‘ Low Carbon Society: Waste Not Want Not’ theme of Trinity Academic Symposium
Posted on: 14 May 2009
Energy & Sustainability Experts Speak on Low Carbon Society at Trinity Academic Symposium
Improvements to energy technologies combined with new urban infrastructures, methods of construction and change in attitudes will allow us to create low carbon societies. The important question is who will lead and champion these initiatives which are likely to create the next big market for goods and services.
As part of the celebrations for Trinity Week 2009 this week, the Trinity Academic Symposium with ‘Low Carbon Society: Waste Not Want Not’ as its theme explored some of the key factors influencing a future green economy. The talks by leading experts in the field, ranged from renewable energy generation to green buildings and sustainable transport systems to waste generation and usage. The public symposium was chaired by Dublin City Council’s City Manager, John Tierney and opened by Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Eamon Ryan.
Energy Minister Eamon Ryan TD opened the event and said: “The low carbon economy is the economy of opportunity. It will guarantee Ireland’s recovery and future prosperity. Going ‘low carbon’, weaning ourselves from fossil fuels and developing our wind and wave power will bring the jobs and investment of the future – in energy, in technology, construction and beyond. Low-carbon thinking will reduce energy waste and will fuel growth. As Energy Minister, I am determined that we move as quickly as possible from unsustainable, wasteful fuels and take full advantage of our natural resources. Events like ‘Trinity Week’ highlight the benefits of the low carbon economy, and I must congratulate all involved.”
Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources,
Eamon Ryan speaking at the Trinity Week Academic Symposium
Speaker, Cambridge University Physicist, Professor David MacKay, referring to his recently published book ‘ Sustainable Energy – without the hot air’ talked on the actual numbers behind the debate on sustainable energy and posed the question whether renewable energy really had the capacity to deal with our demands. TCD Professor of Botany, Professor Mike Jones discussed biofuels and the advantages and disadvantages of relying on such crops to partly satisfy our energy demands. Architect Howard Liddle of Gaia Architects in the UK, in his talk demystified the greening of buildings by demonstrating the benefits of reducing energy rather than continuously aiming to generate more energy. Professor Nick Tyler, Chadwick Professor of Civil Engineering, University College London who is actively involved with the design of eco-cities including Dongtan in China, where pedestrians and cyclists are accommodated more than cars gave a presentation on sustainable energy. Financial Times journalist, Harry Eyres described the financial crisis as an opportune time to reflect on whether we should rush head long into recovery or re-appraise our economic models. The symposium concluded with presentations by Professor William Powrie, Professor of Geotechnical Engineering at Southampton University and TCD’s Professor of Construction Innovation, Mark Dyer, who explored some of the fundamental facts about waste management. Professor Powrie presented some simple mechanical theory to show how landfills really functioned rather than our misconceptions and Professor Dyer showed how microbes in the ground could readily be used to decontaminate polluted land without the need to resort to excavation and transport to landfills or shipping abroad for treatment.
In his presentation, TCD’s Professor of Botany Mike Jones of the School of Natural Sciences, ‘ How Green are Biofuels’ said: “The utilisation of crops for the production of biofuels has the potential to provide, in the coming decades, part of the solution to the twin issues of substituting for fossil fuels and protection from damaging climate change by reducing carbon emissions. Energy crops can take many different forms and can be utilised in a variety of ways, from simple combustion to complex bioconversion processes. The ideal energy crop should have sustained capacity to capture and convert solar energy into harvestable biomass with maximal efficiency and with minimal inputs and environmental impacts.
