Dr. Julian Allwood of the University of Cambridge will speak in the Laboratory for Manufacturing and Productivity Seminar Series. Abstract: The need for a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions to combat climate change is now widely agreed, but the means to achieve it is highly uncertain. One politically popular approach is the dream of a carbon free energy supply, but providing this either by renewables, nuclear power, or carbon capture and storage requires an unprecedented scale of investment and construction. In parallel, step change reductions in energy demand must be made, but it is currently difficult to identify where sufficiently big differences can be made. This talk will present a top?down analysis of global energy use broken down by engineering devices and systems. In particular, the talk will show that emissions from industry are dominated by production of five key materials (cement, steel, plastic, paper and aluminum) and will discuss the options for cutting these emissions in the face of likely demand growth.
About the Speaker: Julian Allwood is a Senior Lecturer in the Institute for Manufacturing at University of Cambridge and is a Fellow and Director of Studies in Engineering at Gonville and Caius College.