The Construction Innovation Hub is currently working with a wide range of partners including individual consultants and small companies.
In other words, we want clean energy solutions which won’t require big behavioural changes, or huge investment in associated infrastructure.That’s how we’ll reduce risk, because such fuels won’t require the sequencing of a whole load of investments in order to make the product really work.
As with the desired shift to Modern Methods of Construction in the design and construction industry, we need to address the cultural blockers to the change, and lower the barrier to entry so that it becomes both the right thing to do, and an easy thing to do.. We want the transition to cleaner technologies and fuel sources to become an irresistible, straightforward decision for investors, which means making them more profitable, and working with the grain of human behaviour.In the case of repowering coal power plants, the existing workforce is likely to be very interested in the prospect of another sixty years of highly profitable plant operation, but without the pollution and emissions.Similarly, rather than trying to guilt people into not flying, we need to make the necessary changes so that we can all enjoy guilt-free air travel.
Approaching our decarbonisation challenges in this way means we’re more likely to succeed, and we’ll do so faster.That’s hugely important because we only have 28 years left to achieve this transition globally.. At the moment we’re standing at the cusp of a huge opportunity, with a whole new avenue of potential.
Nuclear energy’s ability to make both heat and power means we can really start to dig into these tough to decarbonize sectors: industrial heat, domestic heating, desalination, fuels, and repowering coal.
What a lot of new technologies really need is simply large amounts of clean heat and power.The following are suggestions of how risk can be minimised whilst maximising impact and implementing sustainable construction:.
Ask yourself whether you really need to build a new building or whether repurposing an existing building could achieve the same end goal..Undertake a pre-demolition audit to understand the potential for reuse on the existing site.
Use this information to develop sustainable construction design solutions..Understand the potential reuse of buildings or building components locally, including the need to transport and store materials.. Balance cut and fill to reduce off-site waste and new material brought to construction sites.. Use lean design principles to reduce the amount of material overall.