Prefab Taking Flight at U.S. Airports

 

Expansions and modernizations at airports can be logistically tricky. They often involve shutdowns and delays, adding to travel headaches and causing a loss of revenue. But prefabrication and modular construction are emerging trends for airports, promising benefits that include fewer disruptions, shorter project timelines, and safer work sites, according to advocates of the methodology.

Current projects at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL), while not the first in the country to use remote construction, nevertheless illustrate the potential of different variations on the approach. LAX is extending its Midfield Satellite Concourse to the south, adding 146,000 square feet and eight gates for narrow-body aircraft in a process that design architect Woods Bagot calls off-site construction and relocation (OCR). In Atlanta, architects Corgan and Goode Van Slyke are relying on a hybrid of modular and traditional construction to expand ATL’s 44-year-old Concourse D by 75 percent to accommodate larger airplanes and more travelers.

In the case of LAX, workers built nine aluminum-clad, steel-framed segments, with a typical one measuring 63 by 138 feet, in an assembly yard just outside the airfield operations area. Then, over nine nights this past October, with runways temporarily closed, crews from heavy-lifting company Mammoet transported the roughly 1,000-ton modules the 1¾ miles to the building site on specialized multiwheeled vehicles known as self-propelled modular transporters (SPMTs).

Ian Lomas, the chair of Woods Bagot’s Los Angeles studio, says that the architecture of the new concourse is intentionally straightforward, but with proportions and geometry inspired by California Modernism. The modules do, however, have a feature that deviates from that era’s mostly rectilinear forms: an angled and subtly curving brise soleil. The shading device allows for daylighting and views without the need for other measures to mitigate heat gain and glare, such as coatings or electrochromic glazing. And “it creates a simple ripple across the facade,” says Lomas.

 

Structurally, each segment is its own building, laterally supported by a pair of moment-resisting frames in one direction and buckling-restrained braced frames in the other, explains Stuart Brumpton, project manager for Buro Happold, the expansion’s structural engineer, as well as its sustainability, lighting, and acoustical consultant. The design takes into account the potential for intense seismic activity in the earthquake-prone region, but it also prevented damage of nonstructural components during the modules’ transport, since their cladding, glazing, m/e/p services, partitions, and many interior finishes had already been installed. “We had to be more careful about deformation than we would for a typical building,” says Derrick Roorda, Buro Happold’s U.S. technical director.

Although the segments will probably stay put for several decades, they have been designed with circularity in mind. One day they could be decoupled and moved to another part of the airport, and possibly be converted to a different use, such as office space, points out Lomas. And, because the connections are bolted (except where the modules are tied to their foundations), the segments could even be easily disassembled and the steel members readily reused.

With all nine modules now in place, workers are building the concourse’s apron level, completing interior finishes, and installing the boarding bridges, among other tasks. Following a systems-commissioning process slated to start in March, the concourse will open in late 2025. According to Los Angeles World Airports, LAX’s owner and operator, the OCR approach shortened the construction timeline by six months and saved $30 million. Many of these economies can be attributed to avoiding the security screening required for building on an active airfield—and the associated time and expense. In a traditionally constructed airport project, “not only personnel, but every bolt needs to go through the TSA,” points out Roorda.

The team behind the expansion of Concourse D at ATL—the world’s busiest airport, with more than 100 million travelers in 2023 alone—is taking a slightly different tack, combining prefabrication with stick-built construction. The $1.4 billion project will widen the structure from 65 feet to 99 feet and extend its overall length by 288 feet. Ross Payton, aviation-sector leader at Corgan, says the revamped concourse will be more comfortable for travelers. It will have a taller interior volume, with 18-foot ceilings; larger hold rooms, with 20 percent more seating; roomier circulation spaces; more food options; and larger restrooms. When both north and south wings are complete, Concourse D will have 34 gates for next-generation aircraft.

The expansion is being implemented in phases, so that no more than eight gates are taken out of operation at any one time, a mandate from the client, explains Todd McClendon, senior vice president of aviation with WSP, the project’s program manager as part of a joint venture with H.J. Russell and Turner & Townsend. Starting with the north wing, contractors are building steel-framed, shoebox-like modules—some as large as 30 by 192 feet—in a nearby assembly yard and, as with the LAX project, moving them into place overnight with Mammoet’s SPMTs. The team will next rely on more conventional techniques to build over the existing two-story concourse, and, once the new enclosure is complete, demolish the original upper level from within.

As of September, the first five modules had been put in place, with six new gates already in use. The north wing is expected to be complete by the summer of 2027, and the entire concourse two years later. According to WSP’s initial estimates, the combination of off- and on-site construction will shave eight to 10 months off the project timeline compared to a more conventional approach. It will also keep a maximum number of gates in operation at any one time. “In terms of per-day gate revenue, it made total sense,” says McClendon.

Prefabrication or modular construction won’t be a good fit for every airport. But if the projects in Atlanta and Los Angeles deliver on their promises, we will be seeing many more relying on these strategies.

 

Source: Architectural Record

 

 

/0 Comments/by

Skills Shortages: A Key Focus for New RICS President

Justin Sullivan

The new president of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors has been named – and he immediately sees a challenge in the UK meeting the government’s house building targets.

Justin Sullivan is the 143rd RICS president, having been the chief executive of construction consultancy Adair.

He says the industry has an acute skills shortage, with encouraging the next generation into the profession being one of his key focus areas for 2025.

He says he’s also keen to maintain and expand recognition of the profession’s positive impact on society at large, and his work over the next 12 months will reflect these interests.

“My eyes are firmly set on the future, and particularly the next generation of surveyors” he says.

“The UK faces many challenges – we need to build more homes, but face skills shortages which threaten to derail these plans.

“Similarly, surveyors and other built environment professionals are in short supply across the globe, most acutely in regions where construction is booming, such as the Middle East. We must also develop an increasingly welcoming profession which is open to people of all backgrounds and identities – a crucial cornerstone for getting more youth into the profession.

