However, it is only designed to be a bridge to highly skilled or skilled work, much like the previous International Graduates Scheme it replaced. Those with student visas in the UK under Post-Study Work are expected to switch into another visa category of the points system (whether Tier 1 or another Tier) as soon as they are able to do so.

To encourage individuals to switch over, leave will only be granted under Post-Study Work for a maximum of 2 years and is non-renewable. Time spent in the UK under Post-Study Work will not count towards permanent residence. Students must apply for the Post-Study Work sub-category within 12 months of receiving their qualification.

You can also switch from a Post-Study Work Tier 1 visa to a Tier 2 visa without your employer needing to prove they cannot fill the job with someone from the residence labour market; This includes UK and EU citizens, and permanent residents. In order to apply for a Tier 2 visa you will need to have worked for your sponsor for a continuous period of at least six months immediately before the date of your application. Also, you must be applying to continue in the same job you are doing on the date of the application.
Tier 1 – Exceptional Talent
The Tier 1 (Exceptional Talent) Visa allows you entry to the UK if you are internationally recognised as a world leader in the arts and sciences or possess potential world-leading talent in the arts or sciences to live and work in the UK. Exceptionally Talented individuals must be sponsored by a “Designated Competent Body”. There is a limit of 1,000 visas per year that can be issued under this scheme. If you can speak English well and are recognised internationally for your work, it may be worth considering the Tier 1 (Exceptional Talent) Visa. However, hardly anyone qualifies for this visa category.
The Points Based System
In each category of Tier 1, points are earned according to three sets of criteria:
• Criteria specific to each category, such as age and past experience. Migrants will need to score at least 75 points to pass.
• English language ability. Migrants will be required to score 10 points in an assessment of their English language competency.
• Ability for migrants to support themselves and any dependents, otherwise called Maintenance. Migrants need to score 10 points in this area by demonstrating that they have sufficient funds for their stay in the United Kingdom until they find employment. Sufficient funds are judged against the latest standard of living figures.
Migrants will be required to reach the pass mark for each of the criteria above in order to gain entry under Tier 1 and to remain in the UK when seeking renewal of their Tier 1 visa after three years.

Documentary evidence for a migrant’s ability to claim sufficient points will be required. As per the Immigration and Asylum Act of 2006, migrants applying from abroad will have no right of appeal when denied entry, so it is important to make sure this documentation is in order.
Renewal of Leave Under Tier 1
Subsequent renewals of leave under the Investor, Entrepreneur, and Exceptional Talent sub-categories may possibly be granted for two years for eligible visa holders. It is not possible to apply for an extension of stay under the Post-Study Work sub-category. Individuals in the UK under the Post-Study Work sub-category, if they wish to remain in the UK, are required to switch to another sub-category or a different tier.
After five years, a person may apply for settlement. However, time spent under the Post-Study Work category does not count towards the five-year requirement.

There are certain requirements and restrictions when renewing a Tier 1 visa. Migrants must apply for the same sub-category under which they originally applied and score enough points again.

Entrepreneurs must show that an investment in business has been made and registration of the business was undertaken within three months of entry. They must be actively engaged in the business and have created 2 full time job positions for at least 12 months.

Investors must show that £750,000 was invested within three months of entry and that the investment has been maintained throughout the period of leave.
Dependants
Migrants granted leave in the UK under Tier 1 will be able to bring their dependants provided they can support them during their stay. Dependants include children under 18 years of age, spouses, civil partners, same sex partners, and unmarried partners.
Previous immigration categories
The immigration categories below closed on 29 June 2008. If you currently have permission to stay in the UK in one of these categories and you want to extend your stay, you must apply under one of the Tier 1 categories listed above. If you have been in the UK for 5 years or more under one of these closed categories, you may be able to apply to settle permanently in the UK.
• General Highly Skilled Migrants
• The Highly Skilled Migrant Programme (HSMP)
• Self-employed lawyers
• Businesspersons
• Writers, Composers and Artists
• The International Graduates Scheme
• Innovators
• Fresh Talent: Working in Scotland Scheme

Taking Stock

In 2006 a Confederation of British Industry (CBI) report entitled “Taking Stock” again emphasised the shortage of graduate engineers. The report found that Britain was struggling to fill job vacancies in its technological sector – a problem which was only set to worsen unless addressed by the Government. The (CBI) said that within the next four years there would be two million new jobs created to keep up with technological advances.In order to fill these vacancies, companies would require candidates to be skilled in science, maths, engineering and technology subjects, said Sarah Morris, spokesperson for the CBI.The CBI called on the Government to invest a modest £120m in specific careers advice, to show young people exactly how promising a career in engineering could be. If candidates and graduates were not encouraged into these fields, the UK risks losing ‘jobs to foreign competitors’, Ms Morris warned.

