As one example, while truck propulsion engines are tightly regulated in the EU and increasingly clean, secondary engines used to power transport refrigeration units (TRUs) on many trucks and all articulated trailers are effectively unregulated and emit grossly disproportionate amounts of toxic air pollution. Over the course of a year, a modern trailer TRU can emit up to six times as much nitrogen oxides (NOx) and 29 up to times as much particulate matter (PM) as the Euro VI propulsion engine pulling it around. Refrigeration also accounts for around 20% of a truck’s diesel consumption and CO2 emissions.
A report from University of Birmingham earlier this year found that a projected fleet of just 13,000 zero-emission trailers (less than 15% of our total UK fleet) would reduce NOx emissions by the same amount as taking 80,000 Euro VI trucks or 1.2 million Euro VI diesel cars off the road. It would be the PM equivalent of removing 367,000 such trucks from service – more than three times the entire UK articulated truck fleet today – or 2.2 million Euro VI diesel cars.
Currently large amounts of cold are not being harnessed and are going to waste, especially with the re-gasification of liquefied natural gas (LNG). Natural gas is ‘packaged’ in cold to condense it for transport by sea, but the packaging is usually thrown away when it is re-gasified at import terminals. This discarded ‘packaging’ is regarded as waste or stranded cold. Less than 50% of stranded cold is currently used or recycled globally – less than 20% in the UK. Much of the remainder could be recycled to provide zero-emission cooling and power in a wide range of static and mobile applications.
The full potential of a joined up ‘Cold Economy’ is only just beginning to emerge but is evidently huge. The cold given off by the National Grid Isle of Grain LNG terminal over the course of a year would be enough to fuel London’s entire 7,600 strong bus fleet as liquid air ‘heat hybrid’ engines more than six times over. These would reduce emissions by as much as electric hybrids for a fraction of the cost. If we only recycled a fraction of the waste cold, the environmental and economic savings would be significant. On current trends, the world will soon be throwing away a quantity of cold big enough to refrigerate the world’s entire fleet of refrigerated trucks – currently served by highly polluting diesel TRUs.
Sustainable cooling is an urgent global challenge. It is also a new, multi-billion market – and with a portfolio of new technologies moving into demonstration and early deployment, supported by extensive academic research, with the right support, the UK is well-placed to become a world leader, delivering much needed manufacturing jobs. The Midlands is the hub of the activity on cold chain technology in the UK.”