Interview with Professor Nigel Brandon

Tan Cheng Peng: Good morning everyone. I am pleased to have Professor Nigel Brandon of the Imperial College of London with me today on our SMI Horizon Series interview, where we feature thought leaders, movers and shakers for their insights and experiences that could shine the way ahead for Maritime Singapore.

Professor Nigel Brandon is an early pioneer in the field of sustainable energy. He is currently the Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Professor of Sustainable Development in Energy at Imperial College London. His research focus includes electrochemical devices, the engines that drive fuel cells, flow batteries and electrolysers – all critical technologies for transitioning to a low carbon future. He is also currently a member of the International Advisory Panel of the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore.

Welcome Professor Brandon to Singapore.

Prof Nigel Brandon: Well, it’s always a pleasure to be here. Thank you.

Tan Cheng Peng: Thank you for taking the interview. If I may start off with a general introduction, as a professor at the Imperial College, can you share with our audience briefly what are the broad areas of research work that you undertake at Imperial College?

Prof Nigel Brandon: I am in electrochemical engineering. I have spent my career working on electrochemical technologies. So these are technologies that are really designed for taking electrons and turning them into molecules. Things like an electrolyser for splitting water and making hydrogen, or for taking fuels and turning them back into power very efficiently into something like a fuel cell. I have done this in the context of green fuels, cleaner fuels, and always in the context of trying to move to a lower carbon and a less polluting society. It is an area I have been working on for 40 years but I would say that the interest today is greater than at any point in that period. So it is a really interesting area to have worked on and to be working in.

Tan Cheng Peng: In July 2023 last year, the International Maritime Organization, or the IMO, adopted a strategy on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from ships with enhanced targets for 2030, 2040 and 2050. So in your experience, what are the most critical challenges we face in transitioning to a more sustainable and resilient energy system?

Prof Nigel Brandon: That is a very important and a very big question, and of course maritime is a particular sector and it has particular characteristics. But in terms of how we transition all parts of the economy to a lower carbon system, there are some similar characteristics to the maritime sector. So it is about how do we move away from a fossil fuel dependence to a utilisation of cleaner and greener fuels that can still deliver the functional performance. In other words, in the context of maritime, where you have vessels which are very large and they are going very long distances, which probably precludes the use of battery electric technology for ocean going vessels but doesn’t preclude it for near shore vessels.

What are those fuels? How are they made? How do they intersect with the global supply chain for such fuels? How do you refuel the bunkering context, of course in a maritime application, is so important. How do these different parts of the system work together? You mentioned the phrase energy system and that is terribly important. So the energy systems of the future are going to be driven not by fossil fuels, but they are going to be driven by renewables, solar and wind in particular, but also geothermal or other technologies where countries have them. Energy inputs are more intermittent, they are more dispersed. So how do we create a system that allows us to harness that renewable electricity or nuclear power and deliver the fuels in the right place, at the right time and in the right location?

It is a very different system to a fossil based economy which overcomes the disadvantage of fossil fuels in terms of their emissions to the environment and pollution and so on, but obviously creates some additional challenges in how we harness a different set of feedstocks and turn them into reliable and resilient fuels and energy supplies. So it creates a separate and different set of challenges for us and maritime is going to be an important part of that picture.

Tan Cheng Peng: Thank you very much. So looking forward to a more sustainable and resilient future, you touched on the challenges and the opportunities that present itself. We do see that the future of maritime sustainability is likely to involve a diverse toolbox of clean technologies including hydrogen pathway, electrification, ammonia, methanol. In your view, what are the key research areas with the highest potential impact on clean maritime technologies?

Prof Nigel Brandon: I think the first thing to remember is if we are talking of a future sort of clean fuel and let’s focus on the fuels first, they are going to be largely driven by electrons. So we are going to be driven by clean power generated, as I said earlier, from renewables or nuclear sources. If we can use that clean power directly in a maritime context, in other words, if we can have battery electric maritime vessels, then that is what we should do because that is the most efficient use of those electrons. But that’s going to be limiting in terms of the amount of energy we can store on the vessel. It is going to be limiting in terms therefore of the range of the vessel. So this is really for in-shore or near shore applications. Once we start to want to store more energy on the vessel, we are going to need to take that electricity and turn it into a fuel, and because those fuels are going to give us more energy, easy to store that energy on the vessel and the easiest fuel to make is hydrogen. So hydrogen will have some applications. It is a tricky material to store. Sometimes we will want to store a liquid fuel, in which case we can take that hydrogen, combine it with appropriate sources of CO2 to make methanol or we can combine it with appropriate other sources to make ammonia. We can then use the methanol or ammonia as the energy carrier.  So each time we do this, we are going to add cost and we are going to add complexity, but we are going to make it a more useful fuel in the context of the application.

