UK university to investigate growing demand for cooling

The University of Birmingham has launched a new policy commission entitled ‘Doing Cold Smarter’. It will investigate how the growing demand for ‘cold’ and cooling, which is required to address global challenges of hunger, disease and population growth, can be met without causing environmental ruin. 

The provision of cold is a vital foundation of modern society – without it medicine, data and the supply and preservation of food would break down.  Cooling is also energy intensive; estimates suggest that it consumes up to 14 per cent of Britain’s electricity and £5.2bn each year is spent on energy for cold across the grid and transport. These figures will be significantly higher in warmer countries, while in rapidly developing nations such as China and India investment in cooling is starting to boom. 

Yet, compared to electricity, transport and heat, cold and cooling has received little attention in the international energy debate. However, the energy and environmental costs associated with the need to provide cold have become evident and are predicted to increase dramatically in the years to come. The commission will research new ways of providing cold in a sustainable way, specifically through a system level approach, as well as exploring the economic opportunities this new clean cold industry could present.

This policy commission will also investigate ways the UK could become a global leader in the development of new cold energy systems, the technical, economic, research and skills issues around ‘cold’ and the potential economic and environmental impacts.

The commission leaders will invite international experts from academia, NGOs and industry to attend workshops in the UK and in Asia to discuss how to do cold smarter both in emerging markets and in the UK, which could include the following:

• greater recycling of waste energy, including waste cold to supply cooling;

• using liquid air and other cryogens as energy vectors to store and deliver cold and power;

• developing more efficient technologies, materials and practices around cold and cooling; and

• establishing a skills base that can meet the future demand for new technologies and manufacturing.

Lord Teverson (right), Liberal Democrat Peer and Energy and Climate Change Spokesperson who will chair this commission, said: ‘The demand for cooling is rising globally, and if we fill this urgent need with existing technologies it would have a detrimental effect, not only on the environment, but also for our energy supply.

“Bringing together experts, policy makers and innovators around one table will enable us to work out how to tackle these issues sustainably and in the process provide much-needed manufacturing and engineering jobs for the UK.”