Educating Engineers for the 21st Century: the Industry View

In 2006 the study, ‘Educating Engineers for the 21st Century: the Industry View’, surveyed over 400 engineering companies located in the UK and revealed a pressing need to overhaul undergraduate engineering education.

Although Britain’s best graduates were on a par with their European peers, specific graduate skill gaps were found in problem solving and application of theory to real problems, breadth of knowledge and ability in maths. The report suggested that the UK’s economic performance could be jeopardised by the combination of declining numbers of engineering graduates and insufficient graduates pursuing careers in the sector. Almost half a million engineering graduates emerge each year from India and China. In the UK, in the 10 years up to 2004, the numbers of students opting for engineering courses remained almost static at 24,500 – dropping proportionately from 11% to less than 8% of university entrants. Less than half the engineering cohort chose to enter the engineering profession after graduating from college.

In its Commentary on the Henley report, The Royal Academy of Engineering called for a number of actions to address the problems highlighted by the report. Engineering courses need to be better aligned with industry needs, which could be achieved in part by industry becoming more involved with engineering education. The Academy called for closer collaboration between schools, universities and industry to counteract the perceived skills deficiency in graduate engineers.

Professor Julia King CBE FREng, the Academy’s Honorary Secretary for Education and Training, said, “If we are to deliver a vision of the UK as a global leader in turning knowledge into new products and services, we need to see industry and universities collaborating to produce more inspiring engineering degree courses with closer industrial engagement.

“We must also increase the number of students choosing engineering courses. This will start in schools where we need to encourage more students to choose maths and physics with better provision for those subjects. “Whilst the report causes some concern, there are solutions available to improve the situation. But action is needed now. Every day that passes is costing UK industry money in delayed product development and recruitment costs. This must not be allowed to continue. And unless skills shortages are tackled head on Britain’s reputation for innovative engineering is at risk.”

Philip Greenish, Chief Executive of the Academy, added that, “The report highlights a number of issues of critical importance to the health and wealth of the nation. The Academy welcomes the steps that Government outlined in the Budget to address many of these concerns. What is essential is that we move forward to effective implementation as soon as possible.”

A German Perspective

The problem is not unique to the UK. The Cologne Institute for Economic Research (Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft Köln), explored the issue of skilled labour shortages in a recent study of the shortage of engineers. The study indicated that companies faced serious difficulties in recruiting engineers to fill vacancies. In 2006, for example, some 48,000 vacancies could not be filled.

The most affected sectors of the German economy were vehicle and machine manufacturing, as well as research and skills-intensive industries. Moreover, companies in these sectors were having to deal with a shortage of skilled labour at a time when demand for engineered products is increasing. The analysis highlights several reasons for the mismatch of labour supply and demand in engineering:

• enrolment in engineering courses had stagnated
• drop-out rates among engineering students were above average
• female students were still highly underrepresented in engineering courses, or their equivalents

In 2008 Germany’s IW Economic Institute disclosed that the country had seen a 20% drop in the amount of students graduating in engineering within the last nine years.

Encouraging Women into Engineering

Similarly, in the UK women make up a very small number of those employed in the engineering sector.
Whilst more girls than boys achieve the top grades in subjects including maths, science and technology in school, few appear to want to utilise those skills. Last year just 16.6% of engineering graduates were female and five times more men than women make up the overall SET (science, engineering and technology) workforce. But why?

Case Study – AT&T Williams F1

• Getting Women into Engineering
  At Williams, there are 300 engineers and technicians but just eight positions are held by women. Kirsty Allan joined the company a year-and-a-half ago after completing a postgraduate degree at Cranfield University. She is now working as a composites engineer helping to construct and test Williams’ cars.
  “I think that women have got a distorted view of engineering,” she said. “When someone says engineering to a 15-year-old girl, they immediately think grease, under a car – what you would call a mechanic – and that’s not what it is at all.”

Kirsty Allan enjoys her job at the F1 headquarters. “Being an engineer is basically being an inventor.”

The National Skills Forum think tank questioned its members, who include business leaders and policymakers, on how more technically minded women could be encouraged to choose careers in areas like science and engineering. Their subsequent report calls for a much improved schools careers service, with a full-time careers officer for every school.

