UK electricity generation still relies around 80% on fossil fuels, with a resulting carbon intensity - the amount of carbon emitted to the atmosphere per unit of electricity generated - ten times higher than the level recommended to avoid dangerous climate change. Half of that electricity currently comes for natural gas and is expected to increase in the next decade as new gas-fired generation is commissioned to replace, along with renewables, old inefficient coal plants built in the 1960s. Over 20GW of gas capacity has been permitted since 2007, equivalent to a quarter of the current installed capacity for electricity generation. Unabated (no carbon capture) gas plants produce six to seven the amount of carbon per unit of electricity compared to the levels recommended for UK electricity generation by 2030. They must be fitted with Carbon Capture and Storage to provide reliable low-carbon energy to fill-in gaps between inflexible nuclear and intermittent wind power generation and a fluctuating electricity demand. Gas CCS R&D is an important emerging field, particularly to address the issue of rapidly increasing additional carbon in shale gas reserves, and many of the concepts and underlying scientific principles are still being 'invented'. Ongoing UK infrastructure investments and energy policy decisions are being made which would benefit from better information on relevant gas CCS technologies, making independent, fundamental studies by academic researchers a high priority. The UK is leading Gas CCS deployment with the retrofit of Peterhead power station, as part of the UK CCS Commercialisation programme at the time of writing. Key engineering challenges remain for the second and third tranche of gas CCS projects to be rolled out in the 2020s and 2030s. Efficient and cost-effective integration of CCS with gas turbines would be enhanced and costs of electricity generation greatly reduced if the carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration in the exhaust were much higher than the typical 3-4% value seen in modern Gas Turbine systems. An innovative solution is to selectively recirculate CO2, upstream of the post-combustion CO2 capture process, from the Gas Turbine exhaust back through the inlet of the engine, thereby greatly increasing CO2 concentration and subsequently reducing the burden on the CCS plant. The main result would be a more cost-effective plant with a significantly reduced visual impact. In order to achieve this concept, 3 main challenges must be overcome, which form the basis of the proposed work: 1. Plant Design and Optimisation. Based on advice from manufacturers and research data, a series of scenarios will be considered for the amount of exhaust recirculation through the engine. This will include results from other parts of the project, such as the engine performance tests. 2. GT-CCS Integration. Experimental testing will show how engines and CCS processes function when the two must work in a symbiotic fashion. This will include the measurement of gas turbine burner performance under operational conditions, engine testing, plus experiments on CCS columns to determine their effectiveness with this recirculated exhaust gas. 3. Scale-up and Intensification. Based on the research data gathered in the previous steps, the project will then publish findings on the viability of this concept, including application of this data to set design rules for future GT-CCS plants. Applying this idea further the project will estimate the impact on the UK's energy mix if these plants were considered economically viable. This project has a strong practical basis, employing a variety of state-of-the-art research facilities from 3 well-established UK Universities. These will include measurement of combustion behaviour under high pressure and temperature conditions, performance testing of GT engine sets with recycled exhaust and fundamental studies of the behaviour of CCS columns.