“There is much work to be done, and I look forward to the challenge.”

Outgoing RICS president Tina Paillet comments:

“Being RICS President is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to positively influence the profession on the world stage, and meet with, listen to, and implement the needs of our members across every global region.

“The built environment plays a crucial role in humanity’s future, particularly with combating climate change and achieving Net Zero through sustainable development and environmentally friendly processes. The industry also faces profound skills shortages across all global regions, which is something I know Justin is passionate about tackling. I wish him all the best for his time as RICS President in 2025.”

Source: Letting Agent Today

/0 Comments/by

Building Wyomings Modern Monastry

(Courtesy Carmelite Monks of Wyoming)

Say the word monastery and the word medieval is likely not far behind. Monasteries and monks, they just all have an old-world vibe.

Perhaps not deservedly so.

“When you think of monks, you think medieval, you know, Dark Ages,” Brother Isidore Mary of the Carmelite Monks of Wyoming told Cowboy State Daily. “You think of something way back in the past.”

But during that medieval history of the distant past, it was often monks who were the most open to new methods and new ways.

They invented water clocks to ring bells marking their prayer times. They crafted eyeglasses to help them see better and the heavy plow so that they could more readily grow their own food. They invented Parmesan cheese, Champagne, pretzels and even better beer.

They also copied ancient texts to preserve knowledge and built upon the knowledge they preserved to further science and medicine, bringing more light into the world.

And let’s not forget Gregor Mendel.

While he was not a monk but an Augustinian friar — a close cousin of sorts — Mendel transformed the world’s understanding of biology through his observations and experiments with pea plants and established the science of genetics.

“A lot of the technologies of the medieval world were actually developed by monks,” Mary said. “They were kind of cutting edge for the time.”

So, it is perhaps not as surprising as it might at first seem that an ancient order of Carmelite monks living in remote Wyoming are using a decidedly cutting-edge modern technology to craft decidedly old and beautiful architecture.

The monks are using a computer numerical control, or CNC, machine to build a full-on Gothic monastery.

Think computers with a robotic arm spraying out jets of high-pressure water and using a diamond drill. Beneath that drill, however, are exquisite carvings in an ancient Gothic style.

The result is a beautiful architectural masterpiece set in the picturesque mountains near Meeteetse.

Who Are The Carmelite Monks

Carmelite monks trace their origins back to Mount Carmel in Palestine, a location that has a rich religious history.

It was on Mount Carmel that the prophet Elijah defended true faith in the God of Israel and won a great challenge against the priests of Baal. That’s also where Elijah, praying in solitude, would see a small cloud that brought life-giving rain after a long drought.

Practice Makes Perfect

Most of the monastery’s buildings are now complete. All but one. The crown jewel of the monastery. The chapel itself.

The monks saved that for last for a very good reason. Practice, as they say, makes perfect. And given that none of these monks had any experience with stonework or CNC techniques, practice was definitely needed before tackling this most ornate and special building.

“So, the first months when our order came out here to Wyoming back in 2003, a couple of decades ago, we started with $400,” Mary said. “That was all the money they had coming out to restart this and to build a monastery like the ancient monasteries of Europe, monasteries that are 1,000 years old, out here in the Rocky Mountains.”

People thought the monks were crazy, Mary acknowledged.

“There’s some good reason for that — it definitely sounds crazy,” he said. “But miracles do happen, and our whole history is just full of them.”

“Through a lot of generosity, a lot of benefactors and through hard work, we thought we had saved enough money to build our monastery,” Mary said. “And we were working with a renowned architect and had several big contractors come in and put bids on what this would cost to build a stone, Gothic monastery.”

The figures, Mary recalled, were staggering — $80 million at the lowest end.

It was a completely impossible figure for a monastery that’s supported only by sales of its Mystic Monk brand of roasted coffee, heavenly though that cup of Joe might be.

“So that wasn’t an option,” Mary said. “We could never in 100 years raise the kind of money to build something like that.”

Keeping The Faith

But the monks weren’t deterred by this blow to what they believed was a sacred plan for their order.

“Our whole life, we consider everything we do a prayer,” Mary said.

So, the impossible cost of building their dream in the Wyoming mountains near Meeteetse didn’t deter these monks, not at all. It just meant more prayer was required. More thinking. More contemplation. God would show them the way.

“We’re like, ‘Well, there must be another way,’” Mary said. “And when we were looking at the quotes, the biggest line item was always the stonework. So we said to ourselves, ‘Well, carving the stone can’t be that difficult. Why don’t we just learn to carve the stone ourselves? And that will take care of most of the cost.’”

But Carving Stone Is Difficult

Bear in mind that none of these monks had any experience whatsoever when it comes to carving stone. They didn’t see how hard it could be because none of them had ever done it, or tried to do it, before.

“We knew nothing to start with,” Mary said. “We had no background. None of the monks here had a background in stone-cutting, CNC machines, manufacturing or anything like that.”

As they cast about for literature that could help them learn about carving stone, they found there wasn’t a whole lot out there to help them. There certainly wasn’t anything about using CNC (computer numerical control) machines to carve old-school Gothic architecture.

The closest thing with any comparability was rebuilding the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris after a catastrophic 2019 fire engulfed the church’s spire and most of its roof. Millions of dollars were raised to rebuild what many consider the spiritual heart of Paris.

“They rebuilt that, all those pieces,” Mary said. “But that was a huge project with a budget far beyond what we have.”

Even that didn’t deter Wyoming’s Carmelite monks. They were determined to accomplish what they’d set out to do, build a Gothic style monastery in the Rocky Mountains.

When they ordered their first block of stone, it weighed 25,000 pounds and was 40 feet long.

Obviously, they were going to have to break that down into some smaller sizes so they would fit into place for their CNC machines.

“We’ve got a really large circular saw that can cut these blocks up into smaller pieces, and then we put it in a CNC machine to do the cutting and the shaping into different ornate and intricate pieces,” Mary said. “And typically, these are diamond-coated, because the stone is very hard. But the diamond is harder than the stone, so you can use it to grind the stone down and shape it for anything from a simple molding running up the side of a window to something more ornate, say flowers and leaves and vines and gargoyles and angels and all kinds of different things.”