Katherine Chapman, from the National Skills Forum, said, “We know that the UK is missing out on billions of pounds through the skills shortages in science and engineering, and there are still so few women and girls going into these sectors. “In the report it was felt that careers advice is so important because this is all about challenging people’s perceptions.”

Too often engineering is seen as a man’s job and that would put girls off. The hydraulics area at AT&T Williams F1 is not all about men and grease but looks more like a laboratory, with extraordinarily complex-looking steering and brake systems in testing. It’s a job Kirsty Allan clearly loves. “It’s a fantastic area to work in and I would recommend it to anyone who wants a challenge in their life.”

The National Skills Forum says girls sticking with science subjects from GGSE through to A2 is exactly what is needed help reduce the skills shortage and help the UK’s economic recovery.

• The AT&T Williams F1 Apprentices
  • The Brief
    Newbury College Business Development team has worked with Williams for over five years delivering the ‘Engineering Apprenticeship’ programme and has proved to be an invaluable and cost-effective method of training new recruits for the company.
  • The Strategy
    The Apprenticeship programme has been developed to incorporate specific engineering modules, relevant to the engineering skill set at Williams. The assessment of the qualification has also been structured towards the revised engineering modules. Newbury College Employer Engagement Coordinator, Roland Wise, and Williams A1 Assessor, Ian Carroll, are in constant contact throughout the four year programme to ensure the training is administered and monitored correctly to enable the apprentices to complete their apprenticeship qualification successfully.
  • The Conclusion
    Ian Carroll speaks highly of the bespoke Apprenticeship programme and said, “In collaboration with Newbury College, we have put in place an excellent training programme for our apprentices at Williams. They work closely with our highly skilled team and are rotated around the various different departments in the factory to give the most comprehensive skill base possible. The Apprenticeship programme is a fantastic opportunity for any young person and one to be envied.” He also commented on the standard of training given by Newbury College staff, “The training given by Newbury College is very comprehensive and the high standard of training will hopefully ensure the apprentices a full time position with Williams once qualified. The facilities at Williams and Newbury College are second to none.” Dean Hale is one of the youngest apprentices at Williams and was recently nominated for an award at the National Apprenticeship Awards 2010 in recognition for the difference he has made to the business. Dean has thoroughly enjoyed his training and said, “It’s a great opportunity and the experience has really helped my practical knowledge in the role. The practical work links in really well with the academic learning.”

Parliamentary meeting focuses on engineering and the UK economy

The UK’s future prosperity will depend on the creation of a more diverse economic base, which requires a re-balancing of the economy in favour of hi-tech, high value productive industries. That was the topic of a meeting of the Associate Parliamentary Engineering Group held on 3rd February 2010 which brought together engineers and Parliamentarians to debate the way forward.

Chaired by Bill Olner MP, the meeting was addressed by Helen Alexander, President of the Confederation of British Industry and Lord Browne of Madingley, President of the Academy.

“The UK is a great place to do business in and from,” said Lord Browne. “We have some of the best companies and products in aerospace, life sciences and design and construction. Our focus should be on reinventing our success and learning from our failure. The impact of the low carbon economy will be enormous but society and business will benefit.”

There were, he pointed out, three critical issues:

• choosing the right industrial sectors to build on our national strengths in science and technology, address the grand challenges and boost GDP
• aligning the regulatory framework and incentives to support investment in those sectors
• an education system that educates and trains engineers at all levels with sufficient skills to be employable

Lord Browne described how the professional engineering community had formed an alliance, Engineering the Future, to support and promote this agenda.

Outlining the role of the CBI in promoting business and industry, Helen Alexander pointed out that engineering and manufacturing form 13% of UK’s GDP – more than the finance sectors.

“The digital economy will provide a seismic societal and business change which we must encourage,” she said. She called for a coherent, joined up strategy across government to make the UK attractive to the international supply chain. Keeping tax low, aligning the investment in research in universities and creating skills at all levels would be the priorities for any incoming Government, she said. She called for a culture of learning from failure and a drive to “get engineering back into the nation’s imagination”.

Professor Steve Rothberg, Dean of Engineering at Loughborough University, said:
“Research staff in the STEMM disciplines will play huge roles in delivering economic recovery and future prosperity to the UK. Among them are the academic and business leaders of tomorrow. Over the last three years we have significantly increased our efforts in support of their career development with a range of targeted initiatives including dedicated careers and professional development support and we are delighted to be championing this vital initiative from the Athena Forum with its special focus on women scientists and engineers.”