Our environment has a major influence on all aspects of human endeavour ranging from the mundane, such as deciding whether to cycle or take the bus to work, to the exceptional, such as coping with the ever more damaging effects of extreme natural phenomena (tropical storms, inundations, tsunamis, droughts, etc.). In addition, climate change is one of the most pressing challenges that confront humanity today. What was once viewed as something that might happen in the future is now part of daily life. Because most impacts of climate variability and change occur through extreme weather events and spells, the two issues of weather and climate are closely interlinked. We rely on science and technology to provide the means of managing the complex intricacies of the environment and to meet the pressing challenges of climate change. Mathematics plays a central role in this massive undertaking as it provides the fundamental basis of the theory and modelling of weather, oceans and climate. However the nature of the mathematical challenges is changing and the need for scientists trained in risk and uncertainty is growing rapidly. Meeting these needs can only be achieved by training an entirely new generation of scientists to meet the multi-faceted challenges, with all their complex inter-dependencies. These scientists will need extraordinarily broad training in several scientific areas, including geophysical fluid dynamics, scientific computing, statistics, data assimilation and partial differential equations. Above all, they must understand the mathematics that unifies them. The alignment of Imperial College's Mathematics Department and Grantham Institute for Climate Change with Reading University's Departments of Mathematics and Statistics and of Meteorology has put these two institutions into a unique position to offer a CDT focussing on the priority area: Mathematical Sciences for Weather, Ocean and Climate, as a 50-50 joint venture. We propose to bring together, as academic supervisors and stakeholders in the centre, more than 60 world-leading researchers with expertise in a wide spectrum of areas that comprise the mathematical foundation as well as the frontier application areas. The central aim of the proposal is to build a strong cohort of young scientists whose backgrounds will span the breadth of the mathematical sciences from statistics, PDEs and dynamical systems, scientific computing, data analysis, and stochastic processes including relevant application areas from weather, oceans and climate. These young scientists must also acquire problem-specific knowledge through an array of elective courses and supervisory expertise offered by the two institutions and the external partners. A core component of the cohort training will be a ten-week programme hosted by the Met Office in Exeter which will include lectures given by world-leading scientists and research internships with Met Office staff, tackling real-world projects by teamwork. Key partners to the proposed CDT include major international players in research and operational forecasting for weather, oceans, and climate, including the UK Met Office, the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts, the German DWD, the National Centre for Atmospheric Science and the National Centre for Earth Observation. The EPSRC contribution to the Centre will be heavily leveraged with institutional and external partners, whose financial commitments are estimated to cover 65% of the total costs. The proposal is also in alignment with the global initiative Mathematics of the Planet Earth 2013 which involves scientific societies, universities, institutes and organizations all over the world aiming to learn more about the challenges faced by our planet and to increase the research effort on these issues.

This proposal is for a new EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Wind and Marine Energy Systems and Structures (CDT-WAMSS) which joins together two successful EPSRC CDTs, their industrial partners and strong track records of training more than 130 researchers to date in offshore renewable energy (ORE). The new CDT will create a comprehensive, world-leading centre covering all aspects of wind and marine renewable energy, both above and below the water. It will produce highly skilled industry-ready engineers with multidisciplinary expertise, deep specialist knowledge and a broad understanding of pertinent whole-energy systems. Our graduates will be future leaders in industry and academia world-wide, driving development of the ORE sector, helping to deliver the Government's carbon reduction targets for 2050 and ensuring that the UK remains at the forefront of this vitally important sector. In order to prepare students for the sector in which they will work, CDT-WAMSS will look to the future and focus on areas that will be relevant from 2023 onwards, which are not necessarily the issues of the past and present. For this reason, the scope of CDT-WAMSS will, in addition to in-stilling a solid understanding of wind and marine energy technologies and engineering, have a particular emphasis on: safety and safe systems, emerging advanced power and control technologies, floating substructures, novel foundation and anchoring systems, materials and structural integrity, remote monitoring and inspection including autonomous intervention, all within a cost competitive and environmentally sensitive context. The proposed new EPSRC CDT in Wind and Marine Energy Systems and Structures will provide an unrivalled Offshore Renewable Energy training environment supporting 70 students over five cohorts on a four-year doctorate, with a critical mass of over 100 academic supervisors of internationally recognised research excellence in ORE. The distinct and flexible cohort approach to training, with professional engineering peer-to-peer learning both within and across cohorts, will provide students with opportunities to benefit from such support throughout their doctorate, not just in the first year. An exceptionally strong industrial participation through funding a large number of studentships and provision of advice and contributions to the training programme will ensure that the training and research is relevant and will have a direct impact on the delivery of the UK's carbon reduction targets, allowing the country to retain its world-leading position in this enormously exciting and important sector.