My work is not in the energy field so perhaps I lack both expertise and bias – ignorant but not prejudiced! I used to be a vociferous advocate of renewable energy but my views have altered over the years. The problem is in providing sufficient cheap energy storage and conversion infrastructure to cope with the intermittent nature of those renewable options with sufficient generating capacity and low enough cost.
I have failed to find proposals with the technical and economic credibility required to persuade a world hungry for growth to follow the close-to-zero-carbon renewables path.
By concentrating on short-term and inadequate greenhouse gas reduction targets we could be diverted away from effective long-term paths. Investment in renewables without storage may help meet short-term targets while delaying the development of technologies likely to be cheaper and more effective in the long term – such as reactors using molten thorium and current radioactive waste as fuel.
Professor David Infield criticises the ignorance and prejudice he saw in January’s Soundbites in PE, but by failing to say what he disagrees with enlightens no one.
Most of the opinions he dislikes look arguable to me, given the many value judgements involved, and the uncertainties of economic analysis and engineering progress.
What is certain is that “renewable energy professionals” have their noses in the subsidy trough, and can hardly be relied on for a disinterested opinion.
Wow! It has been noticed, at last, that professional engineers in the UK ignore renewable energy. Only 40 years late!
It was a great pleasure to read such a lot about tidal power generation in January’s PE.
Over 25 years ago I was tasked with a student project to design an aero-generator for my polytechnic’s campus. I spent a great deal of time designing a hydraulic transmission to try and store energy between gusts. When reviewed by an experienced researcher, it was rubbished as incapable of storing the amount of energy needed until the wind blew again.
The fallacy of an expensive machine that is only of occasional use was lost on him then and tragically still remains lost to the many who advocate and subsidise them. It is not lost on the writers of Soundbites, thank goodness.
Since then I have bent the ear of anyone who will listen about tidal power. The challenges are not insurmountable. What does concern me is the fondness for heavy civil construction. It’s a great way to spend money, but always challenges the environment, and all so that the flow can be delayed and surged at a point sometime after high tide. Big deal! That’s just going back to windmills that only work sometimes.
Better to scatter generators on the seabed around the coast and let the natural delay smooth the peak. Move them if they don’t see the flow; then there will be a low-risk, adaptable solution.
Pay for high-flyers
It was most interesting to read your article on A380 chief engineer John Roberts (“Flight commander,” PE January). This is an excellent example of a man having a vital role in a financially vast enterprise.
It might be sobering if he revealed his salary in such a post where clearly it needed to be a competitive amount for the responsibility involved. This would put into perspective the eye-watering amounts being paid to top bankers.
As an engineer, I doubt if a top banker’s role is more demanding.
Denis Oglesby, Bingley
Salaries grounded
My colleagues and myself are very interested to learn which branch of engineering your article on salaries is based on (News, PE February). We work in aerospace and none of our salaries are even remotely in the brackets you list. In the last three years we have seen pay rises at less than 7% which equates to less than half of your reported 14.5%.
Stephen Ford, Fareham
Am I over-qualified?
You report that chartered engineers are paid an average of £63,000 a year (News, PE February). As my salary is more akin to the averages quoted in your article for engineering technicians, either I am over-qualified, underpaid, or perhaps in the wrong membership grade. If the latter, can I have a discount?
Warwick Powell, Poole
Let’s change perceptions
Here we go again – same old question: how do we get more women into the profession (“Women in engineering,” PE February)? Same old answer: improve the status and image of engineering.
To achieve this we need positive action from the top, by those who lead the institutions, and not be fobbed off with the usual excuse of “It’s too hard to change ingrained attitudes”.
What would have happened had Stephenson, Brunel et al. taken this attitude when faced with convincing investors that steam was better than the horse?
You can change perceptions. A couple of hundred years ago, doctors were little better than glorified barbers. Now I believe there are more female applicants for medical school than there are male.
Perhaps it might be a start if all the institutions adopted Gary Wood’s suggestion (Letters, PE January) of pre-pending all communications with their chartered members with CEng.
Ken Readman, Cardross
Keep girls’ options open
Your cover story makes the common mistake of assuming that ‘only’ 7% of engineers being female is a problem (PE February). I would contend that if all females who wish to become engineers do so, that proportion could be perfectly acceptable.
You fall into the trap that equality of opportunity should lead to equality of outcome, the fallacy that led to the ideologically driven destruction of the UK’s meritocratic secondary education system. I applaud any effort to encourage all students to consider every possible career option, but utterly oppose any effort to steer any particular group in any particular direction.
Simon Glover, Kingston upon Thames
Jobs for the boys
Only seven in one hundred engineers are women and yet the number of students accepted for engineering courses at universities rose by 7% and IMechE membership is robust.
A slightly tongue-in-cheek deduction might be that if you were an averagely intelligent young man you might form the view that if you wanted a career in which your chances of success were optimised, you should choose a field in which you only compete against half the available national talent.
Before you are deluged with emails and letters from those who know me: I fully accept it has worked for me!
Owen Davies, Ugborough, Devon
Airships could fly again
Seeing the article on turning electricity into hydrogen gives me a somewhat bizarre idea for supplying green energy (News,
PE January).