Conclusions

There has been a consensus for some years that the UK has a problem with generating sufficient engineering graduates and with persuading females that engineering is a suitable career. There is also consensus that a significant number of engineering graduates, perhaps as high as 50%, do not pursue a career in engineering.
The experience of AT&T Williams F1 suggests that employers need apprenticeships and career development programmes that will encourage more young people to enjoy a career in engineering.

Engineers need physics & maths at A2 and there is a shortage of degree qualified teachers in those subjects. Too many pupils drop these subjects after GCSE. More innovative ways of getting qualified engineers into the classroom could impact on this as would allowing market forces to play a more significant role in reward structures for teachers of short supply subjects.

In the meantime a number of graduate engineering roles remain on the Tier Two National Shortage Occupation List. See Appendix 1 below.

Appendix 1:

Tier 2 National Shortage Occupation List

If the job is on the shortage occupation list then an employer can offer the job to an overseas person without having first fulfilled the Resident Labour Market Test by advertising the vacancy in the UK. The International Graduates Scheme (IGS) is a way for non-European Economic Area students of higher education institutes within the United Kingdom to remain in the country for one year after graduation and gain valuable work experience.

Standard Occupational Classification Codes:

SOC: 2113 geological engineer, geosupport engineer, contaminated land engineer, geoenvironmental engineer, reservoir panel engineer, rock mechanics engineer, soil mechanics engineer, geomechanics engineer, landfill engineer.

SOC: 2121 Civil Engineers ALL JOB TITLES including: public health engineer, rail engineer, drainage engineer, structural engineer, water engineer, geotechnical engineer, geotechnical design engineer, geotechnical specialist, tunnelling engineer, marine engineer, mining engineer, mining geotechnical engineer, petroleum engineer

SOC: 2125 Chemical Engineers All JOB TITLES including: chemical engineer, petrophysicist

Complaints of shortages continued post-recession, however, even when the overall unemployment rate of engineers was much higher. Alden postulates that employers are looking for very precise skill sets that are not readily available either because of inadequacies in U.S. education and training, or because of insufficient mobility in the labor force.
There is clearly a mismatch between need and skill availability.

There are other problems also:
• Many engineering graduates aren’t becoming engineers or joining startups, as UC-Berkeley engineering masters student Rahul Barwani noted. Most of Rahul’s classmates became management consultants or took other non-engineering jobs. That’s because they received higher salaries than what engineering firms or startups offer.
• Startups don’t hire students fresh out of college because they can’t afford to train them.  As Robert Shedd, CTO of Three Screen Games, explains, startups need people who can hit the ground running. And that is why college graduates in places like Tampa, Florida can’t get jobs, as IT consultant Roy Lawson observes.
• American companies don’t invest in training their workforce any more like they used to. They expect workers to have all the right skills.
• Nearly 60% of U.S. engineering post-graduate degrees and 40% of graduate degrees are awarded to foreign nationals. In the past, most of these students would remain in the U.S. after graduation and eventually become U.S. citizens. Now, because of flawed U.S. immigration policies, most buy one-way tickets home.
• The world’s best and brightest aren’t beating a path to the U.S. any more. In previous years, H-1B visas for foreign nationals were in such high demand that they had to be awarded by lottery. This year, the annual quota of 65,000 hasn’t even been used yet. Instead, these workers are staying home and entrepreneurship is booming in countries like India and China.
So there are many issues here. But the national debates about competitiveness, immigration, and education, typically focus on the issue of supply and demand of engineers and scientists. They paint this issue in black or white when it is shades of gray.
On December 7, The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation is releasing a detailed report which analyzes Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education and worker shortages from a historical perspective. It finds that the standard indicators of salary growth and unemployment rates are not the best metrics for assessing shortages. The authors of the report say it is better to measure the length of time it takes for companies to hire STEM workers; analyze global job growth in a given sector; and compare the U.S. position in the global job market to other countries. They prescribe more skilled immigration and greater investments in the education and skills of American-born workers.
All of this is very important, because many countries in the world are moving faster than the U.S. They are learning to innovate and will provide stiff competition in the future. Just when the U.S. should be opening its doors wider to skilled foreign workers and be focusing on nurturing startups, it is turning protectionist and xenophobic. We need to give Silicon Valley every advantage it can have rather than handicapping it with uninformed and misguided policies.
Editor’s note: Guest writer Vivek Wadhwa is an entrepreneur turned academic. He is a Visiting Scholar at UC-Berkeley, Senior Research Associate at Harvard Law School and Director of Research at the Center for Entrepreneurship and Research Commercialization at Duke University.