So the world is looking, and Singapore in particular is looking at how these different options play out.
Having got the fuel, you then got to think about how you can convert it into useful power through an engine.  Whether that is a combustion process or a fuel cell will depend on the size of the vessel and the amount of power you need. So both the fuel technology and the energy conversion technologies are going to be terribly important in terms of the propulsion system. Of course there are many other aspects of maritime operations to do with minimising the distance travelled, the amount of energy needed to do with logistics and planning and operations and so on. But my own work is particularly interested in the kind of fuels and fuel conversion processes which will sit at the heart of the transition.

Tan Cheng Peng: So looking ahead to 2030, the more immediate future and beyond, what do you see as the biggest forces that will shape the global energy landscape and how will they interact and influence each other?

Prof Nigel Brandon: I think one of the things that is going to characterise the energy system of the future is we are going to have a lot more coupling between different parts of the economy. So today we have a kind of fossil based system in which it is quite easy to store and move large amounts of energy around the world. When we come to an electrically driven system, electricity is much harder to store, it is much harder to move long distances.  So therefore we have to think again, come back to this point about how do we carry the electricity around? What do we turn it into? Do we turn it into hydrogen or other energy carriers to make use of that? This is not only relevant to maritime, it is relevant to air transport, it is relevant to land transport.

We are going to have a greater variety of energy carriers globally. We are not just all going to use the same fossil derived energy carrier. We are going to need to balance the supply and demand of those electrical inputs, those renewable power inputs.  So flexible technologies that can convert between molecules and electrons and electrons and molecules, technologies that can store energy cost effectively and store electricity cost effectively are going to matter, so sort of energy storage technologies. All of the digital tools that we need to control that because it is a more complex system needs to be balanced in real time in a way that is less important with a fossil based system where it is, as I said, much easier to store tanks of fuel or piles of coal, than it is to store piles of electrons. So there are going to be a range of technologies that need to come in, and the systems context for that is going to be important.

Depending where you are in the world, your energy system will look a little bit different because it will depend on the availability of renewable power. Singapore is not well blessed with renewable power, and therefore for Singapore you will have to import fuels probably. But for other countries which have low cost renewable power options, either because they are a windy place like we are in the UK, or they are a hot sunny place like Southern Europe or the Middle East where solar is going to be more affordable. So there will be a much greater heterogeneity and difference in the energy system of the future which reflects these different important drivers.

Tan Cheng Peng:  You touched on a very good point about the diversity of the technology, as well as the availability of different types of solutions for different localities and different circumstances, in particular Singapore, which is a good lead in to the next question. Given the evolving energy landscape, which is still playing itself out, with emerging different priorities for different types of fuels and solutions, how should we, for SMI and Singapore, how should we strategically allocate our limited R&D resources to maximise its impact?

Prof Nigel Brandon: Again, it’s a great question. It is one that everyone is wrestling with, right?  What is the future and how are we going to both deal with it, and hopefully we get benefit from the transition that is going to take place. I think there will be winners and losers in this energy transition. So thinking through thoughtfully where your strengths and weaknesses are, is important.

I am more than aware of course of the importance of the maritime sector here in Singapore and obviously it is the focus here at SMI. So it is hard to say what the winner will be. Therefore probably having a little bit of a spread of activities is probably a good idea. What we do know is that moving away from fossil is going to be the direction of travel.  So exploring the leading green fuel candidates – electricity, hydrogen, ammonia, methanol, is going to be important.

I think having a leading position – shaping the market, shaping the regulatory environment and shaping the policy environment is important. I know that is something that is very much on the agenda here, rather than following the lead of others trying to shape that. By taking steps to demonstrate technology, by taking steps to work with the manufacturers and the supply chains to really determine safe, reliable and the most cost effective option is important across that space, as well of course thinking about these broader issues around how do you minimise the amount of energy used through appropriate vessel design, how do you minimise the amount of energy used by optimising the route that the vessel is taking. This is all around demand reduction.

All of these things are important, and making certain that you have got an awareness and some horizon scanning matters. I think the other thing just to bear in mind is that while maritime has unique characteristics, it has a lot of commonalities with air travel. It has a lot of commonalities with other sectors. Making certain that there is a read across between innovations happening in other sectors and pulling that into the maritime sector, or indeed informing the innovation elsewhere is I think something else for you to bear in mind.

Tan Cheng Peng: To successfully decarbonise the maritime industry will require collaboration across the academia, industry and government, at least in Singapore in particular. Could you share how Imperial College and the UK as a whole do in fostering such cross disciplinary collaborations in your ecosystem?

Prof Nigel Brandon: I mean this is to some extent the holy grail of science and engineering development, right? I don’t think the UK is necessarily a model of how to do it, but I can certainly talk about some of the things that can work, or perhaps some of the things that can’t.

Imperial College is a technical institution. It has a rich heritage of collaboration with industry. In fact we were established to serve the needs of industry when we were set up as an institution all those years ago.

