Let's raise the standard of debate about energy
Professor David Infield’s letter about renewable energy (PE February) provoked various responses in the March issue, but regrettably their credibility is reduced by poor presentation and argument. Jon Michaelis says he is ignorant regarding energy, but then goes on to argue his point.
Bill Ball undermines his case by trying to undermine the arguer, not the argument, with his claim that “‘renewable energy professionals’ have their noses in the subsidy trough”. It seems unlikely to me that an academic would be reaping the benefit of these subsidies, and surely using the metaphor of a pig to describe him and his colleagues in the renewable sector lowers the tone of the debate.
His quotation marks are I guess intended to imply that there are no such things as professionals in this field. Whereas in reality this sector is employing a growing number of professional engineers.
The issues surrounding sustainable energy are complex and there are no easy answers. It is a pity that the planned Energy 2050 IMechE event was cancelled as Infield was due to give a talk on the challenge of utilising renewable energy sources. His use of the word challenge surely implies that he is aware of the difficulties that
lie ahead.
I think we should take up Professor Infield’s invitation to IMechE members to engage in a proper debate.
Michael Peach, Suffolk
Science must come first
Soundbites invites members to offer their opinions on the recent extreme weather (PE March). While I appreciate the value of a vox pop in communicating the mood of the membership, I am concerned that climate change remains a subject of personal opinion in the institution, not a matter of science.
Too often views expressed in PE are those of armchair experts, not those of credible scientists. I would like to see a far more reasoned debate, drawing on the vast peer-reviewed literature, to guide the views of members who, like me, are not experts but appreciate the need to remain informed about potentially the greatest and most complex threat to our current way of life.
Moreover, if we, as engineers, are to respond to any man-made climate change with suitable low-carbon generating, storage and distribution technologies, then I echo the views of Professor David Infield, Jon Michaelis and others (Letters, PE February and March) that we need a multi-disciplinary discussion of the problems involved which recognises their complexities and shows a healthy professional scepticism for piecemeal, quick-fix solutions which may be guided more by commercial or political agendas than a genuine grasp of the science.
Stuart Brown, St Andrews, Fife
Another bite at coal
This country possesses a sufficient resource of coalfields suitable for exploitation by underground coal gasification for hundreds of years of power production. This resource is in areas of saline water, unconnected to possible freshwater supplies.
Underground coal gasification (UCG) does not require novel or hazardous processes and is amenable to partial or total carbon capture, at competitive cost. It offers at least equal opportunities to fracking without contentious environmental aspects.
Ten years ago the Coal Authority was at the forefront of research into this technology, but was prevented from continuing to devote resources to it on account of the narrow legal interpretation which was put on its powers. In the absence of government funding, there was no prospect of the City investing in the project because of its relatively long-term and industrial nature.
In the meantime other countries have pressed ahead with trials into the technology.
Assuming that UCG is ever applied in Britain, it will doubtless be courtesy of overseas companies which will possess both the required capital and the expertise to enable them to hold the country to ransom in a rerun of what has already occurred in the case of new nuclear.
Ian Berry, Enfield, Middlesex
Formula for success
Having advised Coventry University for some 12 years on Formula Student, I agree with your prognosis (“Racing certs,” PE February). Tight budgetary constraints mean that ingenuity rather than objective design has a heavy influence. Particularly in manufacture which in turn restricts design options. For example we have devised a low-cost welding jig for the spaceframe which suffers from several shortcomings. Vacuum bagging small composite parts is acceptable but a complete chassis floor is a challenge and it cannot achieve the process control of an enclave.
This type of innovation inside a tight budget is excellent experience for students but it is not a substitute for the technology resulting in the level of refinement in design and manufacture apparent in many European Formula Student competitors.
The expertise, design and manufacturing facilities available to these competitors is of a very high standard and a high cost.
Brian MacDonald, Coventry
Maintenance matters
I find it incredible that the article on women in engineering had a statement from Dawn Bonfield, saying: “We need to be clear about the difference between engineering and maintenance – that is a real off-putter, because it has negative connotations” (PE February). Why?
I am a CEng and have been invited to apply for fellowship. Although I have managed projects and implemented many of my own designs, the bulk of my career has been in maintenance. I recently brought a young graduate into my team on a short-term placement. This young engineer was pretty switched off engineering having spent six months in a design office, possibly doing the sorts of things Bonfield considers real engineering.
The young engineer spent the last three months on a maintenance project which involved talking to fitters, managers and process engineers, and performing statistical analysis, financial evaluations, developing repair scopes, project management, presentation to senior management and some design to deliver a significant saving to our organisation. The young engineer incidentally is a woman. By the way, she didn’t get to use a hammer or a spanner!
When she finished, her feedback was that her time with us had been great, she was happy that she chose engineering and, ‘proof of the pudding’, is applying to our permanent programme.
In terms of maintenance stereotypes, my ‘brown-coat role’ as described in a previous article sees me now working on my third continent. I work for a mining company in Western Australia and my role has technical, commercial and leadership challenges.
We take on 20 graduates per year (male and female) who we think have the capability to be the future leaders of the organisation (every level up to CEO is filled with professional engineers). As a result, we pay top salaries and provide excellent career development opportunities. Experience tells me that a decent maintenance professional can work anywhere in the world.
In my case, three minutes’ walk from the beach in a place where the sun shines at least 300 days per year. When put in these terms, my offputting role, which has paid for over 20 years of IMechE subscriptions, may not seem so bad.
Peter Rogers, Perth, Australia
Political correctness
Does it really matter what percentage of engineers are female (“Women in engineering,” PE February)? Yet more political/gender correctness.