In conjunction with the ManOS  (Cost-Effective Manufacture of Offshore Wind Turbine Foundations) project, and specifically to showcase its reduced pressure EB gun and the capabilities of mobile local vacuum sliding seal technology, TWI hosted a recent seminar and technical demonstration at its Low Carbon Energy Manufacturing Technology Centre in Middlesbrough, UK. The event on 19 April 2012 was attended by partners of the ManOS project (see below) and delegates from UK industry and academia with interests in large-scale steel fabrication and offshore wind power engineering.

Chris Punshon, Consultant, Electron Beam Processes at TWI began by presenting the progress made by the ManOS project, which aims to enable faster, efficient and cheaper production of offshore marine foundations. The project, funded by the UK TSB, has successfully developed and demonstrated EB wedding in thick section steels with offshore application relevance and validated the resulting metallurgical and mechanical properties. The ManOS partnership comprises TWI, Nippon Steel Corporation and Aquasium Technology Ltd, with KBR acting in a consultative role.

Chris introduced the focus of the event – the demonstration of a full penetration, 60mm wall thickness, 1300mm longitudinal seam weld in a 2350mm diameter S355 steel tubular (representative of an offshore wind turbine tower foundation structure), which took less than 6 minutes to complete.

Prof. T Ishikawa, Nippon Steel Corporation, Japan, concluded by presenting delegates with details of a proprietary grade of S355 steel, which has recently been granted Germanischer Lloyd’s approval for EB welding due to its excellent as-welded and post-weld heat treated properties, including exemplary sub-zero impact toughness.

All attendees noted that they were impressed by the demonstration, the technology supporting the EB welding capability, and the opportunities that this mobile variant brings for application of EB welding to large structures where conventional EB has been prohibited due to the need to operate within a vacuum chamber. 

Please contact Chris Punshon chris.punshon@twi.co.uk  for further details or if you wish to explore this technology further for your applications.

“I think it is not easy, but this challenge is worth fighting for,” said Greenpeace Japan’s Junichi Sato. “There is an increased chance of earthquakes in Japan, so that has a significant risk to the Japanese people and the Japanese economy. The only way forward is to rapidly shift the energy source from nuclear to other sources of energy.”

That’s not the call just from environmental activists, but from a public suspicious of nuclear energy and its regulatory bodies since a tsunami and earthquake triggered nuclear meltdowns at three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in March 2011.
Thousands marched through the streets of Tokyo on Saturday, celebrating the shutdown of the final reactor.

The protesters waved colorful, traditional “koinobori” carp-shaped banners for Children’s Day that became a symbol of the anti-nuclear movement.

That movement grew from the grass-roots level in the wake of the disaster as the country watched tens of thousands of residents living within a 20-kilometer (12-mile) radius of the nuclear plant evacuated and the remaining area turn into a contaminated wasteland.

Before the Fukushima disaster, Japan relied on nuclear for about 30% of its energy. As reactors have come off-line, the country has increased its imports of fossil fuels.

Japan’s government predicts it won’t be able to keep up that pace, and the void will result in an energy crunch this summer, possibly leading to rolling blackouts.

The national government’s ruling party, the Democratic Party of Japan, has been urging local communities to allow reactors to return to operation.

The party’s deputy policy chief, Yoshito Sengoku, bluntly said without nuclear energy the world’s third-largest economy would suffer. “We must think ahead to the impact on Japan’s economy and people’s lives, if all nuclear reactors are stopped. Japan could, in some sense, be committing mass suicide,” Sengoku said.

Hiromasa Yonekura, chairman of Japan’s biggest business lobby, Keidanren, joined the plea in an April press conference. “We cannot possibly agree to do the kind of energy saving yet again this year, or every year from now on,” he said, referring to the country’s efforts to turn off air conditioners and shift operation of production lines to weekends. “The government must bring the nuclear power stations back into operation.”

Economist Jesper Koll, managing director at JP Morgan, said Japan could avoid the economic fallout by defining a clear energy policy, something it has failed to do so far.

“The issue to the private sector of Japan is the government is taking its time in a very emotional, highly politicized debate. And the end result is very, very slow or no decision-making at all. After all, if you don’t have an energy policy, you don’t really have an economic policy because everything revolves around the energy,” he said.

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has promised a clear energy policy sometime this year, perhaps by summer.

At a conference last month, the chairman of the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum said the nuclear industry was committed to rebuilding the municipalities around the Fukushima plant, decommissioning that facility and pushing for increased safety measures at plants nationwide.

