Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20
- 39)
MONDAY 17 NOVEMBER 2008
DR PHIL
WILLIAMSON, PROFESSOR
NICK JENKINS,
DR TIM
FOX AND
PROFESSOR STEVE
RAYNER
Q20 Dr Gibson: Why is that? Why does
that happen? Is that because scientists are arrogant swine and
they do not care about the social implications?
Professor Rayner: No, not in the
least, and I would say engineers least of all. Although they would
probably not necessarily be complimented by my saying so, I regard
the best of engineers as being good social scientists, because
they have to be, because they have to think of the whole system
rather than a narrow technical framing. I think it is largely
to do with institutional issues as to how we organise the funding
of research, how we organise the scientific research enterprise,
how we organise our professional and scientific organisations
and professional associations. I think these ways of organising,
which we have evolved for perfectly good reasons historically,
do not necessarily serve us as well as they might do in confronting
these new technologies.
Dr Fox: This is an interesting
direction we are heading in with this. Engineering is very much
involved today with sustainable approaches and looking at sustainability
issues, which do have to bring in the ethics and the social sciences.
I wonder, looking at the institutional model here, whether there
is potentially a model there for bringing together the multi-disciplinary
nature of the geo-engineering project through such an organisation
similar to the Tyndall Centre, which has a number of strands of
activity going on which are both social science orientated and
hard science, if you like, using that term in its colloquial form,
and technical and engineering issues. These are all brought together
within the framework of the Tyndall Centre and from the Institution's
point of view we wonder whether there is an opportunity to add
geo-engineering onto the work which the Tyndall Centre is already
doing on mitigation and adaptation, to ensure that we do not lose
that learning which has already taken place with regard to the
social science aspects of mitigation and adaptation.
Q21 Dr Gibson: Have you ever suggested
this before to anybody?
Dr Fox: No, this is the first
opportunity I have had to bring that forward as a possibility.
Q22 Chairman: Could we get some comments
from you, Phil, on that?
Dr Williamson: As far as I am
aware, the research councils are not exactly overwhelmed with
proposals for geo-engineering, so to a certain extent they react
and develop and test ideas which come forward and unless there
is a very strong policy driver—and clearly the engineering
principle has got to be sound, but the problem with the spread
of ideas is that they go in all sorts of different directions
and they have not satisfactorily yet passed the first hurdle of
even the theoretical analysis: is this viable from an engineering
point of view? is it viable from an environmental point of view?
and then is it acceptable for governance issues? Although one
has got to consider those as a package you have got to have ticks
in all those boxes.
Q23 Chairman: I thought you were
involved with blue skies research at the Research Council. Should
you not be promoting some of these things and actually saying,
"These are the great challenges"?
Dr Williamson: The blue skies
research is finding out how the system works. For example how
clouds form, how the ocean works, how the system interacts and
that then gives, from the NERC side of things, the response to
an engineering manipulation. The blue skies part of engineering
is a little bit different because then it is sort of saying, "What
could we do?" But the proposals have got to come into the
funding system in the first place.
Q24 Dr Gibson: Suppose the Tyndall
Centre idea caught fire. Who would implement it? Who would make
it happen?
Dr Fox: I think government policy
through the Research Council would have to drive the initial seed
development of that. One thing I would like to bring to the table
from the engineering industry's point of view is that if industry,
the commercial sector of the engineering industry, sees that government
policy is moving research spend and research initiatives into
the geo-engineering area and looking at the feasibility of some
of these geo-engineering systems, then commercial companies in
their own research and development departments will start to invest
sums of money in doing their own initial assessments and blue
skies research activities to try and second-guess the market opportunities
which might arise out of the policy which is being pursued. If
I might offer an example of this, the aerospace industry has for
many years been continuing studies on second generation supersonic
aircraft on the basis that that might become a transport policy
of government at some stage in the future. So companies do not
want to fall behind in the development of their tools and capabilities
and it really needs a small investment essentially on the part
of government to engender some momentum into bringing geo-engineering
into the policy framework as a potential direction, and that momentum
will carry forward into industrial engineering activities at the
commercial level to prepare for that potential market.