But not all the blocks are tiny. No, not at all. Some of the blocks still weigh up to 4,000 pounds.

Just imagine turning that so that a different side can be carved. Mary said the monks have learned to do that very carefully so that the design isn’t broken, using forklifts and cranes.

They’ve worked up to the point where they can handle one of the big 25,000-pound blocks about once a month, and then they spend the rest of the month breaking that down into smaller components and using them to build out this dream monastery.

 

Teamwork Makes The Dream Work

One thing that helped was each of the monks discovered they already had some applicable skills along the way that could transfer to the task at hand of carving stone.

“One of the monks is a self-taught kind of sculptor,” Mary said. “And so, he designs the different pieces and shapes and angels and flowers and everything in the modeling programs.”

Others had some experience with big equipment like cranes and forklifts, thanks to work on the ranch, or digging and excavating. The latter often uncovers huge rocks that are in the way, so being able to do that themselves is also a big cost-saving factor.

“The equipment side of things, in some ways, is more natural for us,” Mary said.

Mary, meanwhile, had strong mechanical aptitude, demonstrated early on when he was helping roast coffee. He could figure out how the roasters work to fix them.

“For the coffee roasting, we use a variety of equipment,” Mary said. “Nothing like a CNC machine, it’s much simpler, but there’s some basic level of automation. Just very basic computer control, and systems, and things like that.”

When things weren’t going so well with the operation of the stone-cutting machines, Mary was transferred to the CNC project, to see if he could apply that mechanical aptitude to that project.

“It was a huge learning curve,” Mary said. “But we’re still here.”

Mary isn’t sure exactly when Wyoming’s Carmelite monks will be finished building their chapel but said it could be as soon as 2030. There might even be, once it is finished, a rare open house at that point, though no decisions have been made on that.

 

Source: Cowboy State Daily

/0 Comments/by

The Rural Divide in Highland Schools

Charleston Academy in Inverness is among schools needing attention. Image: DC Thomson.

Pupils learning in ‘poor’ Moray and Highland school buildings in shocking rural divide

Nearly 100 schools across the region are ranked poorly according to official statistics.

More than half of all schools in Moray are rated as being in a poor condition and are not fit for purpose, according to worrying data.

A staggering 31 of the council area’s 52 primary and secondary schools have major defects, Scottish Government statistics show.

Two buildings are ranked so badly that they are deemed as being at risk of failure.

Meanwhile, more than 60 schools across the Highlands are in a similarly poor condition.

Just over 10% of primary school buildings in rural areas across Scotland are in a worrying state.

In more urban local authorities, that figure is 5.6% nationally.

Similarly 16.4% of more rural secondary schools are rated poorly or badly, against 8.5% of urban buildings.

Highlands and Islands Tory MSP Tim Eagle says the SNP is “failing rural Scotland”.

“No child should be learning in a school that is in a poor or bad condition, but on the SNP’s watch there is a clear postcode lottery,” he claimed.

“These shocking figures show that the SNP are failing rural Scotland and are simply ignoring large parts of the country when it comes to education.”

Highland and Moray both have long-running problems.

In 2022, we revealed school buildings in the two local authorities were among the worst in the country.

Earlier this year Highland Council voted against declaring an emergency about the region’s crumbling estate.

The ruling administration instead vowed to look for more cash to fix the problem.

Proposals have been put forward to redevelop some ailing local schools.

Councillors considered a major overhaul of Charleston Academy in Inverness, for example, to eventually replace all existing buildings.

In November last year, Moray Council admitted some school closures were inevitable as buildings are reviewed.

The Scottish Government said 91% of Scotland’s schools are in a good or satisfactory condition, up from 62% when the SNP took power in 2007.

A government spokesperson said:

“We are continuing to invest in the school estate through the £2 billion Learning Estate Investment Programme.

“This includes supporting the construction of six new rural school building projects.”

Source: The Press & Journal

/0 Comments/by

HOW 2025 WILL CHALLENGE CONSTRUCTION

Current trends suggest that the UK economy is on “recession watch”, with this reflecting an overall contraction for both the economy as a whole and construction specifically as we head into 2025.

Next year is likely to continue the testing times the construction sector has experienced since the Covid-19 pandemic, with the industry set to face challenges across a wide range of issues. However, these challenges are increasingly well understood in policy terms and early steps are being taken to try to change the way in which projects are to be delivered with a desire to build a better and clearer future during 2025 and beyond.

Despite this optimistic view, there are a number of potential challenges the sector should be aware of as the new year approaches.

Inflation will remain a major factor for construction sector

This time last year it was anticipated that the sector would be heavily impacted by inflation. In terms of day-to-day procurement and contracting, this impact has perhaps been less pronounced than feared. There has not been a material up-tick in formal disputes between parties over the operation of price adjustments, but a range of procurements have been delayed because of pricing uncertainty and difficulties in firming up or fixing supply chain prices.

This trend is unlikely to change in 2025. Recent Office for National Statistics (ONS) data  indicated that inflation had risen to the highest level in eight months, with CPI for November 2024 up to 2.6% from 2.3% in October 2024.

This is clearly going to have an impact on interest rates. An early cut in rates in 2025 seems further away than ever. The infrastructure sector and construction industry are particularly sensitive to the cost of capital and borrowing. The economic headlines suggest that this will come down at a slower pace than envisaged earlier this year, with consequent impact upon the decisions being taken by employers and contractors alike.

Drivers for growth will not be reflected in headline growth terms

The early months of the new UK government were overshadowed by concerns about what was going to be in the chancellor’s Budget in the form of the gap in public finances. This was followed by the subsequent fall-out from aspects of the budget, particularly in respect of the headline 1.25% increase on employer National Insurance contributions. Despite that, the government has remained consistently “on message” that construction activity is going to be essential to national growth.

