How is the U.K. using a regional approach to decarbonization?

In this episode of Decarbonizing Today, Chris Rowell from Tees Valley sits down with Brent Lakeman to discuss how a regional approach to decarbonization changes between countries – as well as how it stays the same.  

What is Decarbonizing Today?

Explore the Edmonton Region's role in solving the global climate crisis.

Welcome to, to carbonizing today, a deep dive into

the Edmonton metro region's role in addressing the global climate crisis.

In this episode, we have Chris Rowell, the head

of N net zero for Teas Valley, and your Edmonton G global host, Brent Lake then.

And uh as we get started, maybe Chris, if you could just

talk a bit more about uh the uh the Tees Valley cluster,

the industrial cluster that you're focused on and uh maybe we'll kind of eventually

also talk about some of the similar similarities and differences with our region.

Absolutely, Brent.

I think the Te valley is a is a region that's got of really

strong history of industry going back to the the advent of steel making

there in the in the mid 19th century, and then the

development of the chemical industry over subsequent decades.

So we've we've long relied on essentially

being being a part of the world that built quite a bit of the rest of the world.

So you'll find teaside steel in the Sydney Harbour Bridge and

um in, you know, in the cabinet Warrooms in London and all kinds all kinds of famous buildings.

And, you know, the global price of steel used to be

used to be set in Middlesborough, the center of the UK's chemical industry ICI

was was was in Tide as well as a number of other cluster sites.

And over the years, the economy's changed,

and we you know, our our chemical industry now is

very much one of branch plants, sort of operating well,

efficient and efficiently in teaside, but owned by

foreign headquartered companies with decisions about their future being made

elsewhere and with the clustering the clustering effect is really great when you're adding to it.

So when we add new firms to our industrial cluster, there are efficientcies.

from trading between things and between them and and doing things at scale.

Because if you lose if you lose a plant, then uh you lose that

you lose those efficiencies and over time, it becomes less strong.

So green technologies are a um a

sort of an opportunity for an industrial rebirth in the Teas valley,

so well, our chemical industry is still strong, but we lost steel making in in 2015.

We do still process some steel made elsewhere in the UK, but um

carbon capture, alongside hydrogen and and other

green energy, provided a sort of a singular opportunity for us to

reinvent manufacturing in the Teas Valley, and it's on on a scale that we haven't seen in decades.

So I was in the Teas Valley earlier this year

on a mission on a Canada, UK mission, and

I guess I was really fascinated by the cluster approach that we've seen there.

And maybe can you just give us a little bit of background on how this this

cluster really came to be obviously the historical production there.

But maybe more recently, you know, recognizing the uh the

integration opportunities between industries and these

Working together as a cluster is something not necessarily it's in no way new to the Tease valley.

We've been collaborating across the cluster on um for

decades since the since the dissolution of the sort of monolithic

state owned industries. the then then smaller private industries

did collaborate where where were necessary. and what

we found when when when carbon capture was first mooted

and you'll know this isn't the first time it's been looked at in the UK,

but I think this this third time is going to be the the successful one.

We already had that basis of trust

and collaboration that's that's allowed the Teasealley to put itself at the forefront of CC

in the UK.

So so when I say CCS, it's carbon and capture utilization and storage.

And there is there are opportunities.

And as I've seen in Alberta as well, there are opportunities for captured

carbon that don't involve sequestration, but but do enhance

the sort of environmental and industrial sustainability.

And and you've been here now in Edmonton for a couple of days,

I know, and you probably met some of the key players here learning a bit about our industrial ecosystems.

What would you say would be maybe some of the key similarities or

maybe the differences as well between how we're looking at our

industrial clusters and what we've seen in the UK, particularly with your own course.

I would say the um the scale is a bit different, the

scale of energy, production and actually dependence on energy is

much greater here here in Alberta.

But the challengers are similar.

So the challenges are, how do you take a skilled populace

that is used to making energy or working in energy intensive

industries and prepare them for a low carbon rest of the 21st century.