Q25 Dr Gibson: We are meeting two
ministers and Bob Watson next after you guys. What would your
question be to make this happen, because they are government in
that sense? What would you say to them, "Pull your finger
out"?
Dr Fox: Yes, speaking colloquially.
The Institution of Mechanical Engineers supports investment in
research and development at the feasibility level of geo-engineering
approaches. There are two reasons for that, if I might bring those
forward. The first reason is that we need to prepare our technical
community to potentially deploy these systems, but secondly, as
a country, as a nation we need to be technically informed to participate
in any international discussions or bilateral national discussions,
or indeed discussions with individual private entrepreneurs who
want to bring geo-engineering solutions forward to shape the very
legislative framework which Professor Rayner has been describing.
Q26 Dr Gibson: Have the venture capitalists
talked to you yet?
Dr Fox: No, they have not, but
of course there is great potential for some organisation such
as Richard Branson's Virgin carbon challenge to potentially take
a geo-engineering approach on board. The difficulty is that as
a nation we potentially would be uninformed in the discussion
and the debate around that solution or approach if we have not
done some initial feasibility and research work at the engineering
technical level.
Q27 Dr Gibson: Could you do this
without venture capitalists? I say that because I have just had
a meeting with them, and by God they know what they are doing—so
they say!
Dr Fox: There are two different
technical dimensions of geo-engineering, one which is indirect
carbon sequestration and the other which is essentially tinkering
with natural systems. The carbon-based approach has the potential
to be of interest to venture capitalists because there is potentially
a carbon market in which they can operate. The other approach,
which is a little bit more globally esoteric in a sense, has less
opportunity, I think, for a commercial venture capitalist intervention.
Professor Rayner: I just want
to say that there are at least two firms which have been looking
at iron fertilization, one of which has already gone bust, Planktos.
The problem is that venture capitalists usually look for a return
on around about a three-year timeframe of investment. We are looking
here at technologies that are not really going to be available
to produce those kinds of returns, so there certainly is a very
important role for government, public support, to look into the
feasibility of the technologies.
Q28 Dr Iddon: Richard Branson, as
we have just heard, has thrown down the gauntlet with the Virgin
Earth Challenge, a prize of US$25 million there for the grabbing
from some keen entrepreneur. What difference has throwing that
gauntlet down made? That challenge was made in February 2007 and
we are well over a year on, nearly two years on now.
Professor Rayner: The problem
is, that does not fund research. That is the prize at the end,
so you have got to have sufficient capital to invest up front
before you are even in the running for the prize.
Q29 Dr Iddon: I understand that,
but has just throwing the gauntlet down produced a set of ripples?
Professor Jenkins: It seems to
me that the position we are in is still very opaque. We have a
very wide range of technical options, which then have very far-reaching
economic and social consequences and I think the challenge of,
for example, the EPSRC sandpit which is coming up is with their
limited funding to get an appropriate spread so that we can actually
move towards—I will not use the word "ranking"
but at least some form of assessment of these options. I personally
am rather nervous of ranking technologies at this early stage.
I think some are clearly in the potentially interesting area and
some are in the longer term area, but to expect a ranking to come
out I think is too optimistic.
Q30 Dr Iddon: But that is not an
answer to the question. The question was, has Richard Branson
made any difference to this field?
Professor Jenkins: No, I do not
believe it has made any difference at the moment because of this
uncertainty in the technological and other areas.
Q31 Dr Iddon: Can we generally agree
that?
Dr Williamson: I think he has
made a difference in that he has brought the topic of geo-engineering
into the public arena more and it has been reported in the press
and there is generally more awareness of it. It is embedded in
the consciousness a little bit more.
Dr Fox: I think the difficulty
with the Branson challenge is that there is a need in there to
show that the implementation will not have any unforeseen side-effects
or consequences and that is a rather difficult challenge to meet
with regard to the climate science involved in getting to that
answer without that specialist knowledge.