The UK remains a crowded island, and this is not going to change. Longer term UK population growth will support growth in housing and infrastructure. By 2036, the ONS projects the UK population will grow to 73.7 million – a 9.9% increase from the estimated 67 million in 2021 – and the size of the UK population aged 85 years and over is projected to rise by an additional one million to 2.6 million over the next 15 years.

In turn, that underpins undiminished political commitment to the sector, particularly in respect of home-building and the transition to clean energy, each driven by this broader population growth and pent-up demand.

Planning reforms are expected to help boost construction output in both housebuilding and infrastructure. In particular, the government hopes that its revised National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) will deliver a surge in house building by constructing on ‘grey-belt’ – which is poor quality green-belt land.

As a part of the NPPF, the government has published a new housing target for England of 370,408 new homes per year. This includes 87,992 in London – a reduction of 11% over previous targets – and 70,681 in the south east of England – a 38% increase. This compares to the annual run rate of 229,942 of homes built in recent years – an increase of 61%.

The government also plans to spend up to £775 billion on infrastructure and construction over the next decade. The National Infrastructure and Construction Pipeline (NICP) outlines 660 projects that are part of this plan.

The government is also committed to doubling onshore wind energy by 2030, and to placing onshore wind and solar on the same footing as other energy development in the NPPF and supporting the reintegration of large-scale wind projects into the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP) regime. There also remains a considerable deficit in defence sector real estate and the built environment, thrown into sharp relief by the continuing political reassessment of NATO and the UK’s response to geopolitical challenges.

Sitting behind these ambitions are some difficult decisions around priorities in relation to procurements. There continues to be reference to the need for “shovel-ready projects” but new projects coming to market do not always seem to reflect this. Stop-start decision making and attempts to procure work from existing, and often inappropriate, framework contracts appear to be an endemic problem for procurers, weighed against broader questions of what “value for money” means in the context of public procurement.

Housing sector ambitions will prove a disappointment

The sector is expected to build in a way that is almost unprecedented. A number of housebuilders have expressed their lack of confidence that this is going to be achievable. For putative tenderers and contractors, the combination of recent tax changes and inflationary pressures would appear to be leading to a hiring freeze in parts of the industry and increased business costs.

This comes at a time when the UK faces a structural decline in the construction workforce. Construction productivity has fallen over the last decade which means it takes more hours to build the same output. This is likely to provide an additional constraint on sector activity in responding to the drivers for growth.

Appetite for tendering also remains patchy. The lessons of the last recession, and the ones before that, that “turnover is vanity, but profit is sanity” continue to be felt. Realistic expectations on what constitutes risk allocation in tendering processes and contracts, particularly given the additional requirements of the Building Safety Act, still seem to vary widely as does the appetite of the supply chain to take on more traditional requirements that may be unfavourable for contractors.

While the government’s commitment to planning reform has been seen by many as a positive development, these changes on their own are only going to take the industry so far in achieving the ambitious goals that have been set.

The role for project finance solutions will still be uncertain

All the indicators so far suggest that the government does not fundamentally believe that PPP/PFI offers best value for money. A likely increase in potential disputes and local authority complaints arising from the final furlong of PFI projects being “handed back” to the public sector is going to be unlikely to change the narrative in this respect.

There is an omission from the Treasury toolkit of anything remotely approaching a standardised approach to project finance which was a hallmark of the ‘New Labour’ years. The infrastructure provider model associated with Thames Tideway has not been revisited, despite having been seen as a successful contractual model. Funding models for a range of utilities appear to be struggling for an easily replicable and effective model – at a time when the regulatory model itself is coming under greater scrutiny.

The government’s change to the fiscal rules to allow greater government investment in infrastructure is a welcome change. However, in the long-term, the government will need to find ways to leverage private capital into public infrastructure to pay for the schools, hospitals, roads and railways needed to support greater productivity and a growing population. There has been discussion of unlocking the availability of funds from major institutional investors, but little detail. Previous forays into this area, such as the Pension Investment Platform, were relatively modest in their outcomes.

Bringing together and structuring pension funds is one step, but building the levels of capability to invest in infrastructure will take time to achieve. Inherently, pension funds do not like construction risk, and this is going to require some genuine innovation if it is going to be possible to “crowd in” private finance. International capital is highly mobile. The UK also needs to be seen by international investors as an attractive investment destination and this means that investors and infrastructure funds need to see high quality returns compared to other countries.

AI will increasingly make an impact

One key issue we continue to hear is that business leaders are recognising the fundamental impact that artificial intelligence (AI) is having on their businesses across the infrastructure and construction industry.

A priority issue for all infrastructure sector businesses no matter whether contractor, sponsor or client, investor or supply chain, is how construction risk is managed.

The use of AI in the design and construction of infrastructure provides many opportunities – but also provides many significant challenges. In particular, contract drafting and contract management for AI is busy playing catch up.

Decisions made about the design and construction of infrastructure assets across the life cycle of infrastructure programmes using AI will almost certainly provide fertile ground for disputes. Clear corporate governance and controls together with policies and guidance will need to be carefully considered and implemented alongside the use of AI for the design and construction of infrastructure assets. Creating clear audit trails of decisions made across complex and often globally dispersed project teams during many years and even decades is a huge challenge for the construction industry and will have far reaching consequences. This is compounded by significant external pressures on infrastructure programmes. Over the past four and a half years there has been significant disruption to construction resulting in significant consequences.

The implementation of clear governance and controls around the use of AI for the design and construction of infrastructure will be essential for our clients and a key part of our programme on examining the impact of AI on infrastructure and construction clients.

Source: Pinsett Masons

/0 Comments/by

High Court victory for Kohler Mira in patent infringement claim  

Emma Foster, Managing Director of Kohler Mira

Market leading showering manufacturer Kohler Mira (“Mira Showers”) has won a High Court ruling against Norcros Group, the company behind the Triton Showers brand. 

