Sunak promises ‘once-in-a-generation’ infrastructure investment

The Infrastructure Plan is well worth going through in detail. At a first glance it is a “Parson’s Egg” with many good intentions mixed with some very muddled thinking. The basic issue is that, while the report gives lip-service to the “Green Book” , which is meant to ensure all investments are carefully thought out in terms of cost /benefit many of the proposed investments are more virtue signalling rather than evaluated projects. For example, the proposed CCS investment of £ 1b is said to aim to remove 10 Mt CO2 /y from the atmosphere by 2030: the benefit of this is that the world-wide human CO2 emissions would fall by 10/2,500 (i.e 0.4%) if implemented this year, but by even less by 2030: this cannot be a good investment against any logical cost / benefit assessment; especially when we are likely to be importing more goods from the high CO2 economies whose energy costs are so much lower.

However, the plan is a good step forward and well worth spending some time on as it will effect engineering very significantly.

Oh dear! The well known ‘Once in a generation’ quote! What happens if we need more, or the world moves on and changes! Does it mean between parliaments, referenda’, births and deaths, 20 years or even 40 years as one politician recently considered. What does he mean by generation? Not that I am knocking the welcome investment but beware politicians making promises. We know how that works.

I’m afraid that I’m with Another Steve regarding these pronouncements. On the news today I saw a massive transformer being transferred from Slovenia to Tilbury: the UK made their own a few years ago . Lip service is paid to job-creation, little mention is made of the export of jobs that has steadily increased, mainly to the EU. Re-shoring is a pipe-dream only unless some politician arrives who can break the circle of financial cronyism that dominates the UK.

The idea of “levelling up” is good and perhaps it would be a good idea to have a National Infrastructure to boost growth and productivity across the whole of uk. Perhaps the “UK Infrastructure Bank” will be located in the North, away from the influence of well-off Metropolises – say Teeside or Berwick (more rural and more Northern England); that would assist the NIC in appreciating what sort of infrastructure is needed for levelling-up (especially transport).
I looked at the “National Infrastructure Strategy” link. And I went straight to the important part ; the Conclusion.

This it somewhat disappointing. Much of it talks about forthcoming strategies that will describe certain issues (rather than major points of the document). The rest of the conclusion talks about the “National Infrastructure Commission” (NIC) and how they will recommend the technologies required (is this something they are able to do?).
And the report indicates that NIC report ‘Anticipate, React, Recover: Resilient infrastructure systems’, is needed because:- “The current public health situation has shown that unpredictable ‘black swan’ events can and do happen,..” Given the precedents of the Black Death and Spanish Flu this statement is some what worrying (and what are SAGE and COBRA there for?) in understanding resilient and robust infrastructure.
However.
On ploughing through the rest of the report I did find some good things there – though worry that, like an Escher Etching, there may be some significant gaps. These gaps need to be addressed as they will require research and development for them to be bridged.
Where is the hydrogen to be stored? And for what purpose (eg heating or transport)? As it could be of benefit to the wind industry.
What will lorries be powered by – as, as said, remaining on diesel defeats the idea of being “green”; batteries are unlikely so if switch to hydrogen will it be internal combustion (gas turbines?) or fuel cell? And what R&D is required? If this does not happen then this allows, paradoxically, for longer use of diesel cars…
There is a section on network reform. But it does not address pressing problems we are now seeing with power shortage warnings (& infrastructure reliability) .Who will be responsible for getting more reliable power -especially if use of EV & electric heating grow the demand? And energy storage does not seem to get a mention.
The commitment to nuclear power is beneficial in providing some, but most likely inadequate, surety of power availability. But no mention of how such infrastructure may be built more speedily – and affordably.
Though restoring those railways destroyed by Beeching would be a welcome lift to many rural economies (and, I hope, not forgetting those cut by Brabra Castle) it is unclear if these will facilitate local freight or if additional roads will be required to boost these aspects of economies and if appropriate inter-model technologies will be developed.