Q32 Dr Iddon: Okay. This is one for
you, Professor Jenkins. I am going to give you a quote from the
Institution of Mechanical Engineers. They, in their submission
to us, said: "geo-engineering is an area of activity that
has to date received little serious attention from the engineering
profession". That was a quote in the submission made by Dr
Fox's organisation. You seem to be a bit more open than that in
your attitude to geo-engineering in that the Royal Academy of
Engineering seems to think there should be funding in this area
now?
Professor Jenkins: Yes, I think
in terms of research funding and to try to get a better understanding
of the area and its consequences there is little doubt that that
would be very desirable. I do not think that conflicts particularly
with the idea that commercial, industrial and engineering organisations
have not been active in this area because it is such an early
stage for them.
Q33 Dr Iddon: Yet, Dr Fox, the Institution
of Mechanical Engineers chose this topic, geo-engineering, to
try and excite young engineers in a competition. Will the young
engineers who take part in that competition, if they have not
already done so—and if they have, did they do this—consider
the social and ethical issues surrounding these technologies as
well as the "Can we do it?" attitude?
Dr Fox: Yes. Within the framework
of the competition, which is indeed underway as we speak, we have
a clause in the rules of the competition for the participants
that they must consider some of the ethical and moral issues as
part of their wider look at the sustainability issues associated
with the particular technology they are bringing forward. The
competition is very much geared around the engineering feasibility,
that is the prime role of the competition, and it is looking to
engage and excite young graduates in thinking about this potential
field of mechanical engineering application which they may get
involved in at some time in their professional careers, so to
begin to take on board the thought processes associated with getting
involved in delivering those solutions.
Q34 Dr Iddon: I am going to ask our
other guests this afternoon whether young people in general are
aware of geo-engineering. I am a scientist, but I must confess
that when we began this inquiry I was not aware of all these potential
new technologies. I was aware of carbon capture storage, of course,
at the hard end of the thing but not the H.G. Wells stuff. I was
not aware of that. Do you think your young engineers are aware
in general of what is going on in this field?
Professor Jenkins: I think the
short answer is, no.
Q35 Dr Iddon: How are you making
them aware, Professor Jenkins? Is this one of your aims, to make
them aware?
Professor Jenkins: Yes. If I understand
the area well, the first initiative was the seminar in Cambridge
in 2004. There have been two or three more seminars. This area
in the general academic community has not received a high profile
so far. I am absolutely open to the idea that it ought to. I think
meshing, if you like, the hard engineering questions with these
wider societal questions certainly for post-graduate students
is entirely desirable and appropriate, so I would absolutely support
that. I would absolutely support further seminars, further summer
schools, as a way of disseminating these ideas.
Dr Fox: The competition has indeed
engendered a lot of enthusiasm and excitement amongst our young
members and they are engaging very actively with it. It is in
line with our other activities in the educational outreach programmes,
which use climate change and sustainability as a vehicle for engaging
young people in thinking about engineering as a possible career
and a possible professional option. Indeed, we have found that
engaging schoolchildren as young as 12 or 13 in thinking about
climate change related issues and how engineering can be used
to solve those is very, very enthusiastically received by the
young people. This year we have some 3,000 children involved in
thinking about climate change adaptation in a competition we are
running with secondary schools.
Q36 Chairman: Tim, it was interesting
that you could not name a single university which actually has
a geo-engineering curriculum. There is not one which actually
put these things together.
Dr Fox: Yes, I can answer that.
Geo-engineering, from an engineering perspective, will rely largely
on the existing theories, existing concepts and existing skills
which we teach within our mechanical engineering and civil and
other engineering disciplines, chemical engineering disciplines.
The geo-engineering is an application of the engineering knowledge
in the same way that renewable energy systems are an application
of mechanical engineering science and other engineering sciences.
