Grenfell: Expensive litigation not in council taxpayers’ interests

When the deadly Grenfell Tower blaze in 2017 led to revelations that high-rise public housing buildings across Britain were wrapped in flammable cladding, the government vowed the building contractors responsible would pay for their negligence.

Seven years on, contractors who fitted cladding panels that didn’t meet fire-safety standards in place when installed have largely escaped financial liability, according to a Reuters review of more than 100 buildings.

Cladding is a skin of insulating materials applied to the walls of a new or existing building to improve its thermal performance. The Grenfell Tower blaze, which killed 72 people, raised public awareness that thousands of buildings in the UK were clad in flammable materials.

To quickly tackle the problem, the British government put up much of the money to allow the replacement of flammable cladding on subsidized public housing. Then, to recoup the taxpayer money spent, the housing ministry said it would work with the buildings’ owners to encourage legal claims against contractors who installed defective cladding.

Under UK law, the owner of a property that has been refurbished in a way that doesn’t meet building regulations in place at the time, can sue the contractors and designers responsible, and in some cases the manufacturer of the materials used, for the costs of remediation.

The Reuters review identified 103 public housing buildings, owned by 26 local councils and not-for-profit housing associations, which had cladding of a type deemed to be non-compliant by the government, the courts or the public inquiry into the Grenfell fire.

Only five of the 26 owners – responsible for 25 of the 103 buildings – said they had sought some compensation from the companies that installed their flammable cladding. Three were successful in recovering some money while two are still in mediation with contractors in cases that haven’t reached court. The total money recovered comprised just 13% of the over 260 million pounds ($325 million) it cost to reclad the 103 buildings, Reuters found.

Four lawyers who have represented both building owners and contractors in post-Grenfell cladding cases told Reuters that the rules of the funds the government created to disburse money for remediation inadvertently created disincentives to sue errant builders. If public housing bodies win litigation against contractors, the proceeds must be given to the government, under the rules, while the legal costs of a losing battle have to be shouldered alone.

The National Housing Federation, which represents social housing bodies across Britain, said the government could have increased the number of claims by covering litigation costs and providing legal guidance.

Reuters found no evidence of a deliberate plan by the government to discourage compensation claims.

Still, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said its national recladding scheme prioritised rapid removal of dangerous cladding over the recovery of costs from contractors. It declined to comment on the criticism that its rules disincentivized lawsuits against those responsible or answer questions about the level of claims against construction firms. It also didn’t comment on whether it would amend the rules of its cladding schemes to facilitate more claims to help recoup taxpayer funds.

The Reuters analysis is the first broad review of the extent to which contractors have contributed to the recladding of public housing buildings to which they attached non-compliant cladding, and reveals how few cases have been brought against contractors.

Giles Grover, co-lead of the End Our Cladding Scandal campaign, which comprises groups representing tenants affected by the national crisis, said the low number of compensation claims identified by Reuters came as a disappointment.

“It’s frustrating that contractors have not paid to fix these blocks, despite all the promises from the government that it would make them pay,” he added.

 

NATIONWIDE SCANDAL

The Grenfell disaster in Kensington killed dozens of residents when the building’s plastic-filled exterior panels turned a small fire in one apartment into an inferno that consumed the 24-storey high rise in West London.

The government said in 2017 the panels used did not comply with the regulations in place when installed. The official inquiry, which published its final report in September, agreed and noted that none of the companies responsible even argued that the cladding met the regulatory requirements.

After the fire, inspections by local councils and housing associations, which provide subsidized housing to lower-income families, found that similar panels, and other forms of cladding that didn’t meet fire regulations, had been installed on buildings across the country.

Over 700 public housing buildings had their cladding replaced following the Grenfell disaster, while about 1,800 still need to be made safe, the government’s spending watchdog said in November. The total cost of remediation will exceed 4 billion pounds, according to government figures.

The watchdog noted that as the public housing owners don’t have the cash available, the government may be on the hook for the bill.

The alternative to public money being used to pay for the remediation is for the owners to sue the building contractors, designers or manufacturers responsible for the original cladding, said Chris Leadbetter, a lawyer at Clyde & Co. which has defended building contractors in dozens of cladding cases.

Reuters identified buildings in need of recladding using council statements, media reports, social media posts and other sources. Reuters then established whether the original cladding was compliant when installed using statutory financial accounts, satellite imagery, planning documents, freedom of information requests, minutes of local council meetings and discussions with dozens of lawyers, housing groups and local councils.

Suzannah Nichol, chief executive of Build UK, which represents building companies, said the industry accepted that non-compliant cladding should not have been installed but said contractors did not have the financial strength to cover all the costs of remediation alone. She said others including designers and product manufacturers were partly to blame and so, should share the financial burden.