 

The Court ruled that Triton infringed on the patent of Mira Showers’s dual outlet electric shower technology (Mira’s patent GB 2,466, 504) with its DuElec range of showers. 

 

Mira Showers commenced proceedings in the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court in December 2022 claiming Triton had infringed its patent.  Triton denied infringement and counterclaimed for revocation of the patent. 

 

The trial took place on 8 and 9 July 2024. In a judgment, which was handed down on Monday 16th December 2024, Her Honour Judge Melissa Clarke held Mira Showers’s patent to be valid and infringed. The judgment is subject to appeal. 

 

Emma Foster, Managing Director of Kohler Mira said: 

 

“We are thrilled with the fantastic result of our case against Triton, which has been ongoing for two years.  At Kohler Mira, we invest significantly in research and development to bring the very best showering experience to our customers.  One of our guiding principles is to live on the leading edge of design and innovation, and it is vital that this is backed with a strong commitment to fiercely protect our intellectual property”. 

 

This is not the first time that Kohler Mira has taken action to protect its IP and investment made in innovation.  In 2013, the business brought a case against Bristan Group which was found to have infringed unregistered designs of Mira’s Azora electric shower with its Glee, Joy and Smile products and was ordered to pay damages. 

 

Emma Foster added: 

 

“We will act to vehemently protect our investment, and our customers, if our intellectual property rights are infringed.  We would like to extend our thanks to the Kohler legal team, the legal team at Mills & Reeve, and Three New Square IP for helping us to secure this comprehensive victory.” 

 

WEBSITE

/0 Comments/by

The Sleeping Giant of Renewables

,

photo credits: Anson Chan and the Eden Project

Giant domes, made from what looks like vast sheets of bubble wrap, nestle in a peaceful valley in Cornwall, UK. The domes contain plants from all over the world and form the signature feature of the Eden Project.

Next door to the Eden Project, on a parcel of paved land roughly the size of a football pitch, sit a couple of innocuous-looking 10m-long (32ft) storage containers and a 3m-high (almost 10ft) red metal structure.

Directly beneath this structure, is a small hole that drops 5.3km (over 3 miles) down into Earth’s crust. With a diameter of only 25cm (the width of a pizza), it’s just wide enough to house two pipes; one wider, outer pipe through which to pump cold water down and an inner, ‘core’ pipe through which hot water is pumped back up to the surface.

From there it’s used to heat the Eden Project, maintaining the tropical temperatures the plants inside its domes need.

Today, a range of geothermal energy systems, like this one, make use of the natural heat stored deep below Earth’s surface, either for heating homes, commercial facilities or buildings like those at the Eden Project, or for generating electricity.

You can generate electricity with geothermal energy in two ways: either by pumping hot water and/or steam from underground wells up to the surface to drive a turbine; or by a process known as ‘hydrofracturing’, which forces cold water into hot rocks deep underground that heat the water before it’s returned to the surface to power a turbine.

“The deeper you go, the hotter it gets,” says Augusta Grand, CEO of Eden Geothermal. “The centre of Earth is as hot as the surface of the Sun. Geothermal is like the sleeping giant of renewables – it has so much potential.”

It seems that giant might be waking up. Quietly, around the world, a handful of engineering start-ups have been digging deep in the hopes of harnessing geothermal energy to produce electricity – the kind you can plug into a national grid and send to homes.

If they’re successful, it could completely change how the world creates its energy: they just have to find the right kind of rocks…

Getting in the Basement

Generating electricity requires rocks with much higher temperatures than those used for the Eden Project’s “relatively simple” heating system. Historically, access to extreme temperatures was limited to volcanic regions, such as Iceland and Italy.

The Svartsengi geothermal power station in Iceland provides hot water for over 20,000 homes and has the capacity to produce 750MW of electrical power – Photo credit: Getty Images

But now, game-changing technology means that new, ultra-deep geothermal projects are looking to drill many kilometres down to searingly hot basement rocks (those below the higher sedimentary layers, but above the mantle), which could generate far more energy than regular geothermal power plants.

One of the companies at the forefront of the quest to dig into these basement rocks is Quaise Energy. Based in Massachusetts, USA, it intends to use millimetre wave (MMW) technology, developed for nuclear fusion, to drill into the very hard, very hot basement rocks.

MMWs lie between microwaves and infrared on the electromagnetic spectrum. Around 15 years ago, Paul Woskov, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, spotted the potential for MMW technology to be adapted for drilling. In the last couple of years, Quaise Energy has used it to generate up to 100kW of power.

“We’re planning to drill with the energy of about 100 microwave ovens,” says Matthew Houde, co-founder of Quaise Energy. “Currently, we’re focused on scaling up the power of the technology, before taking it out of the lab and into the field by the end of this year.”

Quaise Energy has been working on two prototype rigs. The smaller rig will be the first to test the MMW technique in the field, drilling at about 3–4m/h (9–16ft/h). The second rig will scale up the process by hybridising the company’s technology with an existing onshore drilling rig supplied by its partner company Nabors.

To start with, surface rock will be drilled the conventional way, using mechanical drilling. But mechanical drilling won’t work in basement rocks, such as igneous and metamorphic rocks, where temperatures and pressures are too high for the equipment.

So, once engineers hit basement rocks, they’ll switch to MMW drilling. With MMW drilling, all the equipment remains at the surface and a ‘beam’ of high energy is fired down a hole. This way there’s no risk if the equipment breaks down, as it’s all on the surface at normal temperatures and pressures. The key to the success of the MMW technique, however, is drilling a very straight hole.

“Fusion developed ways to ‘shape a beam’, efficiently transmitting it down a metallic waveguide by keeping most of the microwave power concentrated towards the centre of the pipe,” says Houde. “The rock then absorbs this microwave energy, eventually melting, before beginning to evaporate.

In other words, the rock is vapourised, before purge gas is fired down the hole to cool and condense the vapour into a material that looks a bit like smoke or fly ash, before it’s extracted.”

With the rock out of the way, water can be pumped down into this high-temperature zone. When water reaches a temperature of around 374°C (705°F), it’s no longer possible to differentiate between the liquid and gas phase, and it becomes a supercritical fluid.