So how do you keep people in jobs and in fact enhance those?

So you from what I've seen, there's there's industrial collaboration

going on here, so you've got um well, Edmmond and Globbal is obviously fronting

up for the region in a in a big way.

You've got the Alberta Industrial heartland, which is just

things somewhat analogous to the organization I work in do where it's

it's fostering collaboration and it's coming up with a plan.

So I' I've been lucky enough to sit down with their team members and

see what they've got, but see what they've got planned for their foot for their cluster.

And we've been able to to engage with the government of Alberta as well.

So we've been briefed this morning on their um their plans for environmental

regulation, but in doing that, they showed the 23 different CCUS

hubs that are currently under consideration across

the province and it's I mean, the scale is huge. in

the UK, we are looking at at the moment we've got four CCUS hub projects signed off

the Tease Valley is part of one of those, um and

they're all using offshore storage. under either in our

case under the North Sea, but there's also there's also significant capacity

under the Irish Sea as well between the uh between the UK and and the Irish mainland.

So um yeah, there's

there's definitely there's definitely similarities and

differences in that sense, but ultimately, all it comes down to is

people, well, people and energy. and uh people need to be looked after and the world needs energy.

Right.

No, definitely definitely I think some similarities there.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, maybe just from the perspective of carbon capture and storage and

this conference, what are some things that you're hoping to learn from the Canadian experience?

Well, you guys have been doing carbon capture successfully for some years now.

You've got carbon sequestration under Alberta in the millions of tons already.

And because of that' we've visited the University

of Alberta and we we've heard from from from their um their

geologists as well as from people doing um work on seismology in the private sector,

they're already um they've already got a pretty good idea of

what happens during um when you're capturing carbon and sequestering it in the saline aquifers.

Now, in the UK, we're looking at doing that on the seabed, where

ultimately the challenges remain you know, there are additional challenges to doing

it under the sea, as there are there are challenges you'll have doing it on that

we're not going have but it is very similar, you know, the

questions of ensuring the carbon stones there of a

verify if there is a is if there are any issues keeping it verifying,

you know, uh who's carbon whose carbon it is or how much of it and where's it gone?

That that's that sort of thing.

But it's um

and I mean, I guess I potentially some opportunities

for companies that are working on CCS here to be involved in some of the projects in the UK as well.

Absolutely.

I think we've got see you've had recently you've had a really massive investment from Linday.

So they are through Linday own BOC, one of our industrials.

They they're one of the three carbon capture projects

already selected in the Teas valley for government support. and B

BOC already in Tide produced 50% of the UK's commercially available hydrogen.

and that sounds like a lot, but in fact, the hydrogen production

we' off the back of CCS and off the back of green hydrogen will dwarf it

It's fascinating to see that sort of um that they they they they're

doing similar things in both places, but there they're gonna retroit carbon well,

they're gonna retrofit um CCU to a process they're already splitting

out the carbonon. and I think that another

similarity is actually a lot of the uh underpinning technologies,

but you yeah, you guys have been drum I've been doing sub uh subsurface

work here for decades. and you've been and the the

industrial processors have involved many of the things required for carbon capture.

We're in exactly the same position in the UK.

We've been working on the North Sea for longer than I've been alive and

we've and we we've been splitting hydrogen and and carbon

and we've been piping hydrogen around our industrial cluster for years.

So what we're doing is while while

it's new and the application is new, there are there are elements

of it that actually there's loads of existing experience in,

right?

And maybe one of the things I picked up when I was in the UK

was, you know, the focus on domestic supply chains, the focus

on the workforce itself, again, coming from a industrial

cluster that has a lot of history in Te Teas Valley Tide.

And um, you know, but now we're talking about carbon capture and storage.

Any

few questions in here, but any thoughts, I guess first on, maybe the public attitudes for CCUS.

I know it's offshore in the UK.

We've got an onshore experience here.