“I don’t think any business is going to step up and pay for something if it’s not confident that it’s accountable,” she added.

Construction firms responsible for the non-compliant cladding identified by Reuters, on the 103 public housing buildings reviewed, included British-based companies Willmott Dixon and Alumet, Paris-listed Bouygues SA and United Living, which is owned by U.S. private equity group Apollo. Willmott Dixon, Bouygues and Apollo declined to comment on cladding contracts while Alumet didn’t respond to queries.

 

HUGE DISINCENTIVE’ TO SUE

Most public housing providers declined to outline their reasons for pursuing or not pursuing cases.

But the rules of the cladding remediation funds the government set up following the Grenfell disaster offer an answer, according to the National Housing Federation and lawyers interviewed.

The government established the first of its funds in 2018 to ensure cash-strapped public housing owners could make their buildings safe as fast as possible. The government said it expected fund recipients to pursue reasonable cases against contractors and repay the government with any compensation received.

The oldest fund, created in 2018, has so far handed out 300 million pounds of taxpayer money to councils and housing associations, official data show. This fund has received less than a million pounds back as a result of compensation claims, according to a Freedom of Information request.

In one case, Sheffield Council decided against suing London-listed Morgan Sindall, which the council said installed non-compliant polyethylene core panels – like the ones used at Grenfell – on its Hanover Tower building.

The council said in a 2020 report that there might be “a public interest” in establishing the facts in court, but that since the government had already covered the costs of recladding, spending money on what would likely be expensive litigation was not in council taxpayers’ interests.

Eric Johnstone, legal director at Brodies solicitors in Edinburgh, said the fact the government didn’t fund litigation but wanted to collect the proceeds of any litigation created a “huge disincentive” for social housing providers to sue.

Morgan Sindall told Reuters it didn’t believe it had any liability regarding Hanover Tower, without elaborating. Sheffield declined to comment on the case.

Just three of the 26 building owners reviewed by Reuters said they had actually received compensation from contractors in respect of cladding claims. The first, Newport City Homes Housing Association in south Wales, initiated its claim before the government established its first cladding fund. Newport City Homes sought the cost of making three buildings safe from building contractor Wates Group, which had installed polyethylene core panels as part of a 2013 refurbishment. The housing association received a 4-million-pound settlement from Wates without even going to court, its accounts show.

Wates said it did not knowingly install non-compliant products. It declined to answer questions about Newport or any of the 23 other high rise buildings where Reuters found the company installed polyethylene-core cladding panels.

John Cawthorne, a former firefighter who has lived in Hanover Tower in Sheffield for 33 years, told Reuters he was furious that builders who installed non-compliant cladding on blocks like his across the country weren’t being held to account. Cawthorne said tenants were haunted by the fact that they could have died as easily as the victims of Grenfell.

“I live on the 15th floor of this building. I’m right on top,” the 68-year-old said. “The same thing could have happened here. There’s no question about that. We could have all died.”

 

Source: Reuters

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Designed for the dramatic Outer Hebridean climate

Image credit: OLCO Studios

A wooden home built by an Olympic medallist on Claddach Vallay, North Uist, has won the research and innovation category in the 2024 Wood Awards.

The award judges described the home featured in a 2023 Channel 5 house-building programme as “perfectly designed for its dramatic Outer Hebridean climate.”

The £1 million dream home belongs to Ewan MacDonald, who won a bronze medal in curling at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, and his partner Amy.

They built the house after selling their family insurance business in Inverness. They had Welsh timber trucked 600 miles north to construct it.

Named Uist House, the awards panel stated:

“Overlooking a tidal lagoon fed by the North Atlantic Ocean, Uist House uses locally sourced and natural materials to provide a high-performance fabric that coexists harmoniously with its surroundings.

“Constructed primarily in a factory in Wales, the house was shipped in seven prefabricated modules, travelling 570 miles across land and sea, to its final destination on the island of North Uist, where it was assembled.”

They selected Uist House for its strength, air tightness, insulation and low carbon costs.

“The realisation of Uist House demonstrates the fantastic innovation and quality possible within the Welsh timber and offsite construction industries. It successfully builds on over a decade of collaboration and innovation using homegrown timber.”

But the news of the award win was met with mixed reactions locally. Among the comments online were comparisons of the house to an Amazon warehouse, Rangehead and an agricultural shed.

Equally, others praised the design, saying it sat well within the landscape and that the windows took full advantage of the surrounding views.

 

Source: We Love Stornaway

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THE ‘MERRY GO ROUND’ OF POLICY CHANGES

Leading enterprise organisations are calling for a move away from ‘a merry go round’ of changes to policy and funding ‘ to consistent, professional business guidance provided UK-wide with local on-the-ground delivery.

