s a 14-year-old, I remember watching the building of the now demolished, coal-fired power station at Didcot from my dormitory in School House. The country was soon provided with potent reminders of the fragility of our energy supply through the successive miners’ strikes and oil shocks of the 1970s. The discovery of oil and gas in the North Sea, meanwhile, offered the exciting prospect of reducing our reliance on indigenous coal and imported oil. The scientific education gained at Abingdon enabled me to study Earth Sciences at university and go on to participate in this exciting field of exploration. Whilst oil and gas have provided much of the fuel for global economic growth over the past 50 years, it is now clear that the use of fossil fuels is rapidly increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and warming the planet. New and sustainable forms of energy are urgently needed, posing equally exciting new technological challenges for young scientists today. Some of that innovation will be provided by large companies with origins in oil and gas and which have the capital and much of the expertise to help make the transition. These companies will gradually evolve in response to the changing demands of their customers for sustainable and affordable energy, but while those technologies are being developed and scaled-up, the world will still need fossil fuels for some decades to come. I recently visited the Yang Science Centre at Abingdon; what an astonishing resource for young scientists! With the benefit of such facilities, the opportunity for Abingdon students to develop their scientific understanding and go on to explore new and sustainable solutions to the ever-growing global demand for energy is as real now as it was 50 years ago. Andrew Wood A Providing Energy to a Warming World AndrewWood (1971) GRIFFEN 2024 | 6
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTUxNTM1