UK could be at forefront of green Industrial Revolution with carbon cluster plans – and here’s why
If you crack open a bottle of something – be it wine, water or soft drinks – over the festive season, there’s a good chance the glass came from the Encirc factory in Cheshire.
Here, on the banks of the River Mersey, you will find one of the world’s largest glass factories. They take sand from Norfolk, soda ash created from the salt sitting beneath the Cheshire countryside and a lot of recycled glass and throw it into two of the biggest glass furnaces in the world.
There, in the furnace, at temperatures of around 1,600 degrees centigrade, the sand melts and becomes a liquid river of molten glass. It is a chemical reaction humans learnt thousands of years ago, but here at Encirc it’s carried out on a gargantuan scale.
This factory alone produces two billion bottles and containers a year, a number which is hard to process, until you note that it includes around 40% of all the wine bottles consumed in the UK.
That includes a significant proportion of all the New World wines we consume here, by the way. Mostly, the wine from Australia, California and Chile arrives not pre-bottled, but in large bags inside shipping containers, which are then emptied into metal vats at Encirc, from where they are pumped into bottles made here in the UK.
It’s an extraordinary site – a place which says a lot both about our appetite for liquids (both alcoholic and not) and our ability to turn raw materials into sophisticated products.
The struggle to get to net zero
But turning sand into glass is an enormously energy intensive process. Some of the heat in the furnace can be created by electric elements which heat the bottom of this enormous oven. But glassmakers like Encirc say it’s impossible to do what they do – making glass on a vast scale – without blasting that furnace with a very hot flame.
At the moment that flame is produced using methane – natural gas – with the upshot that this glassmaking facility produces rather a lot of carbon dioxide. And even if you could find a way of running their furnace without a naked flame it would still be producing a sizeable amount of CO2, since some of it derives from the chemical reaction as sand turns into glass.
In short, this glass factory is a pretty good illustration of how tricky it is to get to net zero. Much of the energy use in this country can be shifted from fossil fuels to green electricity – whether that’s vehicles or home heating. Sometimes the cost will be high; sometimes in the long run, going green will be cheaper than the status quo.
But for a handful of important industries it’s far, far harder. Glassmaking is one of those industries. You can run small furnaces on electric power but not the big ones you need to feed a massive glass container factory like this one.
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All of which is why they are seeking another alternative. The most obvious route to allow this plant to decarbonise is to replace those methane flames with hydrogen ones, and then to collect all the CO2 coming out of the chimney and sequester it below the ground.
And, as it happens, the technology is pretty much there. We know how to make hydrogen both from natural gas and from electricity (the former still involves some carbon emissions; the latter is extremely expensive, so these options are not without their issues). We know how to capture carbon dioxide.
But there’s a couple of problems which have always deterred businesses like this from taking the leap. The first is that it hasn’t made any economic sense. Capturing carbon is expensive, so why do it when it’s cheaper to pay for carbon credits and carry on burning gas?
Location, location, location
The second is that the infrastructure isn’t yet there. Right now if you collected carbon dioxide from your chimney, there’s nowhere to put it. Someone needs to lay the pipes out to the depleted gas reservoirs under the sea where we might be able to store it. That’s also expensive.
All of which brings us to one of the least discussed, but arguably most important topics in the green energy transition: clusters. In short, if businesses like this glassmaker are going to green it is far more likely to happen if they can do so alongside other heavy industry players.
Look at the geography of the UK’s industries and the idea makes quite a lot of sense. Many of the country’s biggest polluters happen to be clustered relatively near each other on the coast. Alongside Encirc you’ll find one of the country’s biggest oil refineries, as well as the Inovyn (part of Ineos) chemicals plant, not to mention a major gas power station and, some miles further away in North Wales, a cement manufacturer.
All of these businesses have big energy demands. They would all benefit either from carbon capture or hydrogen. Squint a little bit into the future and you can envisage a world where they share pipes both taking the carbon away and delivering the hydrogen.