I think the first thing I would say that is key to all of this is trust. You have to build trusted relationships between partners because it’s about sharing information, it’s about communication, it’s about people at the end of the day, and that takes time. I think all of these relationships, which sit at the heart of both the interdisciplinarity, but also the translational activity of effectively handling innovation along the supply chain, from perhaps a university setting right through to a manufacturer who would be developing and selling and installing product. This takes time, and it takes people and it takes trust. These things don’t happen overnight. So you have to create an ecosystem where these collaborations can take place, where people can work with each other and that go beyond an individual relationship, but become almost an institutional relationship because people develop, people move, people change jobs, and so they should. But relationships need to go beyond that. So it’s a rather general answer but I think at the heart of it is about people and it is about building trusted relationships. Of course then the topic you work on and the focus is something that can be set up, whether it’s a green fuel focus or a digital focus, or whatever the topic is. But it takes time, I think sometimes it is important that funders recognise that it takes time and it takes trust on all sides because you are to some extent sharing sensitive information and that needs a trusted relationship. It’s fundamentally all about people.

Tan Cheng Peng: OK, thank you very much. Another area that SMI and our research ecosystem grapples a lot with is how to drive the research towards high TRLs so that there is the greater possibility of the research translating into adoption into industry. Could you share a little bit about how Imperial College goes about achieving such desired outcomes?

Prof Nigel Brandon: I think again it is about recognising that different people have different drivers and different success criteria, and that is absolutely fine. I have the benefit of having done a 14 year career in industry before my 25 year career as an academic. That partnership between an industrial perspective and an academic perspective is key. I think also recognising that what drives the drivers in an academic setting are not the same as the drivers in the industrial setting, but that the partnership is the key, and both sides have to sort of celebrate the success and recognise the differences between them.

Again, people sit at the heart of this. A lot of knowledge transfer is driven by people. So whether that is PhD students or research staff, or secondments of industrial colleagues into universities, or secondments of academic colleagues into industry, that can all help build and bridge that understanding of what is needed to take the technology forward. So just because something is really clever doesn’t mean it has commercial value. So it is getting that, it is identifying where it is both innovative, where it is impactful and it can be monetised, and it can be manufactured. So it is very much that combination of skills and disciplines.

Those of us in academia should celebrate the intellectual contribution just as much as those in industry and in manufacturing. Those in industry and manufacturing need to recognise that the drivers of an academic are quite different to their own. Once that understanding is in place, then these translational activities can happen more readily, I think. But it is never easy, let’s just be clear about it.

Tan Cheng Peng: OK. Thank you for sharing that. You touched quite a fair bit about the people being at the heart of the research work and all the activities, which is an issue here in Singapore. The availability of talent is very limited and there are a lot of competing sectors for research talent, same for the maritime sector. As the Dean of Imperial College, what advice would you offer to young undergraduates or even postgraduate researchers and developers to inspire them to want to become researchers in the shaping of the future of energy?

Prof Nigel Brandon: This is probably the global challenge of our time. If one puts it into a personal perspective. I have a four year old granddaughter. A lot of the global targets are set out to 2050. In 2050, she will be 30. It is half my age, less than half my age. She should see 2100, if she is fortunate. So it is not that far away, right? The young children of today will be living the world that we build in the 2050 and 2100. It is not a distant science fiction dream, and as things stand today, that is not looking great. So this is the global challenge of our time.

If you are interested in working on important problems, and this is an extremely important problem, and there are opportunities to make a difference, so engage with it. We need the brightest and the best motivated to come and engage with these issues, whether they are in research or whether they are in business, whether they are in policy. We need the brightest and the best to engage because it is the challenge of our time, and it will make people work together to find solutions to the challenges we face.

So I think if you want to have an impactful career, an interesting career and a challenging career, come and work in the energy sector, come and work in the maritime sector, come and work in the aerospace sector. It doesn’t really matter which of these sectors, but you should engage with it.

Tan Cheng Peng: Thank you, wise words indeed. We are coming to the closing of today’s interview. I understand that you have been to Singapore quite a number of times over the years and have the opportunity to interact with our researchers at the universities, as well as our government agencies. So if I may ask, what are your impressions on the R&D ecosystem here in Singapore?

Prof Nigel Brandon: As someone coming from Europe, which is a larger place, but it is perhaps a less dynamic place. I think one thing that always strikes you in Singapore is the pace of change, the pace of development, and the ability of the country to harness the energies of its people and to move quickly in particular directions. The ability to move quickly is good if it is the right way. Perhaps, isn’t so good if it proves to not be the right way. But I think the one thing that always struck me and still strikes me today is that dynamism and that ability to try and make a difference quickly, and we need more of that I think in this space.

Tan Cheng Peng: OK, so there you have it, ladies and gentlemen, that brings us to the end of the interview with Professor Nigel Brandon of Imperial College. Thank you very much.

Prof Nigel Brandon: Thank you.