“We, the nuclear industry, will learn what should be learned from the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. Based on that, we will endeavor to restore the image and position of nuclear energy,” Takashi Imai said.

Nuclear energy must remain part of the government’s policy, he said, “in order for Japan to continue sustainable growth as a nation committed to trade based on science and technology.”

But Yukie Osaki, who used to live in Fukushima, said she won’t accept any policy that includes nuclear energy. “Nobody believes the government anymore when it says nuclear plants are safe,” she said.

“Japan is an earthquake country. It is already dangerous to have nuclear plants here. If we have another accident, we won’t have anywhere to live in Japan anymore.”

Thousands of Japanese marched today to celebrate the switching off of the Tomari nuclear plant on the northern island of Hokkaido (hoh-ky-doh). The event coincides with Children’s Day in Japan, and anti-nuclear activists say that’s fitting because they’re concerned about protecting children from radiation.

But the mayor of the town where the reactor was shut down calls it “extremely regrettable.”

Some people want the plants back in operation because of jobs, subsidies and other benefits to the local economy.

The Japanese government has warned of blackouts and rising carbon emissions as Japan is forced to turn to oil and gas for energy.

By May 6, the last of Japan’s 50 working reactors – another four were crippled in the disaster – will be offline when the Hokkaido Electric Power Company closes the No. 3 unit at its Tomari plant in the far north, in the industry’s first enforced closure in Japan since 1965.

Debate is now swirling around the prospects for the economy and environment post-Fukushima, as Japan braces itself for a long, hot summer and the possibility of power cuts that could prove the most severe test of public resolve yet

Before the 11 March disaster, Japan relied on nuclear power for about 30 percent of its electricity, and planned to increase its share to more than 50 percent by 2030.

To make up the shortfall in power production it has dramatically increased its dependence on liquefied natural gas (LNG), coal and oil for use in thermal power stations. LNG imports alone rose 52 percent in value to 5.4 trillion yen ($67 billion) in the year through March.

That may have kept the lights on in the world’s third-biggest economy, but it has also rung alarm bells among manufacturers and cast doubt on Japan’s ability to meet greenhouse-gas emissions targets agreed on in Copenhagen in 2009.

In a preliminary report released this week, the government’s national policy unit projected a 5 percent power shortage for Tokyo, while the Kansai Electric Power Company predicted a 16 percent power shortfall in western Japan, which includes the major industrial city of Osaka.

“I have to say we are facing the risk of a very severe electricity shortage,” said the economy, trade and industry minister, Yukio Edano, adding that the extra cost of importing fuel for use in thermal power stations could be passed on to individual consumers though higher electricity bills.

Public mood
Despite the risks, Mr. Edano and other government ministers have failed to persuade local authorities to restart two reactors at Oi nuclear power plant in Fukui Prefecture, situated in western Japan – the first to pass mandatory stress tests to gauge their ability to withstand disasters such as the tsunami that sent three of Fukushima Daiichi’s six reactors into meltdown

A 5.8 million Norwegian crown ($1.00 billion) government-funded centre will test two post-combustion carbon capture technologies that could be extended to industrial-scale use if shown to be cost-effective and safe.

“Today we are opening the world’s largest and most advanced laboratory to test carbon capture technologies… It is an important project for Norway and for the world,” Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg told the opening ceremony at the Technology Centre Mongstad (TCM), northwest of Bergen city.
The facility will be able unique in that it can test exhaust gases from two nearby sources – a 280-megawatt combined heat and power plant and the 10-million tons per year Mongstad refinery. These produce flue gases with different carbon dioxide (CO2) contents – about 3.5 percent and 13 percent respectively.

Mongstad’s emissions have a similar carbon dioxide content to those emitted by coal fuelled power plants – which scientist say make a particularly serious contribution to climate change.

CCS offers the prospect of possibly continuing to burn fossil fuels while avoiding the worst effects by burying the emissions, for example in depleted natural gas fields under the sea, although it will be costly.

Stoltenberg said in a 2007 speech that carbon capture and storage would be Norway’s equivalent of a Moon landing.

The centre has two carbon capture plants with a combined capacity to process 100,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year, making it the largest, Olav Folk Pedersen, the TCM’s technology manager, told Reuters.

“CATCH AND RELEASE”

However, the capacity is only slightly more than a tenth of what Mongstad refinery emits per year. During the testing period all CO2 captured will be released into the atmosphere, thus having no impact on reducing the refinery’s emissions costs.

“Speaking in fishing terms, it’s a “catch and release” facility,” Pedersen said earlier at the briefing.

