CENTRE FOR SUSTAINABLE ENERGY (CSE)

Enormous political and social pressures have increased the demand to generate renewable energy for both environmental protection and continuity of supply.

The environment is both the source of renewable energy and the destination of waste products, and the CSE has the intellectual firepower to map potential resources and forecast the consequences of exploitation.

Examples of research include:

Biomass
Improvements to the gasification process with the aim of boosting fuel and gas output. Additionally, University research teams are evaluating vegetation-environment interactions, especially in relation to climate change. As part of this work, the centre is working with Wesmar Bioenergy Ltd on a research programme which includes the study of regional capacity for energy crop production and alternative fuel markets.

Low-head hydro
Engineers are investigating alternative means of exploiting hydro or tidal energy through its conversion into air-pressure energy, allowing much smaller, less expensive machinery to be used. In partnership with RG Parkins & Partners Ltd, researchers are mapping low head hydroelectric generation capacity in the Northwest.

Wave power
The UK has a particularly favourable wave climate for power generation and research at Lancaster University that includes the development at model scale of several
wave-energy converters.

Carbon management
CEH is responsible for generating Britain's carbon inventory - figures that feed into European and global data-sets that define our view of the problem.

Atmospheric deposition
The chemical products of combustion are the most damaging result of burning fossil fuels. A complex mixture of chemicals and particles are usually released into the atmosphere in smoke. CEH has developed methods on assessing the impact of these pollutants by the amount that can be deposited on an ecosystem before it is incapable of recovery.