But again, maybe some learnings about how we're both approaching our own

communities and seeing, you know, what would be the the public concerns,

if any, around CC and how we can learn from each other's projects.

I think there's the two levels of there's two levels of engagement with the public.

You've got the political level, so are we've got a mayor in the Tas valley

Ben Hauton, who's he's made CCS hydrogen and related technology as part of his agenda

and he communicates with the public on it and he communicates

with them on on the topic of jobs and prosperity and and

then providing the skills to get those jobs and our organization

has a set of divulged powers from the UK government.

We don't do provinces like you guys do here.

It's much more centralized.

This is one of our first steps within England ofolution

we've got powers and budgets that help um that that that help grow our economy.

And one of the things we're doing is using our devolved skills funding to support big green inid investors.

So we need we're going to need work work welders of short projects.

We're going to need people who may have worked in the chemical industry before

to um to reskill on hydrogen and CC.

But also, and I think the really important part is people

want their own prosperity, but they're much more interested in prosperity for the next generations.

So we've got BP who funded what we call the

BP scholars, so they're in um technical skilled education

at one of our colleges, they've they've funded that

they're working on a sort of a live carbon capture rig and there are plans

to do similar hydrogen things in the Teas valley.

that they're planning for the jobs of the future today.

Yeah, I think that's very similar here.

Younger people are looking for jobs in clean energy.

And sometimes not always realizing that some of those jobs are actually right here.

We've got this historical experience that is kind of not that, you know,

it's not a a big stretch to pivot into clean energy.

If you're looking at CO2 storage, those similar skill sets, you

maybe developed in oil and gas or other industrial processes.

as an island nation, though all offshore energy has been a big thing for the UK.

So you may see a young person entering the market, working on a

labor market, working on CCS pipeline, where their father worked

an offshore wind and their grandfather worked on an oil and gasrig

It's all part of the energy mix and the skills are actually kind of similar.

It's um we've in the UK, we've transitioned in

a large way from offshore oil and gat.

We still do offshore oil and gas, but in a smaller way.

We've our energy transition has taken the

same people that we're working on the oil ricks have been building the wind farms and

you'll see that transition continue. and I think we'll see a transition

in the chemical cluster as well to to people working on hydrogen, but also sustainable fuels

I I often say this, if you've got um if you've got a CCUS, you've got hydrogen and you've got clean energy.

You've got all the ingredients for the fuels of the future.

And I see that in Fees Valley and I see it here here in Alivers as well?

Yeah, no, I think we're highly aligned there and no, we're

talking about the opportunities, but I guess also, you know, what remainsaining challenges

are you dealing with that you think are really critical from the UK perspective in Teas Valley?

And maybe there there any learnings even on how we address those challenges by working together?

Cool.

So um I mean, technology needs to be improved all the time.

The um the projects the projects completed

in the next few years will probably be completely outclassed

by technology deployed in five, ten years after that.

So we we've supported innov we've worked with the UK's

innovation agency innovate UK to support emerging technologies

that will improve hydrogen and CCS.

But for us, because of the sort of 50% blue

hydrogen in the planned mix in Te Valley, actually, for us, it's two sides of the same coin.

Again, there's huge opportunities.

We've been several times now to the UK for these joint missions.

So I think it's just the beginning of more collaboration here.

And I guess I look forward to continuing the discussion how we can

learn from the cluster approach of the UK.

And again, we have maybe some similarities.

Some of our projects are maybe more Greenfield here in in the Edmonton

region as opposed to the maybe it's the historic Brownfield projects, but I think you have some shared learnings around that

And I think that's uh maybe the thing that people haven't always picked up.

There's been so much collaboration on technology development through our organizations

like Alberta innovates emission reduction, Alberta, and uh

really allows us to start working together on projects that are in common

I want to thank you Chris for for the opportunity to be here and uh

learning about your approach and uh we'll continue to connect on uh our industrial clusters.

Thanks for listening.

Stay tuned for our next episode of decarbonizing today to