“Achieving Net Zero by 2050” was the title of a presentation delivered in Glasgow on 21 April by Scottish engineer Jim McDonald, attended by Envirotec.
Professor Jim McDonald’s apparent bounce and optimism belied a topic that tends to favour cataclysmic framing (provided by him too, in the opening minutes), and which, as a political project, has suffered more than a few knocks of late. The current UK government certainly appears to be an ally, although he wasn’t here to represent its position, he said. Energy has arguably become the political issue of the day. And while events in the Middle East have yet to really impact the UK, thanks to the price cap, its effects are becoming apparent in the forecourts of petrol stations, and will become increasingly evident as the year goes on.
So there are no shortage of problems, and a 3°C+ warming of the climate was one whose consequences, he seemed in no doubt, meant “we should be worried”. But the thrust of this talk seemed to be that purpose and entrepreneurial thinking will allow us to “move into that solution space.” Seen from this angle, a big problem is that the world “is full of pessimists, stuck in that problem space.”
His main proposition was the need for a “whole systems approach”, and to view energy not as a collection of isolated technologies or policies, but as an interconnected system. This must integrate technology, economics, policy, and societal behaviour.
Setting the scene historically, and perhaps framing his remarks to suit a Glasgow audience, he took up the story starting from a century ago, and the vision of Lord Weir, chairman of what has become Weir Group (the only FTSE100 firm still based in Glasgow, as he noted in a possibly wry aside), who was commissioned by the UK government of the day to lead work that informed the Electricity (Supply) Act 1926, proposing the creation of what Weir described as “a national gridiron of electrical connections”, the beginnings of the now familiar “grid”. And it was a good job we did, in Winston Churchill’s later view, as WWII might not have gone so well without it.
Fast forward a few decades, and events like the 1992 Rio Earth Summit began to stir the pot of suggesting the whole thing needed a radical rethink. Additional challenges have since presented themselves, and a major one looming ahead is the growing complexity of the energy landscape.
At the heart of this complexity, he suggested, lies what engineers often describe as the “energy trilemma”: the need to balance decarbonisation, security of supply, and affordability. Each of these pulls in a different direction. The push to decarbonise requires rapid investment in new technologies; ensuring security of supply demands resilience in the face of geopolitical shocks; and affordability remains a pressing concern for households and industry alike. Recent events, particularly the impact of the Ukraine war on European gas supplies, have shifted political attention more heavily towards energy security, he noted, illustrating how quickly the balance can tilt. Resolving these competing pressures, without losing public confidence, is central to delivering a credible net zero transition.
Digital decarbonisation
One of the most significant emerging pressures is the rapid expansion of digital technologies. Data centres and AI are becoming major drivers of energy demand, forecast to be over 20% of global emissions by the end of the decade, underscoring the tension between economic growth and decarbonisation. This interdependence, he argued, reinforces the need for integrated planning: “It’s hard to decouple digitisation from energy requirement.”
In Scotland, there are big opportunities emerging with things like the creation of the new AI zone around the Ravenscraig site, a multi-billion pound investment, but with energy and cooling requirements to match. What is interesting, he said, is the way the big digital firms are thinking about how to secure their energy supplies without having to wait for the infrastructure. For example, Google’s relationship with Kairos Energy, and Amazon’s with Energy Northwest, X-energy, and Dominion Energy, are working towards having Small Modular Reactors on site.
Nuclear looked likely to be very important, he suggested, adding that engineers have an obligation to ensure that safety of build and operation, as well as waste management, are central to the debate.
He also struck a notably pragmatic note on the role of oil and gas in the transition, cautioning against treating the sector simply as part of the problem. Existing hydrocarbons infrastructure, he argued, will remain essential in the near term, and the industry itself brings technical expertise, financial capacity, and large-scale project delivery experience that will be critical to building the new energy system. Rather than being sidelined, oil and gas companies need to be part of the transition—supporting developments such as carbon capture, hydrogen, and offshore energy—if net zero ambitions are to be realised at pace.
Despite the scale of the challenge, he saw room for optimism in the potential for economic transformation. Referencing the influential work of Nicholas Stern, he emphasised that decarbonisation is not merely a cost but an opportunity. “When everyone talks about the cost of trying to create a decarbonised energy system, we forget… that is significantly outweighed by the value,” he said, citing the potential for new industries, jobs, and supply chains.
