FCRN Research Library: Technology

Food Climate Research Network - title graphic

In the list below, icons of PDFs and Word documents, report covers and logos will, where available,link to the relevant report/information. Links within the text will also link to relevant webpages as well as to PDFs etc.

GeneralBack to top

	For a broad overview of the scope and potential of technology see Assessment of technological options to address climate change: a report for the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit, Imperial College Centre for Energy Policy and Technology, Cabinet Office, December 2002. In addition, a great deal of useful information on cleaner technologies is available from Imperial College's ICCEPT website.
	The Carbon Trust is a leading source of information on energy efficiency and low carbon technologies. It publishes a series of publications focusing on different industrial sectors, including the agricultural/horticultural and food and drink industries. It has an excellent links page which lists a number of funding and research organisations associated with cleaner and renewable technologies.
	The ESRC-funded programme, Sustainable Technologies, now complete, has also yielded findings relevant to the sustainable consumption agenda.

For an examination of technology in relation to transport, see the Transport page on this website.

Energy efficiencyBack to top

Added: 07.03.08	New energy from waste technology developed Modern Waste Ltd, The University of Birmingham and EKB Technology Ltd have collaborated to form Biowaste2energy Ltd Biowaste2energy. This new company will develop and commercialise a waste to energy technology developed at the University of Birmingham and at an Oxford university spin-out, EKB Technology Ltd. The technology combines a two stage fermentation process with patented novel membrane separation technology to convert organic wastes into economic quantities of hydrogen. Initially targeting sugary food wastes, Biowaste2energy aims to develop the technology to handle a number of different waste streams including mixed food waste. For more information, see the press release here.
Added: 27.11.07	Polygeneration report Polygeneration is is the use of multiple energy sources to cover multiple energy needs. That is, a range of energy inputs can be used (including biofuels) to generate heat, power and cooling (ie. refrigeration). This report, published by Optipolygen, says that polygeneration can provide 70-80% of all the energy needed by the food and drink industry in the EU15. 20% of this can be generated from the food and drink wastes themselves. It also has some figures for total energy use in the EU food and drink sector.
Added: 28.8.07	Dynamic demand is the use of low-cost electronics fitted to appliances such as refrigerators and freezers, so that they time their electricity consumption in response to conditions on the National Grid, creating a national energy-storage solution. A new report published in August 2007 from the Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform department sets out the Government's preliminary view of the potential of dynamic demand to make savings in carbon emissions. An FCRN summary is available here.
	Brenda Boardman at the University of Oxford's Environmental Change Institute has undertaken detailed analysis of energy efficiency in the UK domestic sector. Her research includes an examination of food related appliances such as refrigerators. See for example Boardman, B (2004) Achieving energy efficiency through product policy: the UK experience, Environmental Science and Policy, 7(3), pp. 165-176, and Boardman, B. (2004) *New directions for household energy efficiency: evidence from the UK*, Energy Policy, 32 (17): 1921 - 1933
	A copy of the ECI's Lower Carbon Futures report is also available on the ECI website. This report analyses domestic energy use in three European countries (including the UK) and offers recommendations on reducing household energy use.
	The Defra-funded Market Transformation programme publishes a number of policy briefs on energy use in various sectors, some of which are of relevance to the food chain. See for instance the policy briefs on domestic cooking, cold and wet appliances at www.mtprog.com.
	At a very specific level, a US study takes a life cycle approach to fridges and fridge replacement, considering when is the optimal time, from an environmental perspective to replace a fridge. It concludes that there is a trade off between the optimum replacement period in energy terms and in cost terms with consequent policy implications. See Life cycle optimization of household refrigerator-freezer replacement, Yuhta Alan Horie, Center for Sustainable Systems, Report No. CSS04-13, University of Michigan, Michigan, 2004.
	Published by the ESRC Sustainable Technologies project, Explaining Daily Showering, while not specifically food related, is an interesting exploration of the way in which technological developments shape behaviour. In other words, some technologies which may more energy efficient than what they replace can lead to changes in habits which end up being more energy intensive than what has gone before.
	Horace Herring at the Open University also looks at energy efficiency and the rebound effect, considering whether energy efficiency per se leads to absolute rather than just relative reductions in energy use.