The National Enterprise Network, the country’s leading provider of community-based business support for micros and start-ups, is calling on the government to listen to a growing movement which has seen the UK’s key business support providers petition for a single initial point of contact to support businesses.

Delegates at the National Enterprise Network’s recent 2024 conference put forward a united plea for the government to deliver an ‘easy to navigate’ consistent business support programme with a national brand but with localised expert access and delivery.

Their appeal is backed by the latest research announced by the Economic and Social Research Council (ERC) on behalf of the Federation of Small Business (FSB) which calls for an organisation to be set up to provide a consistent single point of contact to make it simpler for businesses to get the help they need to start, grow and thrive.

The report by the ERC, which is the UK’s leading centre of excellence for research into the growth, innovation and productivity of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) reveals that entrepreneurs often say that they do not know where to go for good advice thanks to the ‘merry go round’ of changes from Business Link, Growth Accelerator, Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) and Growth Hubs. And it recommends that the government focuses on creating the new service by building on existing services around small business and entrepreneurship support.

Alex Till, NEN Chair, said:

“The concept of a national service with local delivery at its core has been discussed for a while and is crucial for UK small and micro businesses who struggle to navigate the complex web of government policies, funding options, and compliance requirements.

“A single point of guidance reduces confusion by providing consistent, reliable advice, avoids contradictory advice from multiple sources and means our small and micro business leaders spend less time searching for answers and more time focusing on growing their businesses.

“For decades, our NEN members have played a pivotal role within communities, supporting successive generations of entrepreneurs and micro-businesses to get the right advice at the right time and relevant to them. This approach aligns perfectly with what we have championed: accessible, trusted, and effective support embedded at a local level.”

 

NEN, the FSB and ERC have all welcomed the government’s recent first step in this direction, with the announcement of its new Business Growth Service (BGS) due to launch in 2025 which it promises will simplify and streamline business support through a locally delivered, UK-wide system.

The NEN has already been proactive in the campaign and is hoping to play a further role in shaping the future of business support at a key round table it has organised for January 8, which will bring together NEN members and DBT representatives to explore how the government’s new Business Growth Service can improve join-up of the UK’s business support landscape across local and national delivery partners in the public and private sectors as well as other ways to help SMEs find the support and advice they need to grow.

 

WEBSITE

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Double Area Sales Manager Appointments by Zoo Hardware

Tina and Dan

Zoo Strengthens Commitment to South East with Double Area Sales Manager Appointments

 

Zoo Hardware, a leading hardware brand known for its innovative solutions and exceptional customer service, has announced the appointment of two new Area Sales Managers covering the South East.

Daniel Haynes and Tina Salter will focus on strengthening and expanding Zoo Hardware’s presence in the area, bringing a combined wealth of experience and expertise to their roles.

Tina, with more than three decades of experience in sales and a long history in the trade, joins Zoo Hardware having used the company as a supplier in previous roles at architectural ironmongers. Her experience with buying products from the brand reinforces her belief in the quality and value Zoo Hardware offers to its customers.

Daniel Haynes, who brings eight years of industry experience, joins alongside Tina with a focus on building strong relationships with existing customers and forging new connections across the region.

Since joining the company, both Dan and Tina have hit the ground running, visiting Zoo Hardware’s existing customers in the South East and establishing valuable connections with potential new clients.

Dan said: “I’m thrilled to be part of the team, it’s been a great experience to meet our customers and I’m excited to grow those relationships.

“The working culture here makes it easy to focus on what’s best for both the company and the customers we serve.

“In particular, it’s a real positive that we are given the freedom to tailor our approach and decisions to each unique customer relationship.

“This flexibility enables us to truly add value and build long-term, mutually beneficial partnerships. “

 

Tina added: “As a Sales Manager, it’s crucial to feel supported, and Zoo Hardware has given me the best support I’ve had in my entire career.

“The team is dedicated and responsive, which makes my role that much more effective.

“Having worked with Zoo in previous roles, I already knew the quality of the products, and now that I’m here, I’m excited to help even more customers discover the value Zoo brings. It’s a brand I truly believe in.”

 

Together, Tina and Dan are committed to supporting Zoo Hardware’s mission of delivering exceptional products and service, while expanding the company’s reach in a competitive market.

The brand, which has grown from a small operation in Carlisle with just three employees in a porta-cabin to become part of the global Quanex family, has built a strong reputation as a leading designer and supplier of architectural hardware, thanks to its innovative products and commitment to quality and service.

With these key appointments, Zoo Hardware is further solidifying its reputation as a trusted partner to its customers, continuing to deliver high-quality hardware solutions that meet the needs of the modern marketplace.

 

CLICK HERE FOR THE ZOO HARDWARE WEBSITE

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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

 

 

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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

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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

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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

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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.” 

 

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The Sleeping Giant of Renewables

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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

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