From wood to coal, to oil and nuclear, all our industrial revolutions, all our energy transitions, have been driven by people, writes OPITO chief operating officer Alex Spencer.
The energy industry continues to develop at pace, and that’s reflected by Decom Mission activity and that of our members.
Unite is clear that the UK cannot allow oil and gas workers to become the coal miners of our generation.
With a general election looming Sir Ian Wood says that "we can expect energy security, and therefore our region, to be high on the political agenda."
“I couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like if that sense of individuality intersecting with a sense of belonging was translated into our workplaces”.
The opportunities for the crane and lifting pipeline in the North Sea have never been greater.
With an ongoing cost of living crisis, war in Ukraine, and increasingly evident impacts of climate change, energy policy has been firmly at the centre of the political debate.
For many in the underwater industry, the last 12 months can be best summed up as confusing. Shifts in energy policy coupled with the turmoil in the global offshore wind markets have led to uncertainty in the supply chain which can only thrive on certainty.
2023 has seen the industry go from no sanctioned projects to a raft of incoming projects such as Rosebank and the Jackdaw project.
It is fair to say 2023 has been a tough year for the wind turbine industry. After years of exceptional growth, accelerated technology innovation and declining costs, the sector was hit with multiple challenges sending ripples of delays and doubts.
700 offshore wind vessels - 12% of total traffic - came to the port in 2023.
As Dr Sultan Al Jaber, COP28 President, reiterated in his concluding remarks, “an agreement is only as good as its implementation. We are what we do, not what we say”.
As the North Sea energy sector transitions into a new era, there are a range of challenges and opportunities on the horizon.
The delivery of the energy transition will be one of the greatest engineering challenges and opportunities of our time. Failing to recruit, retain and attract the necessary capabilities and expertise into the industry will jeopardise the UK’s ability to meet its energy security and climate goals. Connected Competence must be part of that solution.
There is undoubtedly a worldwide transition towards renewable energy underway, with global additions of renewable power capacity expected to jump by a third this year.
A worrying aspect of the global energy transition now gathering pace is how impoverished countries with large oil and gas discoveries react to wealthy nation rhetoric telling them that they should kiss the chance of making $billions goodbye before they’ve even started harvesting the resource.
‘Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth’, to coin Mike Tyson, and rolling with the punches is easier if you’re agile and prepared to change.
The holiday season is upon us, and while it's often considered ‘the most wonderful time of the year’, it can also be one of the most stressful and overwhelming for some, if not many.
I recognise that drive for technological disruption and challenging accepted constraints in HonuWorx, writes Steven Gray.
I spend a lot of time reading the international energy media. I also discuss a lot with people in the policy and engineering world overseas about what’s going on or what’s not going on, particularly in terms of technology development and manufacturing.
The announcement from PetroIneos that Scotland’s only oil refinery at Grangemouth will close by 2025 can, one hopes, be reversed and time bought.
Hydrogen can already be a profitable and competitive alternative to petrol and diesel fuels, at least in world energy capital Houston, researchers claim.
Solutions to some of these challenges are being developed and, in some cases, can be found in the smarter use of existing equipment and methodologies.
Innovation and new technology is central to a successful energy transition, but working out who bears the financial risk posed by largely untested tech can see proposed projects fail to get off the ground.
It is time developing countries take a page from the Willie Sutton play book and look to the oil industry for funding their energy transition – that’s where the money is.