NEWS IN BRIEF Eight countries could overtake US in air conditioning use Eight countries have the potential to overtake the US as the largest consumer of electricity for air conditioning, according to research carried out by the Energy Institute at Haas, part of the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. The study ranked 219 countries and 1,692 cities on air conditioning potential and found that India, China, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Brazil, Bangladesh, and the Philippines had more air conditioning potential than the US. It said the US currently consumes 400TWh of electricity annually for air conditioning around 1.5% of total global electricity use. Rumford legacy backs youth training The Cambridge Academy for Science and Technology (Cast) is the latest provider to deliver the Design Engineer Construct! (DEC) learning programme and qualifications. These have been developed by social business Class of Your Own (Coyo) to address the lack of young talent coming into careers in the built environment. The Cast course is being made possible with support from the Rumford 70th Legacy (R70L) fund. This has facilitated a grant from the Engineering Services Training Trust Limited (ESTTL) and Morgan Sindall Construction, with support from the Cambridge Forum for the Construction Industry (CFCI). It offers project-based education to 14-19 year olds at its site close to the Cambridge Biomedical Campus. Chinese firm claims largest 3D printed structure Chinese 3D printing specialist WinSun has created a 432m-long revetment wall for a river in Suzhou, near Shanghai. It believes the 1.5m-high wall is the largest 3D-printed structure in the world. The wall was assembled using modules created from construction and steel waste products, which were heated, ground up and mixed with printing ink. The method allowed designers to follow the rivers curves more easily and cheaply than using conventional techniques, WinSun said. Hybrids are key to net zero future, says Baroness Brown Hydrogen and heat pumps will replace natural gas, said Baroness Brown at Build2Perform The vice-chair of the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) believes hybrid heat pump solutions and increasing amounts of hydrogen heating will prove pivotal in the push towards net-zero carbon. Speaking at the CIBSE Build2Perform Live event, Baroness Brown of Cambridge said the government had been advised to combine Building Regulations for heating and Baroness Brown: Avoid the unmanageable and manage the unavoidable ventilation to ensure higher levels of insulation and airtightness did not lead to an epidemic of overheating and sick building syndrome (SBS). She said current levels of greenhouse gas emissions had no precedent in the past 800,000 years and that potential future scenarios were scary. Current projections suggest the planet is on course for a 4C rise in temperatures far above the 1.5C target outlined in the Paris Agreement. However, she believes the worst is not inevitable and urged the building services sector to focus on avoiding the unmanageable and managing the unavoidable through a combination of technical innovations and mitigation strategies for buildings. The CCC has written an open letter to Prime Minister Boris Johnson urging the new administration to address the climate crisis. The CCC warned that UK efforts had so far fallen short, but with the country hosting the 2020 UN Climate Summit in Glasgow, the governments actions over the next year would have a lasting global impact. The letter, signed by CCC chairman Lord Deben and Lady Brown, said the UK must get back on track to delivering net zero emissions. The CCC identified five key priorities for cutting UK emissions: removing fossil fuels in existing buildings; phase out of petrol and diesel cars; 40GW of offshore wind by 2030; developing hydrogen and a mechanism to pay for emissions reductions; and cutting emissions from agriculture. UK should use green spaces for heat The UK could cut its carbon emissions by more than 2% and meet almost 10% of its peak heat demand by installing heat pumps in public parks and other green spaces, according to research by the climate charity Possible and the London Borough of Hackney. The move, which would deliver around 30GW of heat while improving air quality and providing a source of income for councils, is part of a project backed by the National Lottery Community Fund, National Lottery Heritage Fund, and innovation foundation Nesta. The funders plan to install a heat pump as part of a pilot project to prove that the idea works and then share the outcomes with other local authorities. Heating is a carbon bomb in the UK, said Neil Jones, project manager at Possible. A third of all UK greenhouse gas emissions comes from heating and yet its often overlooked. Whats so exciting about this report is that it not only offers a way to kickstart a society built on clean heat, but it also offers economic and health benefits at the same time. 6 January 2020 www.cibsejournal.com CIBSE Jan20 pp06-07 News.indd 6 20/12/2019 16:58