I am all for encouraging girls to consider engineering as a career but there is a fundamental factor here: how many of them want to be engineers? This politically correct hype is just that – politically correct hype.
One thing referred to in the article is true – the poor attitude to engineering by school teaching staff. In the 1970s and 1980s my wife was a mathematics teacher. Whenever staff-room conversation turned to careers, she would express the view that engineering was both important to the economy of the country and a worthwhile future for students. She was always shouted down.
Ethereal subjects, typically media-orientated, were the future, she would be told. Well, we all know where that has got us. Unfortunately too many teaching staff have no experience of the real world. They have gone to school, then university, then back to school. They express opinions on which they have no fundamental knowledge.
Mike Squires, Llanarthne, Carmarthen
It’s their choice
So only 7% of women are engineers (“Women in engineering,” PE February). That is a matter of choice. Does PE view that women are too unintelligent to make a choice?
Forcing women into engineering against their will is hardly going to make good engineers, and fiddling with “damnable” statistics is not going to change that.
A L Russell, Coventry
Sky-high cost of living
View from Westminster and Engineering Eye mentioned respectively Alex Salmond’s praise for Norway’s oil and gas stewardship, and engineers’ attachment to beer (PE March). This prompted me to recall a few observations from when I worked and lived in Norway up to 2010, and to warn against selective comparisons always favouring Norway over the UK.
While I lived there, beer was £12 per pint, and the bill for a single-course bar meal with a drink for two was £100. Wine and spirits could only be bought in a state-owned monopoly shop with a higher rate of tax. The cheapest bottle of wine was £10. VAT was 25%. Visits to a GP cost about £10 every time. Dentists all seemed to be private at higher prices than private dentists here.
Norway (like Scotland) had no native car manufacturer, so imposed a high import tax on cars which resulted in a new Fiat 500 costing £20,000. Used car prices were consistent with this, at about double the price in the UK. I don’t know how much petrol cost because I didn’t have a car, but I’m sure it was more than here.
Tolls applied on ordinary roads into town. I only used taxis occasionally as they were about double the cost of taxis here. The bus system was very good and reasonably priced, although most people using it were the young, the old and non-natives like me.
I did not see very many regular Norwegians on the bus.
Thankfully, most shops, including edge-of-town shopping centres, were closed on Sundays which saved a few quid by reducing spending opportunities.
Ian Wattie, Edinburgh
Like father, like son
I was delighted to see my son Adam (21 months) looking at PE at the breakfast table one morning. I had left the magazine on the table and he picked it up and started flicking through. I guess some of us are born into engineering!
Aidan Hickey, Barnack, Cambs
Track changes
Rather than stopping the Great Western Railway line at Exeter, put a stop to High-Speed 2 (Editor’s Comment and “In the footsteps of Brunel,” PE March).
However, electrification would need to be stopped at Exeter unless Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s cheap coastal route via Dawlish is bypassed by using the London and South Western Railway route between Exeter and Plymouth. Brunel also skimped on his Royal Albert Bridge over the River Tamar. Robert Stephenson would have built it double-track like his Britannia Bridge over the Menai Straits. Both bridges have spans of 140m. They helped each other quite often with their various undertakings. Stephenson had very few failures; I K Brunel had several, some say many.
Brunel’s 7km-long Severn Tunnel continually floods from an underground river that he drilled into and could not stop. His solution was to run pumps continuously. If the pumps (now electric) fail, the time to flood the tunnel is 20 minutes, yes 20 minutes. So, it is not feasible to electrify, as at Dawlish.
A new tunnel should be drilled, perhaps requiring two tunnel-boring machines rather than the eight necessary for Crossrail.
Should the electrification from Paddington to Swindon, Bristol and Cardiff go ahead, then, to join up the network, electrification between Bristol and Birmingham and Swindon and Gloucester should follow on.
Francis Brian Cowell, Hucclecote
Schools still not learning
I was interested by the Commentary “Spread the word by going back to class” (PE February). This is something I did, over a year ago now. I wrote about it on the IMechE LinkedIn page and it got a hugely positive response from other members.
The event sounds similar to that described in the PE article, where Steve Bedder wonders what the outcome would be if more of us contacted schools and offered this. It took me five letters and two phone calls to get a foot into the school, and I had no reply from two other local schools. This highlights a huge issue in that some schools simply are not interested. Colleges are usually more willing and universities even more so. But these sort of talks are not as effective by that time, since those students have taken the decision to study engineering.
A positive note from the day I spent at my old school was that a surprising number of girls showed genuine interest, seeing engineering as a rewarding, challenging and fulfilling career.
Harley Gasson, Woking, Surrey
Landing gear
We can send robots to Mars yet cannot solve what would seem to me to be an easy problem to do with landing aircraft painlessly with little or reduced tyre wear.
Whenever I see an aircraft landing, there is always a puff of smoke when they touchdown, indicating excessive wear as they are spun up to speed. After a few landings this must surely be causing the profile of the tyre to resemble that of the bronze threepenny bit, as well as the further risk of a blowout.
Why has no one devised a method of pre-spinning the wheels to prevent this tyre wear and associated risks? Surely a concentric hydraulic or electric motor within the wheels can provide this action and relieve the wear. It would seem to me to be a problem easily resolved.
Robin Firth, Adelaide, Australia
Thirsty work
Martin Beaney advocates the Sahara desert as a location for using the abundant solar power to ‘crack’ water (Letters, PE March).
I think the flaw in this suggestion is the absence of water?
David Taylor, Kendal, Cumbria
Email your views to pe@caspianmedia.com or write to The Editor, PE, Unit G4, Harbour Yard, Chelsea Harbour, London SW10 0XD. Please include your full name and address