So far, few countries have agreed to invest heavily in carbon capture. Those with projects include the United States, Australia, Britain and China.

European Union Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger applauded Norway’s efforts, which take place at a time when other CCS demonstration projects in Europe have stalled due to lack of investment.

“It’s an important milestone in Europe’s undertaking to develop CCS technologies… It will provide a new momentum to the discussion of CCS use in Europe,” he told the ceremony.

Oettinger has said that natural gas can have a long-term future in Europe only if CCS can be applied.

Norway, with a population of just 4.9 million, is the world’s eighth-biggest exporter of oil and Western Europe’s biggest exporter of natural gas.

Ola Borten Moe, Norway’s petroleum and energy minister, told the ceremony a full-scale CCS facility at Mongstad might be possible later, with an investment decision due in 2016, but emissions permit prices had to rise to justify the spending.

Helge Lund, the chief executive of oil firm Statoil, a partner in TCM, added: “We cannot defend it economically, because CO2 prices are so low now. We need to find some sort of the solution in the future.”

The EU’s carbon market was touted as the cheapest and most effective way to cut emissions by putting a price on carbon dioxide emissions and getting the private sector to factor that cost into long-term investment decisions.

However, carbon permit prices are trading below 7 euros, around a quarter of what many lawmakers say is the minimum level needed to get companies to invest in clean technology.

TCM will test two carbon capture technologies, one based on amine and the other on chilled ammonia solvent, to trap CO2 emitted from the plant and the refinery. ($1 = 5.7996 Norwegian crowns)

These were just some of the points made in a pretty daunting presentation at yesterday’s Economist Energy Summit, by the World Energy Council’s (WEC) Secretary General, Christoph Frei.

WEC has come up with a pretty impressive graphic to explain the uncertainties and drivers involved in different parts of energy policy. It shows that in 2011, an “absence of a global climate framework and lack of progress towards a significant agreement between big blocks [of countries]” is the main source of uncertainty for new policies and technologies, although uncertainty also stems from the political uprisings in the Middle East and the post-Fukushima nuclear backlash.

Frei said CCS is a clear victim of the lack of political will and the absence of regulation which would create the certainty needed to pilot and roll out new technologies. CCS – technology that would extract and store greenhouse gases emitted from coal power stations  – is too expensive in the absence of a carbon price to secure enough investment to develop beyond the pilot stage.

Energy efficiency is another victim of divided governments and a lack of international cooperation. Frei said the view that it’s the easiest carbon-cutting policy to implement is misplaced. It will require investment in “capital, education and institutional frameworks” to promote the behaviour change needed.

While CCS is now perceived as less politically and practially viable, other solutions have been gaining influence since 2009: smart grids, storage, electric vehicles and sustainable cities are now in a “solid position” to influence energy developments. Frei said Brazil and other rapidly developing countries experiencing rapid growth in urban populations have taken a lead on sustainable city development.

Frei also looked at scenarios WEC prepared for world transport to 2050.  Developed countries’ fuel demand is set to fall by 20 per cent – mostly due to efficiencies.  But rapidly growing economies like China and India’s transport fuel demand will grow by between 200 and 300 per cent,  and are set to surpass that of developed countries by 2025. Click here for the infograph.

WEC expects that if market forces are allowed to set the pace for the future of world transport, governments will miss the chance to ensure companies adopt alternative technology early and countries will not benefit from updated infrastructure. Meanwhile, if regulation is implemented, WEC envisions total fuel demand for all transport modes could go up by 30 per cent instead of 82 per cent under the free market scenario.

It’s all sobering stuff, and puts the UK’s leisurely rollout of low carbon technology – as described by Ofgem CEO Alistair Buchanan later in the day – into perspective. According to WEC, the pace of change is directly linked to the clarity of government signals

That’s roughly the idea behind carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). Carbon dioxide is captured from the effluent of a large generator, like a coal power plant, and compressed into a supercritical liquid. That liquid is then transported via pipeline to an injection station where it’s pumped deep underground.

But the technique requires some very specific rock formations if we expect the carbon to stay there. Two new studies have looked at how much CO2 we could hope to store, and how that storage may be affected by another process that’s booming: fracking.

CCS can use the same rock configurations that sometimes host oil and natural gas. Like oil and natural gas, compressed liquid CO2 is less dense than water, so you need a geological cap that will prevent it from bubbling upward. That cap rock needs to be impermeable to flow (shale often fits the bill). If there’s permeable reservoir rock below that cap—like a sandstone—then you’re in business. Eight hundred meters below the surface, the pressure is sufficient to keep the CO2 in its compressed liquid state, and the reservoir rock will hold your fluid and the cap rock will keep it from escaping.