However, aggressive renewable energy policies in the US and Europe have stimulated the biofuel industry and lead to a rising concern that bioenergy crops will divert resources from food production, as well as promoting environmental degradation. There is increasing evidence that biofuel production competes for fertile land with food production, increases pollution from fertilisers and pesticides and threatens biodiversity when natural lands are converted to biofuel production. For example, it has been shown that should native rainforests, savannas, peatlands, and grasslands be converted to produce food-based biofuels in Brazil, Southeast Asia and the USA they could create a ‘biofuel carbon debt’ by releasing 17 to 140 times more CO2 than the annual GHG reductions these biofuels provide by displacing fossil fuels. This has clearly raised issues about the potential for biofuels to be sustainable, abundant and environmentally beneficial energy sources. Under these circumstances is there a future for biofuels? “
Chadwick Professor of Civil Engineering, Professor Nick Tyler in his presentation on ‘How Sustainable is Sustainability said: “Brundtland set out an initial concept for sustainability over 20 years ago, in which she raised the thought that sustainability was about making decisions in the present that would not compromise the needs of future generations. However, there has never been much thought about what that really implies about the way we make decisions. We should be addressing such a process, using transport planning as an example. Maybe the current models we use for this process are not sufficient for the extra future demands we are now placing on our decision making processes and we need to look elsewhere for paradigms that could help us. Luckily one such paradigm exists and this talks brings out the possibilities of using a more organic model for transport planning purposes, encouraging the future as-yet-unknown adaptations to be incorporated explicitly in the planning model of today.”
In his presentation on ‘The Science and Engineering of Landfills’ Professor William Powrie, Professor of Geotechnical Engineering at Southampton University gave a brief overview of the history of landfilling over the past 100 years or so, highlighting the engineered features incorporated to prevent pollution and uncontrolled emissions from a modern landfill facility. It described the processes that take place in a municipal solid waste landfill, and discussed the importance of water and liquid flow in their promotion and control. Finally, the challenges of maintaining historic landfills and managing new ones were addressed.
TCD’s Professor Mark Dyer provided a different prospective from the other speakers by focussing on the re-use of land and soil. From the start he pointed out that the European Environment Agency estimates that 2 % of agricultural soil is lost each year to construction and contamination. Whilst worldwide, 75 billion tonnes of fertile soil are lost each year to construction, erosion and contamination. These figures are clearly unsustainable. Closer to home, Ireland sends most of its contaminated soil by ship to the Netherlands or Germany for treatment or disposal. Yet there are many viable techniques for treating contaminated soil using soil washing, chemical treatment and bioremediation that could easily be used in Ireland to develop a more high tech environment industry. Some of the technologies illustrated in the talk covered the use of monitored natural attenuation (MNA) to develop a remediation strategy for co-treatment of petroleum fuels and chlorinated solvents using anaerobic reduction at a site in London. The second more advanced technique used nebulisers to atomise a carbon substrate to stimulate the in-situ biodegradation of a chlorinated solvent at a site at Zwolle in the Netherlands. These and other case studies showed how relatively simple and inexpensive techniques can be used to stimulate natural processes in the ground to treat contaminated soil without going to the expense of shipping abroad.
The Trinity Academic Symposium this year has been organised in association with TrinityHaus*, which is attached to the School of Engineering, TCD.
About Trinity Week
Trinity Week is a long established celebration of College life. This year with ‘energy and sustainability’ as its theme, Trinity College Dublin’s Faculty of Engineering, Mathematics and Science, has put together an exciting programme of symposia, events, films, debates, trails and workshops all of which are free and open to the public during Trinity Week 2009, runs from May 11th -15th.. For all details of this fun and exciting packed programme for Trinity Week 2009, click on www.tcd.ie/trinityweek – all events are free and open to the public.
About TrinityHaus at TCD
TrinityHaus is a research centre for innovation in construction, energy and design. It houses a number of projects, including GREENprint, i-School and the McNamara Centre for Construction Innovation. TrinityHaus is a multidisciplinary venture, encompassing engineering, the sciences and arts, and carries out high quality industrially relevant research that underpins innovation in the energy demand management for low carbon living, people centred design and sustainable construction.http://www.trinityhaus.tcd.ie/. As part of Trinity College’s embryonic GREENprint research programme to study Dublin as a living laboratory for transformation towards a low carbon society, the symposium aims to put numbers on the green debate and illustrate practical solutions about how we could live in a more sustainable low carbon society.