However, he was clear that progress has been uneven and often hindered by non-technical factors. While the UK possesses strong engineering capabilities and technological innovation, “the intangible assets have been the things that have tripped us up.” Among these, he identified political will, inconsistent policy, and weak public engagement. Frequent shifts in government direction have undermined investor confidence, making it difficult for industry to commit to long-term infrastructure projects. “How can we expect the manufacturing base to commit billions… if they don’t know there’s going to be another pipeline of projects against a 20-year horizon?” he asked.
The scale of infrastructure required is immense. McDonald cited estimates that the UK will need to double or even triple its electricity generation capacity by mid-century, alongside a massive expansion of transmission networks. “In the next five years or so, we’re going to have to spend something like £100 to £140 billion in rewiring Britain,” he said. Some of this would involve “major engineering projects, that are going to be deploying and imagining new transmission activities.”
A less visible but potentially critical constraint is the shortage of skilled engineers needed to deliver this transformation. McDonald warned that the UK may require hundreds of thousands of additional engineers and technicians by the end of the decade, a gap that cannot be closed overnight. “You can’t magic them up,” he said, noting that training pipelines take years to mature. Without a significant expansion in skills, alongside the ability to attract international talent in the short term, the sheer scale of infrastructure required risks being slowed not by lack of capital or technology, but by a shortage of people to design, build and operate it.
Imagining a supergrid
Truly innovative thinking would be an essential ingredient, and there seemed no shortage of it, in his analysis. He mentioned a company in Dublin, SuperNode, which employs about 70 people and is coming up with “new superconducting transmission technology” offering “massively increased current-carrying capability” compared to existing transmission lines, and at a fraction of the cost. He alluded briefly to the late founder’s vision of “a European supergrid” and also his views about the possibility of even connecting this into North Africa.
“So this is why we need entrepreneurial, innovative engineering minds in the centre of policy, in the centre of investment”.
The evolving structure of the energy system presents both opportunities and challenges. Traditional centralised generation is giving way to a more distributed model, with renewable sources, storage, and even electric vehicles contributing to supply. This decentralisation, McDonald argued, can enhance resilience if properly managed. “The cheapest kilowatt hour is the one that you don’t use,” he noted, pointing to the growing importance of demand-side flexibility and efficiency.
However, despite the progress being made towards a distributed energy system, some centralised control is not all bad. “Now, there’s a growing recognition that we need a systems architect,” he said. With the major restructuring of the UK electricity sector around 1990–91, when it was privatised – and he was at pains to suggest no political bias on this point – “we started to lose the controlling mind of who was designing the system.” To some extent this is being redressed by the National Energy Systems Operator, and its Strategic Spatial Energy Plan, which is taking a whole-systems approach to optimising the UK electricity system and ensuring stability of supply.
Don’t fear complexity
The complexity of the system “is what puts a lot of folk off”, he said. A slide on “Climate Change Building” offered a slightly Heath Robinson-esque rendering of the different parts of a house being built, with adaptation and mitigation providing the makeshift roof, sitting uneasily atop a succession of floors: “law and governance”, “society”, “economy” all the way down to “science” at the bottom, the foundation of the whole thing.
Politicians might “throw their hands up in the air”, he said, but that’s why engineers “need to respectfully give our opinions” and help politicians drive the making and delivery of policy. He added that “at the current rate they’re probably going to be about forty or fifty years late against that 2030 target, which was so laudably set at the turn of the century. But we have to keep on looking at it.”
Looking ahead, McDonald argued that innovation will be critical, not only in established technologies but also in more speculative areas such as carbon capture, and even geoengineering. While some of these solutions remain at an early stage, he urged engineers to think long-term and embrace experimentation. “We need to think about these long game interventions,” he said.
Ultimately, his message was clear: achieving net zero by 2050 will require not only technological innovation but also coordinated action across government, industry, and society. With the right approach, he suggested, the transition could mirror the transformative impact of the original national grid nearly a century ago. “This is a historically defining period,” he said. “We’re at that launch point of getting it right.”