A power plant operating at these temperatures can produce up to 10 times more useful energy from each drop when compared to geothermal power plants operating today. A geothermal well producing supercritical water matches an oil or gas well in terms of power density – the amount of energy that’s flowing through that well.

“MMW is the most cost-effective drilling technique to deal with hard, high-temperature basement rocks at great depths,” says Houde. “Our aim is to reach high-temperature depths that are prohibitive for conventional drilling.

There are a lot of locations around the world where you can hit these temperatures at depths shallower than 10km (6 miles). So, we aren’t trying to drill the deepest hole on our first attempt. But our ambition is to create almost universal access to high-temperature geothermal resources by unlocking greater depths through the drilling technology.”

Groundbreaking Tech

While MMW could revolutionise high-temperature rock drilling, it’s not without its complications.

“The three big challenges are getting power down the hole, getting stuff out of the hole and keeping the hole open,” says Houde. “As we haven’t been able to drill 10km (6 miles) yet, we’ve only been able to model transmission efficiency of power down the hole.”

Mitigating plasma formation down the hole will be especially challenging. Rock vapour is so hot that it ionises and forms a sort of weak plasma. The key is to get as much power down the hole as possible for drilling, without losing power to plasma interfering with the beam, or losing power into the pipe.

But the biggest challenge causing concern in some camps isn’t the drilling, but the process of hydrofracturing, as forcing cold water through rock can trigger earthquakes. One afternoon in November 2017, a magnitude 5.5 earthquake shook the city of Pohang in South Korea. Dozens were injured and homes destroyed. The finger of blame pointed to a nearby geothermal project.

“Seismicity is a serious challenge, but completely manageable,” says Houde. “Compared to some incidents in the past where significant earthquakes were generated by geothermal operations, recent research has greatly improved our ability to monitor and mitigate.

Data from the US Department of Energy’s geothermal field site in Utah shows seismic events are extremely minor, falling under a bar I like to refer to as the ‘Taylor Swift bar’ – they generate less seismicity than your average Taylor Swift concert.”

The US Department of Energy is funding research looking at ways to reduce the risk of earthquakes yet increase the production of geothermal energy.

One project by researchers at Penn State University, whose results were published in Nature Communications last spring, applied machine learning to seismic activity data.

If combined with microearthquake monitoring by surface-based seismometers, the researchers hope this could help engineers gauge how far to push a system, ensuring they stay below a certain threshold that could cause damage during hydrofracturing.

Geothermal also runs a small health risk for site workers. Some rocks can naturally release radioactivity, which is fine if they’re buried deep underground. But soluble radioactive rocks brought to the surface in the water within a geothermal system will cool and form radioactive solid ‘scales’. Hence, safety procedures must be implemented to mitigate this.

Geothermal in the UK

Challenges aside, with the push for net zero, many governments have woken up to the huge potential of geothermal, acknowledging that it’s no longer just an energy source for volcanically active countries.

Indeed, at the start of 2024, the European Parliament voted resoundingly to support a European geothermal energy strategy. Already, in cities such as Paris, geothermal is used for some district heating systems. The Netherlands has set a target for five per cent of all the country’s heat to be generated by geothermal by 2030 and 23 per cent by 2050.

In the UK, the NHS has recognised the potential of geothermal to decarbonise hospitals, with the British Geological Survey identifying over 100 sites that could sit on top of geothermal aquifers. This would certainly help the NHS hit its ambitious net zero targets (2030 in Wales, 2040 in Scotland and 2045 in England).

While this sounds promising, Prof Gioia Falcone, Rankine Chair of Energy Engineering at the University of Glasgow and director of the Glasgow Centre for Sustainable Energy, says that the UK is actually lagging behind in recognising the potential of geothermal.

“Better late than never,” says Falcone. “Geothermal energy can help with both mitigation and adaptation to the climate change that’s already occurring by reducing emissions and offering a shielded subsurface environment, which is less exposed to the elements.

“The UK has almost every type of geothermal resource – except live volcanoes, obviously. I’ve seen a growing interest in this area, from governments to [businesses].”

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) is funding a range of prospective geothermal projects, looking at sites around the UK, from hard granites in Cornwall and the north of Scotland, to sedimentary rocks in areas such as East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire.

Dry, hard, hot granite rocks will be tapped for electricity generation, whereas softer, wetter sedimentary rocks are easier to drill, but release less energy, so they’ll be targeted for heating.

“Hot, dry rock requires artificial circulation of water to recover the heat contained in the dry rock,” says Falcone. “But, in an aquifer, if there’s enough permeability for water to move underground at the velocity needed, it’s much easier and cheaper than drilling into granites. This opens up a broader range of underground sites to explore.”

Centuries ago, villages, towns and cities were built next to water of some kind. In the future, planners might also consider geothermal potential when deciding on the location of new developments. In some cases, where a town already exists, the subsurface will be appraised to see if geothermal energy can support existing user needs.

In other cases, developers will scout for potential areas that could use geothermal energy for heating.

But, as Falcone says: “It’s important to be transparent and honest about how many homes, swimming pools or commercial buildings a project could actually support, and for how long.”

Solving the Energy Crisis

Geothermal energy has a lot of benefits, even over other renewables. Unlike wind and solar, which are intermittent, geothermal can provide a consistent base-load source of energy. Wind and solar also require a lot of extra infrastructure to store any surplus power generated to cover demand when the skies aren’t clear and the wind’s not blowing.

Geothermal infrastructure also takes up much less space than solar or wind farms. “[Plus] almost all materials used in deep geothermal technology can be recycled,” says Falcone.

“Whereas, when wind turbines are decommissioned, many materials can’t be recycled and there’s a risk that cut carbon fibres can be inhaled and cause health issues.”

Limitless, clean energy is the holy grail in the push for net zero. The next few years will show if there’s an appetite for geothermal projects and whether deep-drilling tech can live up to its promise.

