Mottos.

So the Scottish Government have published their Draft Third Report on Policies and Proposals 2017-2032, Draft RPP3 I think it is called.

So what does it mean? Where to begin?

Well it certainly sets the bar high. A 66% reduction vs 1990 levels is bold. Most importantly it lays to rest the notion that energy is all about electrons. Sure they are important but other forms of energytake centre stage. In the context of  "we have lots of clean electricity" it is perhaps not surprising. Turn that around to "if all we do is build more wind turbines we won't get very much further".

So heat, transport and agriculture come front and center. I can't say much about transport. Agriculture intrigues me as I think we could grow so much more in Scotland if the climate was better and actually if we copy the Dutch and have glass houses properly heated we could. We'd also create lots of jobs in crop harvesting. That isn't the last time I'll mention jobs but if we heated the glass houses with the return loop from the district heating it would be very cheap- maybe free. (needs a lesson in thermodynamics and sub coolers which I'll skip here :).

So how to digest the Draft RPP3?

I was 44 the day before it was published. Sadly not at home as I was in Brussels seeing what is coming down the tracks in terms of policy. why bother you might say. Brexit will kill all that. Well I kind of doubt it as it isn't any longer a carbon thing. It is a value for money thing, a cash flow thing, a trade deficit thing, a jobs thing, a clean air thing and an inward investment thing. But of course it is still a 1.5C thing and making a big push for reversing global warming can't be bad.

So 44 years of picking up slogans, mottos and catchphases.

Scout motto: "Be Prepared". Sadly the world isn't. We are way behind. Me, myself I think I'm a bit more prepared in some ways having been involved in decarbonised heating since 2009. Drammen showed us we could deliver big heat pumps at 90C that reduced the carbon footprint of the district heating vs gas by 85%. That is a big deal and everyone at Star Refrigeration is very proud.

School motto: "Ad Suma Nitor - strive for the highest". It's easy to do just enough but I suppose if we all hit average then we seem to be doing well. In reality we need to go further. As far as we can and then a bit more. We also have to be alert to the reality that sometimes the benchmark or the constituent parts of our performance are shifting. Take gas CHP for example. Since 2013 when it was generally accepted that displaced grid consumption could be taken as saving 500g/kWh the grid has itself shifted to circa 350g/kWh and so anyone who installed gas CHP has seen their carbon footprint rise by 30%. Not the result they planned for but it was probably always about the economics and I'm not clued up enough to say more than I suspect the periods where the grid is stressed are more valuable but the periods where it isn't are less valuable and we now see periods where burning gas to make electricity locally just isn't cost effective.

My bigger observation is that these schemes (certainly the multi MW ones) seem to be sized with the engine running pretty flat out all year but hopefully without heat being dumped in summer. So the conclusion is that the engine can't be sized that much above summer demand which is probably only 25% of average winter demand with the rest of the heat coming from centralised gas boilers. So what's wrong with that? Well centralised gas boilers have to be less efficient that localised ones if they are by consequence not condensing, need pumps to deliver the water and lose heat from the DH network.- don't agree show me hard empirical evidence.

So local gas CHP seems to have had it's day. So the consultants now tell me.

Bottom line. The suitability of heatpumps is rising, and the suitability of local gas CHP is falling. Strive for the highest or put another way "don't waste your cash when it's going out of fashion".

Not really in fitting with the motto but I studies rivers for my Geography Higher. The River Allander in Milngavie. A tiny wee burn in August when we looked at it first and a raging torrent in February when we return at the end of the allotted time period to start our field study. Be Prepared I wasn't and it kind of feels that way with Climate Change that we have left if bloody late.

First Generation who recognised the problem and last generation who can do anything about it. Cripes.

University -"A place of useful learning". Tricky one, as despite having a BEng and an MBA I think the most useful skill in life is dealing with people and I'm not very good at that. There are huge challenges in shifting from generations of combustion based heating to heat pumps and most of these challenges seem to come back to "people".

People having a lack of confidence in the technology or people expecting a quick solution and return on their investment. So I wish I'd studied psychology but as I just had to spell check it I'm not surprised I didn't!

People want instant gratification and a safe bet. So if we are to see the major shifts required in the draft RPP3 we need to pander to these basic human behaviours and find business models and technical models that are immediate in their savings and simple in their interaction. The utilities need to step up to the plate and offer more than just a gas bill; offer an alternative energy paradigm. I know what I would do if I was chief of SSE or SP et al.

Work in Innovation: "Skate to where the puck is going to be..." A Wayne Gretzky (ice hockey player) quote. Elegantly simple and simply elegant if you have any concept of things moving on ice. Basically the puck never stops moving so if you want it; skate to where it will be. Business and innovation strategy is the same. It takes a while to get new ideas out there so don't solve the problem of today. Predict what people will want and get there before them. That's why we haven't given up on heatpumps.

It's been 8 years. Shit that's longer than I was at high school. I could have given up a hundred times and yet every so often something would happen to shine a beacon. Air quality becoming important (London failed it's 16 exceedance limit on 9th January in 2016 and 5th January 2017. Burning stuff (admittedly diesel) is less and less acceptable. Gas engines are typically more polluting than gas boilers in local terms. Biomass typically worse.

Grid balancing. Heatpumps can act to ramp up or down demand to help balance the grid. It is very valuable. Sure we need more electrical generation as we go forward but it isn't likely to be despatchable on a mass scale like in the "old days" so we need stuff that can work in harmony. Actually demand for heat is broadly in phase with generation from wind (more wind = more heat loss) so the two are good bedfellows.

Who knows what sort of new generation we will see in the UK. Offshore wind seems to be acceptable. Nuclear doesn't seem to be. Clean coal is not close and newer gas stations, whilst as clean as we can get with mass deployable current technology doesn't seem to have a viable investment model to match the life span. Large biomass is a bold move as the fuel must surely be susceptible to international demand shifts.

You Miss 100% of the shots you don't take - no particular time period on this one but it seems pretty obvious. That said one has to appreciate that the game is on, the race has begun and we aren't just spectators in the game of life. We are the game. I heard a guy say "save the planet" The planet will be fine, it's human kind that has the problem. We like to think of ourselves as the superior race and yet we are killing the environment in which we live. We are quite literally shitting in our own tent and I can assure you that wasn't how we did it in the Scouts!

So the race is on. RPP3 has 178 pages. By coincidence the number of my Scout Troop. I don't think one can ever be truly prepared as you just never no what the journey will throw at you. That said we can be pretty sure we have to go forwards, with honesty, open-mindedness, diligence, bravery and a winning mentality and plenty of logic.

You could say we have "To Boldly go where no one has gone before"

except they have. Drammen did it. They used robust technology to harvest a known commodity with a result that is 2050 ready.