Saving the earth
In the rush to save energy and reduce emissions, it's easy to forget the sheer range of potential solutions. Dr Tom Shelley reviews some of today's most powerful options
Maintain power
With the cost of unscheduled downtime for some engineering and manufacturing companies running into hundreds of thousands of pounds a day, plant engineers are under pressure to ensure continuous production. Yet with more pressure being put on machines, due to smaller equipment running at faster speeds, correct maintenance is critical.
Making the case
Plant engineers have serious value to add, way beyond their primary function. Brian Tinham talks to E.On's Ian Jackson about the need to stand up and be counted
Near zero emissions
With the obvious exception of the global economic crisis and its insidious infection now of the ?real economy', recent months, and indeed years, have seen no greater issue than climate change. Governments and organisations around the world have pledged radical reductions in emissions - most recently with Gordon Brown's insisting that the UK's target for CO2 reduction must be 80% by 2050. In short, interest in energy efficiency, alternative generation and carbon capture has never been greater.
Electric Engineers
It's often said that one of the biggest differences between plants in, say, the chemical or pharmaceutical industries, as opposed to those in power generation, is that the former are developed in a laboratory pilot (where the learning is done) and scaled up for mass production, while the latter are built to produce power from day one, but then evolve constantly over time, as efforts are made to improve efficiency and output.
Fuel from air
Following a flurry of news reporting the apparent achievement of practical fuel from air plant, Brian Tinham talks to the developers about the present and the future
Carbon capture
The UK is to finance the construction of a 300-400MW coal-fired power station with full carbon capture, and intends to work with China on developing and implementing the technology globally. Why? 'Because coal is still the cheapest and most readily available source of energy,' said Hilary Benn, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, at a meeting organised by the Institute of Physics, the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Institute of Biology.
Turning ash into cash
1. Building on its vast experience, Clyde Bergemann has developed a new dry bottom ash system, known as DRYCON 2. Adjustable air inlets are located along the casing 3. Air inlets are also to be found at the system's discharge end 4. Integrated is a recirculation system, which collects fine ash particles that have fallen through the plates 5. Impact tables, located on the underside of the conveyor, accommodate abnormally large lumps of ash