Houde is hopeful: “If we can drill deep enough to access high temperatures economically, geothermal is the only clean, firm source of energy that can be scaled up globally.”

Back at the Eden Project, plans are being made to drill a second hole, which would generate electricity as well as heat. Grand sees geothermal as the way to hit net zero targets while keeping the lights on:

“People want cold beers and hot showers – in order to achieve that, geothermal energy is a great addition to our armoury of renewable technologies.”

Unlocking Earth’s Energy: How does geothermal energy work?

Wind, solar and other renewable energy sources are transforming the way we power our world. But there’s another source of sustainable energy that’s often overlooked. Deep within the Earth lies a mass that’s as hot as the surface of the Sun.

This fiery remnant from the formative era of our Solar System is our planet’s core and it’s the source of geothermal energy.

Geothermal energy is already used all around the world; from systems that use the stable warmth found beneath our feet to heat our homes, to those that probe deeper in search of hotter conditions that can generate electricity in power plants.

The real prize is even deeper. Extreme conditions deep within Earth could provide abundant energy, thanks to water’s unique behaviour when it becomes supercritical* at high temperatures.

The good news is that we don’t need to go far. In fact, we only need to tunnel down around 20km (12 miles) to reach the necessary temperatures. The bad news is that this is further than we’ve ever gone.

The deepest human-made excavation on Earth is the Kola Superdeep Borehole, a roughly 12km-hole (7.5 miles) that took Soviet scientists and engineers almost 20 years to complete.

One company has a solution. Using technology borrowed from the world of fusion research, they plan to ditch traditional drills and use powerful electromagnetic waves to reach into the depths of Earth and unlock a new revolution in renewable energy production.

What is supercritical water?

When water is exposed to high temperatures (374°C or 705°F) and pressures (22.1 MPa1) it becomes supercritical, where its liquid and gas forms become indistinguishable. This state enhances its ability to transfer heat, making it particularly effective for energy production.

Quaise’s Millimeter Wave Drilling System

Geothermal energy has the potential to transform global energy production — if we can drill deep enough. Quaise, a Boston-based energy technology company, think it has the answer.

Its drilling system uses high-frequency electromagnetic waves to vaporise rock, bypassing the limitations of traditional drilling methods. Quaise believes it can reach the necessary depths in 100 days.

Ground-source heat pumps

These systems offer an efficient, low-carbon alternative to traditional boilers. They pump a mixture of water and antifreeze, called ‘brine’, through an underground pipe. Heat from Earth is absorbed by the brine, which then goes through a process that allows the heat to be used to warm water and buildings.

Repurposing old coal mines

Around 25% of the UK population live above abandoned coal mines. Most of these old mines are flooded, which provides great opportunities for geothermal energy production. Water, naturally warmed within Earth, is extracted and used to provide heat, before being pumped back into the mine, as part of a sustainable cycle.

Conventional geothermal energy systems

Traditional geothermal energy production is common in volcanically active regions, where wells are drilled to access geothermal reservoirs. Hot water is brought to the surface to provide heat or generate electricity by using its steam to spin a turbine. The cooled water is then returned to the reservoir to be warmed again.

 

Source: Science Focus

/0 Comments/by

Brown, Grey or Green, New Homes Will be Built

The UK prime minister said providing homes for people must be the ‘top priority’ over nature and the environment as government reforms are set to allow more building on the green belt.

A shake-up of planning rules means councils have been given mandatory targets to deliver a total of 370,000 homes a year in England.

Keir Starmer said local plans to reach targets were the starting point, but that the government would ‘absolutely’ push development through if the plans do not work.

Starmer said he wanted to ‘get the balance right with nature and the environment’ but that ‘a human being wanting to have a house’ has to be top priority.

The prime minister and his deputy Angela Rayner have pledged to build 1.5 million homes and take decisions on 150 major infrastructure projects this parliament.

The updated national planning policy framework commits to a ‘brownfield first’ strategy, with disused sites that have already been developed in the past prioritised for new building.

The default answer when a developer seeks to build on brownfield sites will be ‘yes’ but the government says these sites will not be enough for the number of homes needed.

Councils will therefore also be ordered to review their greenbelt boundaries to meet targets by identifying lower quality ‘grey belt’ land that could be built on.

The framework defines the grey belt for the first time as green belt land that ‘does not strongly contribute to green belt purposes’.

Those purposes include limiting urban sprawl, stopping neighbouring towns merging into each other and preserving the special character of historic towns.

Safeguarding the countryside from encroachment and assisting in urban regeneration are no longer included as green belt purposes.

‘For years, we have had not enough houses being built. That means that individuals and families don’t have the security that they want,’ Sir Keir said during a visit to a construction site in Cambridge.

‘We are determined to break through that, to do what’s necessary.

‘Of course we want to get the balance right with nature and the environment, but if it comes to a human being wanting to have a house for them and their family, that has to be the top priority.

More specific guidance on how local authorities can assess their green belt land is due to come in January.

Housing minister Matthew Pennycook gave examples of grey belt sites as ’disused petrol stations, abandoned car parks, but also just low-value scrub land‘, in comments to Times Radio.

Councils are expected to look at releasing higher-quality green belt land for development if they exhaust their supply of brownfield and grey belt.

They can also bring forward higher performing green belt land for development before brownfield and grey belt if they are on ’more sustainable‘ sites, such as around train stations because they promote sustainable transport.

Local authorities will be tasked with drafting plans to meet the targets they have been given and can face consequences if they fail to.

If environmental or infrastructure constraints mean they cannot meet the target, they would need to provide evidence which will then be examined by an independent public inquiry led by a planning inspector acting for the Housing Secretary.

Councils that fail to show plans that can meet targets looking back over the last few years or going forward could also face having a ’presumption in favour of development‘ applied.

Just under one-third of local authorities have adopted a local plan – a document setting out where future homes and infrastructure could be built – within the last five years.

Central Government will also be able to intervene and take over planning if local authorities do not move ahead with making plans.

