To book your place on to this event, please click here to 'Register'.

This Event has been organised by the Decarbonising Heating and Cooling Working Group of the Process Industries Division of the IMechE. It is hosted by the Process Industries Division and promoted across the Centres in the North West and Yorkshire Regions, the Aberdeen Area, the North East Region, all part of the Process Industries Community.

The process sector is a vital part of the UK economy; the largest proportion of this is the food sector, which is the largest manufacturing sector in the UK, comprising of 17% of the total turnover of all UK manufacturing activity in 2021. Heating accounts for a large proportion of energy use in the process sector; and almost all of this is derived from gas or electricity.  Whilst strides have been made towards the decarbonisation of electricity, decarbonisation of gas heating will need either to be replaced by renewable electricity or renewable hydrogen, or alternatively renewable solid fuel.

Demand for renewable electricity is set to rise dramatically due to the government mandated switch to electric vehicles, and domestic space heating by heat pumps.  This will inevitably push up prices considerably.  However, in the food industry there is another option which has been used in places for some years, which is the use of biomass material for heating. 

The food industry in particular, produces an enormous quantity of solid waste material; by weight, it is one of the biggest producers of solid waste amongst all the industrial sectors.  As a rule, approximately 50% of the weight of a crop is discarded “between field and fork”.  Other process sectors, such as papermaking, produce significant quantities of waste as well.  Much of this waste is biogenic, meaning that is in effect carbon-neutral.  In some sectors this has been exploited as a source of process heat for many years (for example the use of bagasse from sugar cane to fire boilers at sugar refineries), but in many sectors the waste is not exploited effectively.

This webinar will look at the traditional successes of use of food and other biogenic waste as well as energy crops for process heat, the emerging trends, and the challenges involved, both technical and regulatory.

The panel will take your questions from the chat and explore how Engineers and other professionals may work together and actively contribute towards climate neutrality.

Click here to see all upcoming IMechE Process Industries local events NearYou 

or visit https://www.imeche.org/industry-sectors/process

Click here to subscribe to IMechE UK YouTube channel and watch IMechE Process Industries past event recordings