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Great prosperity seen for energy engineers
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14/03/2008
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“We are running in a state of total over demand”, declared John Westwood, managing director of Douglas Westwood, when he addressed the opening day of the Oceanology International Conference at London’s ExCel centre, speaking on the subject of “Meeting future energy needs”. “Energy contractors are overwhelmed” he went on, “Capacity is sold years ahead – some companies are taking orders for 2011”.
Far from lamenting the demise of low cost oil, he foresaw the need to prospect and obtain oil from deep water and the Arctic, and the development of alternative means of generating energy as a tremendous opportunity. He spoke of the “Massive technology requirements” for obtaining oil from deep water and the further development and production of remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) – “Without them, we would be making very little progress in deep water”. He said that the UK is heading to be the world’s “Largest operator of offshore wind power” with machines whose nacelles weigh up to 400 tonnes, except, as he said, “You will be lucky to get one in under three years” and spoke of the opportunities posed by the “85 wave and tidal power concepts – there isn’t probably a single solution”.
The only cloud on the engineering horizon he saw was, “The shortage of experienced engineers” referring to a survey: “70 per cent of respondents believed that industry would not have sufficient leadership talent to meet the challenges” which he put down to the, “Pathetic state of the UK education system”.
For more information and a complete copy of the slides accompanying the talk, see: www.douglas-westwood.com
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Author
Tom Shelley
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