Entrepreneurs not Emissions: New business opportunities to fill the gap in UK emissions policy

The gap between the UK’s emissions-reduction targets and its delivery policies creates a vast and largely unexplored space for entrepreneurship and business growth. Reaching zero emissions within one generation depends on electrification, but we won’t have as much non-emitting electricity as we’d like. Without action, this means national energy poverty - but with foresight, now entrepreneurs can profit from the businesses that will give us great lives with less energy. This report reveals the breadth of this untapped opportunity for entrepreneurs

Curvature Development in Ring Rolling

Loss of circularity when creating metal ring-shaped products by ring rolling is a significant industrial issue. This paper explores the previously tacit knowledge that plastic changes in curvature - required to maintain circularity - principally occur as material passes through the roll gap. Through a series of experiments and numerical simulations on half-ring workpieces, the ‘free curvature change’ is explored for the first time, finding that the ring can ‘curl up’ - the radius reducing by as much as -39% in a single pass - unless the inner roll is much smaller than the outer roll. An analytical model of free curvature change is proposed based on force equilibrium and compatibility. Under a range of ‘normal’ operating conditions this predicted free curvature change to within 7%. In (full) ring rolling the radius of curvature must continually increase. This paper proposes that regulation of curvature is achieved through bending moments at the roll entry and exit; largest when the tool size ratio is furthest from the optimum. This hypothesis is supported by Finite Element simulations of full ring rolling, finding entry and exit moments up to a quarter of the moment for a fully plastic hinge. This work could be of direct use to process designers in choosing tool sizes and guide roll force limits and suggests new ways to use guide rolls to better maintain circularity in challenging situations.The authors’ work was supported by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council under [EP/N02351X/1 and EP/K018108/1]

ZERPAs: Financing the transition to net zero under future zero-emissions resource supply constraints

The low carbon transition relies on zero emissions resources: non-emitting electricity, biomass and negative emissions. Given ballooning demand, these markets may well face shortages, which could impact the UK's emissions targets, individual livelihoods, and businesses' ability to fulfil their climate commitments. This report addresses the third consequence and its impact on finance. Resource shortages pose a serious and costly threat to businesses: in an increasingly climate-regulated world, not having a credible plan to reduce emissions isn’t a viable position. However, there is no existing mechanism to translate climate strategies into credible commitments on corporate balance sheets. This report proposes a new financial market to address this challenge. The market will trade long-term contracts for zero emissions resources. Suppliers will agree to deliver a certain amount of resource over a period of 15-odd years. The users, who promise a set price over that period, then have a secure supply - and a verifiable transition plan that they can show climate-wary investors. Today’s finance providers cannot assess the climate risks of investments; ZERPAs, or some equivalent mechanism, would allow them to separate credible commitments from insincere, misguided or implausible promises that undermine the transition to a net zero economy

Viability and performance of demountable composite connectors

AbstractMaterial production, and associated carbon emissions, could be reduced by reusing products instead of landfilling or recycling them. Steel beams are well suited to reuse, but are difficult to reuse when connected compositely to concrete slabs using welded studs. A demountable connection would allow composite performance but also permit reuse of both components at end-of-life. Three composite beams, of 2m, 10m and 5m length, are constructed using M20 bolts as demountable shear connectors. The beams are tested in three-, six- and four-point bending, respectively. The former two are loaded to service, unloaded, demounted and reassembled; all three are tested to failure. The results show that all three have higher strengths than predicted using Eurocode 4. The longer specimens have performance similar to previously published comparable welded-connector composite beam results. This suggests that demountable composite beams can be safely used and practically reused, thus reducing carbon emissions

Finding the most efficient way to remove residual copper from steel scrap

The supply of end-of-life steel scrap is growing, but residual copper reduces its value. Once copper attaches during hammer shredding, no commercial process beyond hand-picking exists to extract it, yet high-value flat products require less than 0.1wt% copper to avoid metallurgical problems. Various techniques for copper separation have been explored in laboratory trials, but as yet no attempt has been made to provide an integrated assessment of all options. Therefore, for the first time a framework is proposed to define the full range of separation routes and evaluate their potential to remove copper, while estimating their energy and material input requirements. The thermodynamic, kinetic and technological constraints of the various techniques are analyzed to show that copper could be removed to below 0.1wt% with relatively low energy and material consumption. Higher-density shredding allows for greater physical separation, but requires proper incentivization. Vacuum distillation could be viable with a reactor that minimizes radiation heat losses. High-temperature solid scrap pre-treatments would be less energy intensive than melt treatments, but their efficacy with typical shredded scrap is yet unconfirmed. The framework developed here can be applied to other impurity-base metal systems to coordinate process innovation as the scrap supply expands.EPSRC, Cambridge Trust

A Structured Search for Novel Manufacturing Processes Leading to a Periodic Table of Ring Rolling Machines

Manufacturing processes based on cutting have been extensively automated over the past [30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40

Designing climate change mitigation plans that add up.

