25 Apr 08

Students from Oxford University and local schools got to tackle one of the world’s greatest challenges – generating the power we need whilst slashing carbon emissions – at a debate organised as part of Oxford’s Centenary of Engineering Science.

The event, held at the Department of Engineering on 24 April, featured Lord May of Oxford and Professor Roland Clift. They highlighted some of the problems and opportunities facing ours and future generations who need to generate and use energy more efficiently and bring down carbon dioxide emissions.

‘We today, whatever our age, live in the best of times,’ said Lord May, outlining how life expectancy and global food production has risen sharply over the last few decades – even if there are still shocking disparities between rich and poor countries. But it is also the worst of times, he said, due to the unintended consequences of population growth and the impact of carbon emissions on the climate.

‘By the middle of the century these emissions will take our climate into a region not seen for 20-40 million years,’ Lord May told an audience of students and teachers from six local schools and Oxford University students. There was still hope, he said, but ‘no magic bullet or easy solution’ to the problem of cutting carbon emissions.

Professor Roland Clift took up the theme of cutting emissions, explaining that the UK would have to reach the Government’s 60% reduction target by 2050 without fusion power ‘because it won’t be ready in time and we don’t have time to wait!’ He said that concentrating on saving electrical power alone would not be enough as over half the overall energy we use is expended on heating space and water.

Professor Clift stated that the UK and Northern Ireland have the least energy efficient buildings in Northern Europe and that even the most energy-efficient buildings in the UK would not meet the lowest efficiency standards for a Swedish building. Yet even in countries such as Sweden these energy savings could be elusive as consumers responded to more efficient buildings by turning their thermostats up.

After a question and answer session, students got the chance to discuss the issues involved and come up with their own ideas and views on how to approach the problem of sustainable power generation.

The event was sponsored by Sharp Laboratories of Europe.

The schools involved were: Bellerbys College Oxford, Gosford Hill School, King’s School Oxford, Oxford Community School, Marlborough School and Oxford High School.