Blog: Innovation transcending politics

Originally from Houston, Texas, Elaine Buck has settled in Orkney and works as EMEC’s Technical Manager.

Keep Calm and Carry On

It is only four days ‘til we know the outcome of the US 2016 presidential election. It has been four months and 12 days since Brexit.

Why is this important?

To me these pivotal days are important because I am an American, resident here in the UK. And my career is in an industry that seems under threat on both sides of the pond.

But am I influenced by too much scaremongering? Has politics in our world become so influential that it can either kill or change technology innovation?

I don’t think so. Governments intervene to influence market outcomes, but they should not negatively impact innovation.

Markets are the mechanism for stimulating innovation. It is a simple supply and demand scenario, and over the last year we are witnessing signs of change in the global energy markets. According to the International Energy Agency’s 2015 World Energy Outlook report, renewables contributed almost half of the world’s new power generation capacity in 2014. This is a trajectory that should not slow down.

In the UK, Brexit currently obscures the route or mechanisms to accessing European funding. At the same time, the UK Government’s changes to the electricity market runs the risk of removing essential subsidy support at a critical juncture in our sector’s technology development lifecycle. Although clearly not the UK Government’s intention to stifle innovation, left unattended this could critically injure this new nascent industry. This comes while the US has committed not only dollars but a technology development pathway and route to wave energy test sites; however I feel that this too could be in jeopardy depending on the way the US election falls.

I see the US run the risk of electing someone who does not ‘get’ the climate change agenda and could kill off the US’ programmes at a stroke. On this side of the pond, we run the risk of the accidental freezing out of innovation by a new Government focussed on Brexit that has yet to demonstrably grasp the potential we know marine energy offers. Ironically the UK has the biggest potential to profit from marine energy but it is the rest of the EU who have woken up to the potential the sector offers them.

It all looks very bleak, so what are we seeing beyond politics? How is innovation transcending politics?

I am reminded of the 1939 British government morale poster: Keep Calm and Carry On!

Every morning we walk through the doors with a famous presidential quote printed above the EMEC entrance:

“The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need [people] who can dream of things that never were.”
John F Kennedy

What are those obvious realities for our sector today?

Tidal energy generation is on the edge of commercial success. Wave energy generation, whilst a little way behind tidal, is designing innovations in structures and subsystems to survive and capture the biggest prize in ocean energy resources: the waves.

While the political landscape is uncertain and limited by the above realities, we at the European Marine Energy Centre are not taking a backseat letting politics interfere with our passion for innovation and our vision of a globally successful marine energy industry.

EMEC is in preparation for potentially the busiest three to four years in our history with new wave and tidal developers due to begin testing at our scale and grid-connected sites. We are working on various innovation projects: from the development of reliability methodologies to analysing failed components; from the creation of a bespoke integrated monitoring system for high-velocity tidal streams to developing the capability for hydrogen to be generated from tidal energy.

We have worked, lobbied, and positioned tirelessly to innovate our services and offerings to buffer the occasionally bleak political realities.

We have built mechanisms harnessing EU funding with FORESEA, OCEANERA-NET, and Horizon 2020 projects.

We continue to invest where we can to provide the ‘leg up’ the sector needs to get through to TRL 9 and commercial success.

We are calm and carrying on.

I will wake up next Wednesday with one political reality or another. I will still be an American, residing in the UK, walking through these doors ready to support the next innovator who braves these uncertain days.

And I feel incredibly proud to be working in this sector; a small and close team of men and women who dream of things that never were!

Elaine Buck
EMEC Technical Manager