In the Sahara desert there is an ample supply of solar energy, but the problem is getting this to where it is needed. If it were converted to hydrogen, then it becomes transportable by conventional shipping.
However, since it is lighter than air, it could be used to fill balloons which could be towed, perhaps using an airship, to exactly where it is required, be it a power station or a local distribution centre for household use.
Martin Beaney, Shaldon, Devon
Missing the target
I am hopping mad to hear that the government is going to spend £2.4 billion for 14 American-made VTOL aircraft when recently the British-designed and made Harriers were decommissioned. At a time of austerity, spending this amount of money is insane.
Expenditure on obsolete military hardware in peacetime is a way of keeping industry alive, developing technology and skills and providing employment. This should be done to support your own economy, not buying something that Americans want to throw on the scrapheap.
When in 10 years’ time these VTOL will be operational there will be no need for them; cheap unmanned combat aircraft will replace piloted aircraft. Even now we can see that drones are operating effectively in the field.
The objective of a responsible government is not to waste money providing toys for the military. My comments are founded on a lifetime’s experience as an aeronautical engineer. It is sad that this pattern is of cancellation and procurement has been played out over decades; spite and malice exercised by successive governments.
We haven’t learned from the many US attempts, mostly successful, at killing off UK and now European competition. Concorde was a prime example.
Darius Sepahy, Herts
No dream machine
A few weeks ago I visited an international air show and made a tour of the new Dreamliner. In the main cabin there are 400 seats. It takes up to two hours to disembark. Then imagine the emigration queues at some smaller airports. And it takes an average of more than an hour to receive a meal.
Not very good statistics for the average economy traveller. Then imagine large numbers of passengers on their mobile phones and babies crying, people disturbing others to get to the toilets, and how would they cope on some of the flights?
It poses the question who are the beneficiaries? The passenger should benefit from economy of scale for cheaper flights? The airlines move more passengers so that should improve their profitability?
But in terms of overall comfort, never would I ever want to travel in such a large aircraft – Airbus A380 or Dreamliner. The Airbus A330 is the right size.
If you are one of the few passengers to fly business class, I’m sure it would be a very different experience, which is how the airlines design their marketing!
Name and address supplied
Fuel for the future
You fail to point out that Prism can also be used as a breeder reactor and that the fuel is suitable for repeated recycling (News, PE February).
Used intelligently in fast reactors with full recycling, currently known reserves of fissile fuels are capable of providing a very significant share of world energy demand for in excess of 1,000 years.
Used on a once-through basis before ultimate disposal, supplies of fuel for nuclear reactors are predicted to become scarce during the lifetime of children being born today. Future generations will not thank us for making short-term decisions without considering their needs.
Tim Chittenden, Workington
Cold War controversy
Arthur Champion’s letter is most disappointing (PE February). I read the Archive article about Calder Hall in the December issue and felt it was basically OK.
The dictionary definition of an archive is “a collection of esp. public or corporate documents or records”. That is exactly what the article is, a collection of reports from the time. Your assistant archivist then qualifies the position with a statement that Calder Hall was actually used to produce plutonium. Why is there still this accusation of what is the truth, as if there was still some cynical cover-up going on?
The nuclear industry grew out of that secrecy phase 40 years ago, but opponents never accepted this. For the record, the Sellafield piles were designed to produce plutonium. This process produced a lot of heat, wastefully discharged to air. Calder and Chapelcross were also intended to produce plutonium, but it was sensible to generate electricity from what at that stage was the waste heat of the process. It would also have been possible to use low burn-up discharged fuel from early commercial Magnox reactors to make plutonium, but this never happened.
The much ridiculed “Electricity will be too cheap to monitor” statement of the time arose because with the military picking up the bills it was very cheap.
The Calder plant was a brilliant success. It ran reliably for 45 years because it was very simple and made of good materials.
Colin Warburton, Yarm
Safety is paramount
The picture on page 16 of Letters (PE February) filled me with alarm.
It shows a young lady student operating a pillar drill. Although the student is wearing eye protection she has long hair but no means of preventing her hair becoming entangled in the drill mechanism and being scalped!
Nor is there a guard round the rotating parts of the machine! She is wearing wrist bands, which could also cause a problem.
Surely as responsible engineers we should be promoting safety in all operations and the best place to start this process is in educating our young people.
Andy Wilson, Knutsford, Cheshire
Editor’s Note: We had several letters on this matter. The photograph was supplied to us by a reputable agency, and in the heat of deadline it slipped through our editorial processes. It should have been rejected. Apologies.
Lost cause
Interesting piece in News about the use of the term engineer (PE February). The case is lost – the word is in common use. Forget it and let’s protect the professional titles. Can we stop wasting energy and column inches on a fruitless debate/lost cause.
Donald Miller
Our youngest reader?
My three-year-old son had opened my January issue of PE and was digesting its content before I had even arrived home from work. He’s now very keen to be a UAV engineer and thinks he should start building aircraft in our workshop right away. The future of mechanical engineering is safe!
Phil Minors, Calgary, Canada