A personal energy transition

Andy Emery is a geologist, climber, and writer who lives in the Scottish Highlands and works for Gavin and Doherty Geosolutions. He is fascinated by exploring landscapes both present and ancient.

To many people, the ‘energy transition’ means the replacement of fossil fuels for energy with renewable, low-carbon energy sources; a global transition with a common goal: a sustainable future for all. But for me, the energy transition is something much more personal. I experienced my own energy transition when I transitioned from working in oil and gas, to offshore wind.

When I graduated from my geoscience degree, I went on to work in the oil and gas sector, like so many other geologists of my generation. It is where the jobs were. At first, I didn’t have any problem with this; the geoscience was fascinating, applied, and I was gaining new knowledge and experiences. But after a few years I began to feel less and less comfortable. For many geoscientists, our interest in the subject began with a love of landscapes. Nature, rocks and landscapes are incredibly important to me, and I was working in a job that, ultimately, was contributing to the damage of our wonderful green and blue Earth. Many of my friends and colleagues still working in oil and gas are in love with nature too, and comfortable with their role in the energy sector. But I didn’t feel comfortable. I felt conflicted. Things were starting to shift.

The first big change started over 6 years ago. Until then, the projects that I worked on involved unravelling geological events that happened tens and hundreds of millions of years ago. But a new project had me working on far more recent geological events: the ice ages of the Quaternary geological era, less than a million years ago. The ice age world was new to me, but I could ‘see’ it in the landscapes around me. I wanted to learn more. And two things happened in close succession to help me.

First, I saw an advert for a PhD studentship at University of Leeds to study the Quaternary geological history of the North Sea. Second, in the same month, I was made redundant: a fall in oil price meant the company I was working for had to drastically downsize. I saw this as a cloud with a silver lining. I applied for the PhD, and was successful.

The PhD topic appealed to me because it combined this new, exciting world of the ice ages with study of the North Sea, a place where the ancient geology had fascinated me for years. As well as a geological transition (from old rocks to young rocks), and a life transition (I moved cities to be a student again), the PhD also offered an energy transition for me: from oil and gas to offshore wind energy. My PhD study would help windfarm developers design and build new offshore windfarms. I could imagine myself in a new career, and one in which our wonderful green and blue Earth was restored. This is the career that I have today. I make 3D models of the geology below the seabed, to help windfarm companies decide where to build a windfarm, where to put each turbine, and how to construct them.

*Geosciences play an important part in deciding where wind turbines will go, and how they stay upright. Image from Velenturf et al. (accepted).*

An example of seismic interpretation for offshore wind. A monopile is a type of foundation used for an offshore wind turbine. Understanding the complicated geology is necessary to properly design monopiles so that wind turbines don’t fall over. Image from Velenturf et al. (accepted).

The main difference between what I used to study, to what I study now, is that I am no longer looking at processes that took millions of years to happen, but tens of thousands. A mere drop in the ocean for geoscientists! In terms of my day to day life, there is little difference, besides me feeling more comfortable in the end-goal of my job.

In many ways my path for my personal energy transition was signposted ahead of me. Some of the skills that I use today in my offshore wind job were skills that I first gained during my geoscience studies, honed during my jobs in oil and gas, and sharpened during my PhD. This would be true for other low carbon energy geoscience jobs, too: similar skills are used whether finding and extracting fossil fuels, finding and extracting geothermal energy, working out where to build wind turbines, or working out where to lock-away carbon dioxide. This makes geoscientists flexible, ready to transition into new applications, new jobs, new opportunities. For many geoscientists, the global energy transition will be personal, too.

Andy is a writer- for an extended version of this blog, check out his personal blog here!

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