Mitigation plans to combat climate change depend on the combined implementation of many abatement options, but the options interact. Published anthropogenic emissions inventories are disaggregated by gas, sector, country, or final energy form. This allows the assessment of novel energy supply options, but is insufficient for understanding how options for efficiency and demand reduction interact. A consistent framework for understanding the drivers of emissions is therefore developed, with a set of seven complete inventories reflecting all technical options for mitigation connected through lossless allocation matrices. The required data set is compiled and calculated from a wide range of industry, government, and academic reports. The framework is used to create a global Sankey diagram to relate human demand for services to anthropogenic emissions. The application of this framework is demonstrated through a prediction of per-capita emissions based on service demand in different countries, and through an example showing how the "technical potentials" of a set of separate mitigation options should be combined

Materials & Manufacturing: Business growth in a transformative journey to zero emissions

Facing the reality that new energy-sector technologies won’t solve climate change fast enough reveals rich opportunities for innovation and growth in UK materials and manufacturing sectors. UK law commits us to zero emissions by 2050 with most of the reduction occurring by 2035. But we’re not on track to deliver. That’s because corporate and political strategy today is counting on new technologies, like carbon capture and storage, biofuels, hydrogen and negative emissions technologies to meet the challenge, while business elsewhere continues largely as usual. It isn’t going to happen in time. The new technologies are mainly still on drawing boards, and it takes time to deploy them at scale. Instead, delivering zero emissions in reality by 2050 requires a different economy. It’s one that can deliver high quality lifestyles, but it’s an economy that will be powered only by emissions free electricity. We won’t have as much electricity as we’d otherwise like, so we’ll reduce our use of two-tonne cars and badly insulated houses, for example. For some time we’ll have to restrain our use of goods, like ruminants and cement, that can’t be electrified. But this new economy can deliver great lifestyles and great businesses. In manufacturing, we won’t be able to access the same volumes of material as in the emitting past, but we have the opportunity for huge growth in the UK. The closure of high-emitting international freight will open up new demand for domestic production. The need to close the high-emitting material suppliers of the past creates new opportunities for electric materials production. The business of matching material supply to consumer demand for goods will transform and grow

Scrap, carbon and cost savings from the adoption of flexible nested blanking

Abstract: Steel accounts for 6% of anthropogenic CO2 emissions, most of which arises during steelmaking rather than downstream manufacturing. While improving efficiency in steelmaking has received a great deal of attention, improving material yield downstream can have a substantial impact and has received comparatively less attention. In this paper, we explore the conditions required for manufacturers to switch to a more materially efficient process, reducing demand for steel and thus reducing emissions without reducing the supply of goods to consumers. Furthermore, we present an alternative processing route where parts can be cut in flexible arrangements to take advantage of optimal nesting across multiple part geometries. For the first time, we determine the potential savings that flexible nested blanking of parts could achieve by calculating the potential for grouping orders with tolerably similar thickness, strengths, ductility and corrosion-resistance. We found that 1080 kt of CO2 and 710 kt of steel worth €430M could be saved each year if this scheme was adopted across all European flat steelmills serving the automotive sector

Preventing wetting between liquid copper and solid steel: a simple extraction technique.

Abstract Copper contamination of end-of-life steel scrap is the main barrier to high-quality recycling. Preferential melting of copper from solid steel scrap is a potential extraction technique, which could be integrated into conventional scrap re-melting with little additional energy. However, previous investigations show removal of liquid copper is limited by its adherence to solid scrap. Preventing wetting between liquid copper and steel is essential to enable separation. The carbon content of steel, initial surface oxidation and applied coatings effect wetting behavior, but have not been systematically studied. In this study, the individual and combined effects of these parameters on wetting behavior in an inert gaseous environment are observed with a heating microscope. Carbon content appears to be the most significant factor: blistering of the oxide scale on medium carbon steels causes liquid copper to flow rapidly between the oxide and steel substrate. Liquid copper exhibited a stable droplet on low carbon steel, regardless of the initial level of oxidation. The tested coatings did not consistently improve non-wetting behavior, but impaired the connection between the scale and steel substrate. This study confirms the potential of the preferential melting technique, but further investigation is needed to determine the most robust process conditions to handle diverse, fragmented scrap at an industrial scale.K.D. is funded by a Cambridge Trust scholarshi