How to make it happen?
But how to create these clusters? How to finance them? How to coordinate the businesses that all want to make profits while fulfilling their commitments to reduce or eliminate their carbon emissions?
It’s a question no one has yet been able satisfactorily to answer, but whoever does will have that most precious of things: a blueprint about how to decarbonise the trickiest bit of the world’s carbon budget.
And guess what: it so happens the UK is further ahead of most other countries around the world in planning its blueprint for clusters. It now has detailed plans for how to fund, construct and run a series of major clusters: one around the Encirc factory (the Net Zero North West Cluster Plan), another in the Tees Valley (Tees Valley Net Zero), as well as plans for Scotland, for the Humber, for the Black Country and South Wales.
An area where the UK is genuinely leading
Thanks in part to government funding, which began in 2019, Britain’s clusters expertise is admired far and wide. While the US is widely seen as having taken the lead on industrial decarbonisation, thanks to its enormous Inflation Reduction Act set of subsidies, Americans – and many from Europe – have been regularly visiting the UK to understand how to do clusters.
There are many areas where UK politicians claim (without much basis) to be world leaders, but here is an area where it does actually have a world-beating proficiency. However, the government funding for clusters is coming to an end in March, and those working here are nervous that this could be another area where the country squanders an early lead and soon becomes a laggard.
While the cluster in Cheshire looks likely to become a physical reality, with companies soon laying the pipes that will connect plans to hydrogen and carbon dioxide pipes, those in the Black Country and elsewhere are much less advanced.
It’s something to ponder as you have a drink over the festive season. It’s tempting to assume that Britain no longer makes much of anything any more. However, visit plants like the Encirc one, and you realise that that is very far off the mark.
And there’s a prospect that this country, which brought the world the Industrial Revolution, could be at the forefront of managing the green Industrial Revolution. In a few years’ time that glass could be truly low carbon – maybe in due course it could be zero carbon. But it will take a lot more work – especially on clusters – to make it a reality.
UK
Why seven household names – including Prince Harry – are suing one of Britain’s biggest media groups
Prince Harry and six other household names are suing the publishers of the Daily Mail newspaper over alleged unlawful information gathering dating back 30 years.
The case has been ongoing since 2022 and is just one of several Harry has filed against media organisations since 2019 over alleged breaches of privacy, unlawful practices and false stories.
Associated Newspapers (ANL) – which also publishes The Mail on Sunday and MailOnline – strongly denies any wrongdoing.
A full trial is not expected to start at London’s High Court until January, but a pre-trial hearing, which helps manage the case and resolve any outstanding issues, is set to take place today.
Here is everything you need to know about the case.
What’s alleged?
The alleged unlawful acts are said to have taken place from 1993 to 2011, including the publisher hiring private investigators to secretly place listening devices inside cars and homes and paying police officials for inside information.
When bringing the lawsuit in 2022, lawyers for the claimants said they had become aware of “highly distressing” evidence revealing they had been victims of “abhorrent criminal activity” and “gross breaches of privacy” by Associated Newspapers.
Associated Newspapers denies the allegations, describing them as “preposterous smears”, and claims the legal action is “a fishing expedition by [the] claimants and their lawyers”.
The accusations include:
• The hiring of private investigators to secretly place listening devices inside people’s cars and homes;
• The commissioning of individuals to surreptitiously listen into and record people’s live, private telephone calls while they were taking place;
• The payment of police officials, with corrupt links to private investigators, for inside, sensitive information;
• The impersonation of individuals to obtain medical information from private hospitals, clinics, and treatment centres by deception;
• The accessing of bank accounts, credit histories and financial transactions through illicit means and manipulation.
Pic: iStock
Who else is involved?
While Prince Harry is one of the key players, as a group litigation, he is not the only claimant.
