Engineers called on to lead the battle against climate change

The incoming president of the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE), Professor Geoff Maitland, is calling on engineers to take a leading role in the battle against climate change and the transition to low-carbon, renewable energies.

Professor Maitland, who will take up his year-long post as IChemE President on 28 May, has been a part of the oil and gas industry since 1986, when he led research in oilfield fluids engineering for Schlumberger. He has held a number of senior technical and research management positions in Cambridge and Paris, most recently as a research director.

He is currently Professor of Energy Engineering at Imperial College London, with his research covering clean and efficient fossil fuel production with particular emphasis on carbon dioxide mitigation processes, recovery of non-conventional hydrocarbons including methane hydrate production and energy-related reactor engineering. He is also a Fellow of IChemE, the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Energy Institute.

Professor Maitland believes the current approach to tackling climate change is not working, with the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) forecasting that global energy consumption is expected to grow by over 50% by 2040, with fossil fuels providing up to 80% of energy needs, and carbon dioxide emissions reaching 45.5 billion tonnes - an increase of nearly 46%. He is thus calling on engineers, especially chemical engineers, to lead the debate and speed up the transition to low-carbon energy supply.

“Arguably, engineers have a more important role than governments in our transition to renewable energies,” Professor Maitland said. “Short-term energy policies and ‘political fiddling’ are failing to provide the solutions needed - and fast enough. We are sleepwalking into a catastrophic climate change future.

“It is inevitable that we will need to pay more for our energy in the future, whatever its source. For many decades, fossil fuels will continue to play a major role, but we must all be prepared to pay the real cost of using them, as part of a lower-carbon present.

“Current prices fail to factor in the costs of carbon capture and storage. And then there are the adaptation costs to mitigate the impact of climate change, such as the floods and droughts which are increasingly disrupting the lives of millions of people across the globe.

“All branches of engineering and energy production need to build bridges and work together to drive forward change. We need to promote and share the real costs of energy, including carbon capture and storage and other carbon mitigation measures. We need to engineer the whole journey from start to finish - and begin to make real progress more quickly.

“We still need the financial and legal frameworks provided by governments to drive and support the changes needed. But the challenge rests with engineers to halt the damage we are doing to our planet - not only to provide cost-effective technological solutions but also to change public opinion about the urgency of the situation, to put more pressure on governments to provide much stronger incentives to reduce carbon emissions now, rather than waiting for renewables to take over long term.”

Professor Maitland will be outlining his thoughts on the environmental impact of fossil fuels and managing the transition to alternative energies in a speech called ‘The Energy Transition - Fuelling the Debate’, to be held on 10 April in London