The Carmont Train Crash

Image
What it means for Infrastructure Climate Resilience Six years ago, on the morning of 12 August 2020, a ScotRail passenger train derailed near Carmont, south of Stonehaven in Aberdeenshire. The derailment was caused by the train striking debris washed onto the track following an intense rain storm. The accident claimed three lives, injured six others and became the deadliest railway accident in Britain for almost two decades. Yet the tragedy was more than an isolated engineering failure. The investigation conducted by the independent Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) concluded that it exposed wider weaknesses in the way Britain's railway understood and managed the risks posed by increasingly severe weather[1]. As climate change alters rainfall patterns and increases the potential for more frequent episodes of intense rainfall, Carmont has become a defining case study in the importance of building climate resilience into ageing infrastructure. Before considering the technical...
Post a Comment

Energy & Climate Change

Picture of a hydro-electric dam in the Scottish Highlands.


Transition to Renewable Energy is one of the most significant measures required to limit climate change to a 1.5 degree rise.  Not all renewable energy types are at the same level of maturity and deployment but there continues to be development across the field.  From development of ever larger and more powerful wind turbines to solar, hydro, energy from waste, or Geothermal there is much optimism for increasing the amount of reliable renewable electricity we generate.  There is also a growing range of alternative fuels which may displace fossil fuels.  These developments are essential to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels.

Here is a collection of posts related to Renewable Energy and its implementation:

2030 Electricity Generation Mix: 2030-electricity-generation-mix.html

Commentary on a 2011 paper analysing potential energy mix in the UK by 2030.  My observations on likelihood of a Severn Barrage or large scale adoption of tidal energy appear accurate, and the authors' prediction of an increase in nuclear won't be realised.

The War Effort: war-effort.html

An attempted comparison between the effort to manufacture aeroplanes during the second world war with the effort to make enough wind turbines to generate all the United State's energy needs...

Rhine River Turbines: rhine-river-turbines

This post from my older "One World" blog looks at trials of a turbine installed in the River Rhine. A follow up on this technology would be interesting.

Sea Snake: sea-snake

This is a very short post from the older blog. Sadly the developer of this machine folded but the technology may be resurrected

Many of these articles are over a decade old.  In that time the energy landscape has evolved significantly.  Some areas have thrived while others have faced significant headwinds, either technical, financial or political.  It would be interesting to follow up on some of these stories with a fresh perspective on their status.

EWM, June 2026

For further reading, browse posts tagged for Energy & Climate Change or a combination of Energy & Climate Change AND the following tags :



Loading filtered topics...

Comments

Post a Comment