The others include:
• Actress Elizabeth Hurley
• Actress Sadie Frost
• Sir Elton John and his husband, filmmaker David Furnish
• Baroness Doreen Lawrence, mother of Stephen Lawrence
• Former Liberal Democrat politician Sir Simon Hughes
Sadie Frost. Pic: PA
Baroness Doreen Lawrence. Pic: AP
They all allege they have been victims of “abhorrent criminal activity” and “gross breaches of privacy” by ANL.
David Sherborne is the lawyer representing all the claimants.
Sir Elton John and his husband David Furnish (below). Pic: AP
Pic: AP
What happened in 2023?
During a preliminary hearing in March 2023, Judge Matthew Nicklin was tasked with ruling whether the case can proceed to trial.
ANL had asked for the case to be struck out entirely, arguing the legal challenges against it were brought “far too late”, but David Sherborne called for the publisher’s application to be dismissed.
Lawyers for the publishers said the claims fell outside the statute of limitations – a law indicating that privacy claims should be brought with six years – and the claimants should have known, or could have found out, they had a potential case before October 2016.
Prince Harry at the High Court in 2023
They also argued some aspects of the cases should be thrown out as they breach orders made by Lord Justice Leveson as part of his 2011 inquiry into media standards.
During the hearing, a number of the claimants attended the High Court, including Prince Harry, to the surprise of the British media.
Witness statements from all seven claimants were also released. The duke’s statement said he is bringing the claim “because I love my country” and remains “deeply concerned” by the “unchecked power, influence and criminality” of the publisher.
“If the most influential newspaper company can successfully evade justice, then in my opinion the whole country is doomed,” he said.
On 10 November 2023, Mr Justice Nicklin gave the go-ahead for the case to go to trial, saying ANL had “not been able to deliver a ‘knockout blow’ to the claims of any of these claimants”.
What’s happened since?
Earlier this year, lawyers for the claimants sought to amend their case to add a swathe of new allegations for the trial.
They argued that they should be allowed to rely on evidence that they said showed the Mail was involved in targeting Kate, the Princess of Wales.
However, Mr Justice Nicklin ruled this allegation was brought too late before trial.
In a further development in November, the High Court heard that a key witness in the case, private investigator Gavin Burrows, claimed his signature on a statement confirming alleged hacking had taken place, was forged.
Lawyer David Sherborne is representing all the claimants
In the statement from 2021, Mr Burrows allegedly claimed to have hacked voicemails, tapped landlines, and accessed financial and medical information at the request of a journalist at the Mail On Sunday.
The statement was important, as five of the seven claimants involved in the case told the court they embarked on legal action against ANL based on evidence apparently obtained by Mr Burrows.
Mr Burrows previously retracted his statement in 2023, but the court heard he reiterated the denial to ANL’s lawyers in September this year.
It is now up to the claimant’s lawyer Mr Sherborne to decide if he still wants to call Mr Burrows as a witness for the trial.
Mr Justice Nicklin previously said if Mr Burrows gave evidence that was inconsistent with the evidence they had obtained, then he could apply to treat him as “hostile”.
Could the case end before going to trial?
In short, yes.
During pre-trial reviews, cases can either be settled or dismissed from court in both civil and criminal cases, meaning no trial will take place.
This happened in Harry’s case against News Group Newspapers (NGN), which publishes The Sun. The duke made similar accusations about NGN, which involved unlawful information gathering by journalists and private investigators.
Before an up-to 10-week trial began earlier this year, it was announced both sides had “reached an agreement” and that NGN had offered an apology to Harry and would pay “substantial damages”.
The settlement was reported to be worth more than £10m, mostly in legal fees.
Another of Harry’s legal cases, this time against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) over accusations of historical phone hacking, did go to trial.
The trial saw Harry take to the witness box, making him the first senior royal to give evidence in a courtroom since the 19th century.
In December 2023, the Honourable Mr Justice Fancourt concluded that the duke’s phone had been hacked “to a modest extent” between 2003 and 2009, and 15 of 33 articles he complained about were the product of unlawful techniques.