You do not have to study renewable energy per se to be an engineer
in that sector. It is the same with geo-engineering. There will
be some specialist areas that we will need to do work on, for
example materials potentially that can cope with the chemistry
involved, maybe some special development of mooring systems. There
will be niche technologies in very much the same way as when the
UK went into the North Sea, but fundamentally the underpinning
engineering is something that all our undergraduates in all our
engineering courses will learn as part of their existing curriculum.
Professor Rayner: Tim, I think
with respect, though, your answer sheds some light on Ian Gibson's
question earlier as to why we do not seem to get social learning
going from these cases of the introduction of one new technology
field to another.
Q37 Chairman: This is the point I
was going to make to you, Phil, that one of the issues which has
come through this inquiry and the main engineering inquiry time
after time is that the engineering seems to be still stuck in
silos and its ability to be able to connect those silos up and
to move forward seems to be holding back engineering. Is that
a fair comment?
Dr Williamson: There are courses
in environmental engineering, and carbon capture and storage in
its sort of technological sense has brought those fields together,
and with environmental science courses then there are the applications
being considered. It has not come fully together because the ideas
are not that well developed.
Q38 Chairman: Going back to Dr Iddon's
comment about whacky ideas, I do not know how we expose young
engineers to these whacky ideas and let them engage with them,
because that surely is something which would excite more people
to come into engineering.
Dr Williamson: If they read Scientific
American, New Scientist and Nature the ideas are there. They have
just got to find out a little bit about them, but it is in the
papers and it is pretty general public knowledge. For the last
20 years people have been talking about adding iron to the ocean.
Dr Fox: Two very quick answers.
The ethics and the wider social context are very much embedded
in a lot of university engineering courses now under the sustainability
agenda, which is very much involved in the geo-engineering application
agenda. In relation to exciting young people, I think it is very
much the responsibility of the professional bodies, such as our
learned society the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, and indeed
the Royal Academy of Engineering and the other institutions, to
pursue outreach programmes such as the ones we have done on our
Cooling the Planet competition into universities and we find that
the undergraduates and postgraduates are very excited about getting
involved.
Q39 Dr Gibson: Steve Rayner, what
are the potential moral dilemmas in this area, just briefly?
Professor Rayner: I think first
of all I would caution against reducing all of the institutional
dimensions in relation to these technologies to moral dilemmas.
Some of them are about economics, some are about politics, international
relations, governance and management, and I am afraid there is
a tendency towards what we in the social sciences call "ELSIfication".
What we do is we take a scientific area, whether it is biotechnology
or engineering, and we have the ethical, legal and social implications
box and we stick everything in there and it tends to have a very
strong ethical component and is not really looking so much at
the practical governance issues and certain broader issues of
public acceptability, which may not be ethically related but may
relate to a whole range of other dimensions. I think, though,
with respect to these particular sets of technologies there are
at least three positions which one can discern. There is one which
I call the utilitarian position, which sees the inexpensive options
of iron fertilization or stratospheric sulphate aerosols, as being
something which could be readily pursued in a practical way. If
the world cannot get its act together to do coordinated mitigation
through conventional means then countries could act alone. That
is seen as an advantage from that position. But then there is
another position, which actually is scared witless about the prospect
of countries acting alone because of the concerns about the unanticipated
side-effects and also this issue I mentioned earlier, that some
people view technology as the source of the problem and they are
therefore very suspicious of the idea that technology should also
be providing the solution. As I say, I do not happen to agree
with that point of view, but it is well-known. Then I think there
is a third position, which is the one I guess I am broadly sympathetic
to, which is that the development of these kinds of technologies
are an option which we cannot afford not to develop, although
we may not want to necessarily move to implementation. There is
a tendency to accept them as a last resort. I do wonder, though,
why we say "accept as a last resort" because, after
all, if mechanical trees do turn out to be good at sucking carbon
out of the atmosphere and can do so as cheaply as biological trees,
why would we restrict ourselves to implementing them as a last
resort unless we have some kind of ethical notion that somehow
nature knows better than we do? So there are at least three different,
what you might call ethical positions within which this debate
is going to play out.
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