Basins of sedimentary rock—where the layers form a bowl shape—typically have all the right characteristics. Eligible reservoirs are typically filled with brine water (and, sometimes, remnant hydrocarbons).

Since the layers aren’t perfectly horizontal, the injected CO2 will slowly migrate away and upwards along the underside of the cap rock. A couple things happen to it along the way. As the fluid winds its way around the grains of rock, some droplets will get stuck in the spaces between grains and become immobilized. At the same time, CO2 is constantly dissolving into the brine water in the reservoir. Liquid CO2 is less dense than brine water, but brine water containing dissolved CO2 is denser than both. Fingers of that dense solution drop from the bottom of the liquid CO2 plume and sink downward through the reservoir rock.

Given enough time (a leisurely millennium or so), the CO2 dissolved in that water will precipitate as carbonate, completing the final stage of sequestration. So rather than resembling an inflated balloon of CO2 just waiting for a reason to pop, it becomes more and more securely locked away as time goes on.

The big questions for this technology have revolved around safety (will the CO2 stay down there?), practicality (how much will it cost?), and capacity (can it make a difference?). A new study published in PNAS by researchers at MIT focuses on the last of those—how much realistic capacity there is for carbon capture and sequestration in the United States.

Storage meets extraction
As research into hydraulic fracturing (or “hydrofracking”) for shale gas production continues, I can’t help but think of it all as a precursor to the carbon sequestration discussion. Some of the concerns are similar, as are the technical challenges. The recent links between the disposal of spent fracking fluid in deep injection wells and increased earthquake activity are obviously applicable. Such events, caused by the increasing of fluid pressure that can ease the friction locking up a fault, are an important concern for carbon sequestration projects.

You don’t want to do anything that could compromise your cap rock, and concerns over triggering earthquakes large enough to cause damage are not without substance. As Ruben Juanes, one of the researchers involved in the MIT study, told Ars, “I think that the induced seismicity associated with injection wells is a factor to be considered. We, and other groups, are actively looking at some of these issues now. One mitigating factor is that CO2 injection would take place far away from faults, simply to reduce the risk of leakage. This will very likely reduce the magnitude of the induced seismicity as well, but quantitative assessments are needed.”

Indeed, the connection between carbon sequestration and fracking may be even more intimate than these parallels—they may intersect. A recent study published in Environmental Science & Technology pointed out that many US shale gas resources are found in locations that are also attractive for future carbon sequestration. Since fracking, by definition, involves the fracturing of cap rocks, this could diminish the potential for carbon sequestration in that area.

Current capacity
To characterize US capacity, the MIT group looked at eleven locations (shown on the image above) previously identified as suitable. They used simplified models of each location to simulate how much, and how quickly, CO2 could be injected. While more detailed work will eventually be needed for each location, the new work is a serious improvement on the wide range of previous back-of-the-envelope estimates. At the very least, they’ve moved to the front of a much larger envelope.

“Our estimates are based on models at the geologic basin scale,” said Juanes. “They are site specific in the sense that they employ the geometry, depth, and other parameters from each individual basin, including the presence of large faults. However, it is unquestionable that more detailed studies, at a much finer scale, would have to be done to design CO2 injection at the operational scale. The intent of our study was to understand whether [carbon capture and storage] was viable at the continental scale.”

And it’s not just the total available capacity that matters—if you inject too quickly you can inadvertently fracture the cap rock. The sequestration system has to be able to handle CO2 at the rate it’s generated.

In order to assess whether sequestration systems can operate at a relevant capacity, you need to construct a scenario of future fossil fuel use. For the sake of this estimate, the researchers assumed that fossil fuel use would continue to increase linearly at about the current rate until about 2060, at which point it would instead decrease at that same rate while other energy sources took over.

In this scenario, they found that the US could sequester its captured carbon for at least 100 years. If that potential could be realized, the US could hold the line on CO2 emissions from electrical generation while transitioning to renewables. Power plants currently account for a little over 40 percent of total emissions in the United States.

To be sure, it’s a long road from here to there. Sites would have to be studied and acquired, and a pipeline network would have to be built to carry captured CO2 from power plants to the injection facilities. Lots of regulations would be required, from the permitting and operation of injection sites to the carbon pricing that would provide the impetus for generators to participate.

Still, the authors conclude their work “suggests that geologic storage supply will enable [carbon capture and storage] to play a major role within the portfolio of climate-change mitigation options.”