant to be a template for Transition Engineering Labs that all universities can emulate (imagine a Materials Engineering Lab at numerous universities in the UK) The objective is to establish a number of universities that have core capabilities and facilities for Transition Engineering . We need these core facilities to be available for Transition Engineering action research)

Professional

Over the past decade, a group of dedicated professional engineers have established the Global Association for Transition Engineering. There is a large pent-up need for professional engineers to get tooled up for transition. They know it. They know that the current sustainability professionals approach is not aligned with engineering realities. They want the tools in their hands. And the want the clients and managers and CEO’s to recognise the discipline (here again, think about due diligence for safety, security, risk management… It is assumed that the engineering work includes duty of care.) Engineers want it understood that duty of care to change what must be changed is part of their remit and they will do that work. Professional engineers and related workers also know that they need standards.