‘The starting point is local plans, and that’s really important for councils to develop the plan according to the target, taking into account local need and working with developers,’ Starmer said.

‘But are we going to push it through if those plans don’t work? Yes we absolutely are.

‘Are we going to push away the planning rules and make them clearer, as we have done today, get away the blockers that are stopping the houses being built? Yes, we are absolutely intent.’

 

Any development on green belt land must comply with new ‘golden rules’, which require developers to provide infrastructure for local communities, such as nurseries, GP surgeries and transport, as well as a higher level of social and affordable housing.

The government announced £100 million of additional cash for councils, along with 300 additional planning officers, to speed up decision-making processes.

The extra money can be used to hire more staff or consultants and to carry out technical studies and site assessments.

The NPPF reforms are just one element of the government’s plans to rewrite the planning rules to make it easier to build homes and major infrastructure projects.

The forthcoming planning & infrastructure bill is intended to rip up red tape and make it faster for projects to be approved.

 

Source:  A J Bell

/0 Comments/by

Renewable Power to Overtake Fossil Fuel

,

UK low-carbon renewable power is on course for a major milestone in 2024, overtaking fossil fuel generation for the first full year.

That is according to a new report from global energy think tank Ember, which claims wind power is also close to becoming the single largest source of UK power for the first time.

Rising renewables, low demand and cheaper power imports all helped reduce fossil fuel use in the UK power system to record lows, the report claimed.

For the first full year wind, solar and hydropower will generate more electricity than all fossil fuels combined, it said.

The report reviews power generation statistics for the UK across 2024. Earlier this year, the UK saw the closure of its last coal power station.

Ember claims low-carbon renewable sources will reach a record high in 2024, generating 37% of UK electricity (103TWh), overtaking fossil fuels (97TWh, 35%) for the first time.

Just three years ago, in 2021, fossil fuels generated 46% of UK electricity, while low-carbon renewables generated 27%.

Including biomass, renewables overtook fossil fuels for the first time in 2020. However, Ember’s analysis raises concerns about biomass being categorised as clean power in the UK, given the significant emissions risks.

Ember predicts gas power use is set to decrease by 13% (-13 TWh) in 2024 compared to the previous year, displaced by electricity imports and clean power.

Meanwhile, the think tank said wind is well on the way to becoming the largest single source of UK power. Depending on December’s conditions, wind could overtake gas as the UK’s largest source of electricity in 2024, it said. UK wind power is currently forecast to generate 29% of UK electricity in 2024, totalling 82TWh, which is 3TWh less than fossil gas (85TWh, 30%).

Senior energy and climate analyst for the UK at Ember Frankie Mayo said:

“The renewables future is here. This long-awaited milestone is a testament to how much progress the UK has made.

“It’s time to seize the moment, to cut reliance on expensive gas with new renewables, storage, and grid upgrades.

“With the phase-out of coal power completed this year, reducing gas use is the next big opportunity for the country.”

Source: Renews.biz

/0 Comments/by

‘Tinkering’ and ‘Torpedoing’ the Planning System

 

A Conservative shadow housing minister has suggested the Government is “tinkering” with planning decision-making, instead of “getting developers developing and builders building” new homes.

After ministers unveiled proposals to let some developers swerve town hall committees before they build, David Simmonds said the 4% of applications that elected councillors considered themselves were the ones where “the local democratic voice is so relevant”.

Housing minister Matthew Pennycook said Mr Simmonds’s party had “torpedoed” housing supply when they were in power.

His department set out plans on Monday to give council employees an “enhanced decision-making role” to implement development policies, so some building proposals “could bypass planning committees entirely to tackle chronic uncertainty, unacceptable delays and unnecessary waste of time and resources”.

Mr Pennycook told the Commons the announcement was “explicitly designed to kick-start engagement” ahead of a more formal consultation, and later warned he would “consider all the powers at our disposal” to intervene if local authorities resisted the changes.

Mr Simmonds said the system

“matters because it impacts the look and feel of our communities” and asked: “Given the huge increase in the housing planning permissions granted under the previous government, when does the Government now intend to start work on getting developers developing and builders building, rather than tinkering with a democratic system that’s already delivered more than a million homes with consent in England already?”

He also said during his question that with 96% of planning applications determined by council staff already, “it is that 4% to which the local democratic voice is so relevant”.The Conservative shadow minister urged Mr Pennycook to set out what powers councillors had to call in controversial decisions, or cases where developers had not stuck to their agreed plans.

Mr Pennycook replied:

“It’s quite rich hearing from (Mr Simmonds) crow about planning permissions in the system. We’re experiencing the lowest planning permission and completions in a decade as a result of the party opposite’s changes to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) made in December 2023 that have torpedoed supply and hit growth across this country.”

He had earlier said the announcement was “just the latest in a series of working papers on planning reform, and it’s explicitly designed to kick-start engagement before we launch a formal Government consultation on a more detailed proposition”.

The minister described three proposals which he said could “streamline local planning decision-making” across England – a national scheme setting out which types of planning applications should be determined by a committee of elected councillors and which by employed officers, new dedicated committees for strategic development “to dedicate energy to the most significant projects”, and mandatory training for elected decision makers.

He said that although just 4% of applications came before councillors’ committees, these represented some of the largest plans and therefore a “substantial portion of total units in the planning process”.

Asked by Conservative MP Gagan Mohindra (South West Hertfordshire) about Government interventions into local-level decision-making, Mr Pennycook replied:

“We haven’t outlined any proposals in this working paper that relate to call-ins or the takeover of local plans from the centre.

“But he’s absolutely right, ministers already have existing powers to take over a local plan in extremis, it hasn’t been used before.

“We are more than willing to use all the powers at our disposal to ensure we have up-to-date local planning coverage, if there are local authorities out there and I say this very candidly and openly to the House, if there are local authorities out there that resist the changes we are trying to make, that take no steps to put an up-to-date local plan in place, we will consider all the powers at our disposal.”

Source: The Herald

/0 Comments/by