£40m injection for green manufacturing

The UK government has announced an investment of £20m in several manufacturing projects, many with strong green credentials.

The cash will be matched pound for pound by investment from private enterprise and is seen as a bid to boost the UK as a centre of excellence for green engineering, including renewable energy and carbon-neutral construction.

The majority of the government money – £19m – will come from the Technology Strategy Board, a pubic body created to promote R&D and marketing for innovative UK technologies with an investment budget of £500m. The other £1m will come from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

One of the projects which has potential to be the most environmentally effective is a manganese oxide cement binder developed by NovaCem, which promises to yield carbon-neutral construction products. The investment will enable NovaCem’s partners – Imperial College London, Laing O'Rourke, Rio Tinto Minerals and WSP Group – to scale up production of the cement-binding technology from lab to process plant.

The cement industry produces more than five per cent of the world’s carbon emissions. Cement manufacturing uses coal to heat kilns to more than 1,500C. It also relies on the decomposition of limestone, a chemical change which frees carbon dioxide as a by-product. With growing demand for construction from the BRIC nations and Middle East, industry analysts forecast cement production will generate almost five billion tonnes of carbon dioxide annually by 2050.

Other projects to receive the Board’s largesse include: mouldable auto parts from sustainable resources; energy-efficient composites recycling; intelligent management of wind turbine transmissions and electrical power systems; and manufacturing of sustainable prefabricated housing from renewable materials.

After decades of neglect, UK manufacturing companies have seen something of a renaissance recently. According to the CBI’s Industrial Trends Survey released in March this year, for every two UK manufacturing companies reporting a drop in orders, three are reporting an increase.

The rising cost of transport is seen as a contributory factor in the trend away from overseas outsourcing to home-grown manufacture, a scenario reflected in the US. But access to specialist skills, materials, technologies and processes, which cannot be replicated in cheap labour countries, is driving growth in ultra high-tech niches.

The UK manufacturing sector as a whole is growing at a gentle 1.9 per cent per annum, but growth is strongest in areas such as motorsport, telemetry of renewable energy systems, aerospace and pharmaceuticals.