MP Chris McDonald hails clean energy as economic opportunity of the century at IChemE debate

CLEAN energy will provide the UK with the economic opportunity of the century, according to MP Chris McDonald, speaking at a recent energy transition debate hosted by IChemE’s Oil, Gas, and Energy Transition Special Interest Group.

Hosted at University College London – the first university in the UK to establish a chemical engineering department – the event drew industry professionals and students for a wide-ranging discussion on how UK industry can remain competitive during the energy transition.

McDonald, an IChemE Fellow, told the audience: “Chemical engineers quite often rise to the top of companies and end up taking management positions.

“And this is because we have an advantage in dealing with problems, particularly dynamic process optimisation problems, so we feel comfortable with lots of variables and then optimising them to a particular place.”

Industrial strategy

McDonald stressed the importance of the UK’s industrial strategy for economic growth, arguing that sustainability and competitiveness are not mutually exclusive.

“The green economy is growing three times faster than the non-green economy and we saw £2trn (US$2.7trn) invested in clean energy last year, so that’s twice as much as was invested in fossil fuels,” he said.

Confederation of British Industry data shows the UK clean energy sector added £83bn to the economy in 2024 and supports around 951,000 jobs across supply chains, equivalent to 2.9% of total UK employment.

McDonald added: “It's the economic opportunity not only of a generation or even of a lifetime, but it’s also possibly the economic opportunity of more than a century. It’s a new industrial revolution.”

The strategy highlights eight growth sectors for investment over the next decade, including advanced manufacturing, defence and clean energy. More than £30bn a year is expected to be invested in clean energy by 2035.

Sectors left behind

Some speakers questioned whether the strategy adequately supports the UK’s foundational industries, including refining and chemicals.

IChemE president Raffaella Ocone asked how the government would support foundational industries. She said: “When people think about materials, they tend to jump to steel, but what about the materials that come from petrochemicals?”

Nick Bone, who spent 32 years at ExxonMobil leading safety and risk at its Fawley refinery, said UK refining has been hit hard by high energy and supply chain costs.

He said: “We’re not competing with Europe, as the minister said, we’re competing with the globe, and year on year, the cost of energy gets higher and the cost of employing people gets higher, so our margins get squeezed.”

He added: “Making money in our industry is incredibly hard, whether you’re making chemicals or whether you’re refining crude oil.”

Allan Baker, global head of energy transition at Société Générale, praised the Industrial Strategy but stressed that private investors will only come to the UK if policy and government alignment is stable.

He said: “If you have a government that flip-flops and cannot agree on its decarbonisation decisions, you’re not going to put money there because you’re going to lose it.”

Jobs in the UK

Speakers agreed that skills shortages pose a major risk to industrial growth. McDonald said: “We've identified an opportunity, a job growth opportunity of 800,000 jobs in the UK, and that’s a great opportunity for the chemical engineers in this room.

“But the other side of it is that the investment from industry can’t be realised without access to highly skilled workers.”

Bone added: “Finding engineers who can weld, build scaffolds and tune instruments is incredibly difficult, so whenever we did a large-scale project, we would source from all over the world.”

The government is investing in training for low-carbon technologies, including £20m to support North Sea workers transitioning to new sectors. McDonald said this was intended to attract private investment and keep supply chains in the UK.

He urged engineering students to enter the sector, warning that skills shortages could push investment overseas.

“We’ll lose that investment in the UK if we don’t have access to skills,” he said, citing recent projects in blade manufacturing, carbon capture in Teesside and fusion energy in the Midlands.