He was awarded £140,600 in damages. During a further hearing in February 2024 a settlement was reached between Harry and MGN over the remaining parts of his claim.
If the ANL trial does go ahead early next year, it is unknown if Harry will travel to London to attend.
Bereaved families of black, minorities and migrant women who died after suffering violence and abuse have called on the prime minister to help end femicide.
At a Downing Street vigil on International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, the group said urgent reforms to policing and sentencing are needed “to address systemic failures”.
Yasmin Javed, whose daughter Fawziyah Javed was killed after being pushed by her husband from Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh, said authorities had ignored Fawziyah’s reports of abuse.
Fawziyah Javed died after being pushed by her husband from Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh
“It fell on deaf ears,” she told Sky News, explaining that Fawziyah, 31, who was pregnant when she died, had made complaints about her husband but had been murdered days before she was set to leave him.
“We’ve had our hearts ripped into millions of pieces. It’s not getting any easier, it’s getting more and more difficult.”
Kashif Anwar was convicted of Fawziyah’s murder and was jailed for at least 20 years in 2023.
Tuesday’s vigil highlighted key legislative amendments the families, led by campaign group Southall Black Sisters, are championing.
The amendments include Banaz’s Law, named after 20-year-old Banaz Mahmod, who was subjected to an horrific assault, strangled and stuffed in a suitcase by family members on the orders of her father.
The Downing Street vigil took place on International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women
The amendment seeks to explicitly recognise “honour-based” abuse as an aggravating factor in sentencing for relevant offences.
The families also want courts to impose sentences equivalent to murder for self-harm and suicides driven by domestic and “honour”-based abuse, and say the government must ensure all women have equal access to safety and support, regardless of immigration status.
Banaz Mahmod’s sister Bekhal, who testified against her relatives to help secure their conviction, said nearly two decades after the murder, efforts to protect women had not progressed.
Banaz Mahmod was killed on the orders of her father
Speaking from an undisclosed location in the witness protection scheme, she said the murder “happened in 2006, and we’re almost in 2026 – that’s 20 years later. Not much has changed and it’s very, very disappointing.
“What happened to Banaz has happened, but what we could do is prevent it from happening to other people. I don’t understand why much more hasn’t been done to better the situation for others.”
A man charged with the murder of two women within five months of each other, and the rape of a third, has appeared in court.
Appearing at the Old Bailey via videolink on Wednesday, Simon Levy only spoke to confirm his name and was not asked to enter a plea to any of the charges.
Levy, 40, of Beaufoy Road, Tottenham, was charged in September with the murder of 39-year-old Sheryl Wilkins in Tottenham, north London, on 24 August.
While in custody, he was also charged with the murder of Carmenza Valencia-Trujillo, from Colombia, who died on the Aylesbury Estate, southeast London, in March.
Levy is alleged to have murdered Carmenza Valencia-Trujillo in March. Pic: Met Police
Prosecutor Tom Little KC told the court that Ms Valencia-Trujillo was found in a block of flats that is “very largely disused” with few residents or passers-by except security guards.
He said: “The body of the deceased was found in the early evening of 17 March 2025 in a block of flats very largely disused, so it does not contain many residents nor many people passing by apart from the odd security officer who patrol the area for safety.”
It is alleged that he travelled to the area the day before and that he killed her during the course of a sexual encounter.
Levy was also charged with the murder of Sheryl Wilkins. Pic: Met Police
Levy was also accused of grievous bodily harm with intent, non-fatal strangulation and two counts of rape against a third woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, in Haringey, north London, on 21 January, police said.
The Met Police said on Monday that all three cases are now being treated as part of a single, joined investigation and a trial date has been set for June 2026 at the Old Bailey.
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Judge Mark Lucraft KC remanded him in custody to appear at the Old Bailey for a plea and case management hearing on 23 February.
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