Small-scale predictions

The past few years have seen the prediction business go into overdrive. With millennial fever gripping everyone, all the experts were pressed for their views: where we will be in the year 2000? Well, we've been there for almost a year now, and the somewhat disappointing answer is: pretty much where we've always been. And just to prove it, no sooner have we entered the 21st century than the industrial soothsayers start looking in their crystal balls again.

Elliot Finer, director general of the Chemical Industries Association, is no exception to this, and he chose the occasion of the European Chemical Marketing and Strategy Association (ECMSA) conference in London as the stage for his prophesying. Where will we be by 2010, he asked?

Current developments are, of course, set to continue. The drive to abolish tariffs on chemicals trade should be complete by 2010, Finer said. 'We will probably see more non-tariff barriers as a result,' he commented, 'but there will be growing international pressure for their removal.'

The emphasis on linking trade with ethical and environmental issues is likely to increase, as will the importance of computing and telecommunications. Back in 1986, Finer pointed out, very few executives had computers on their desk at work, and a very good home computer had a memory of 256K. Now, it's all-pervading. Finer believes that the biggest contribution of IT in the coming years will be in communication and trading, spurring on the globalisation of trade and the dialogue between industry, its customers, the governments that regulate it and the many organisations and pressure groups that seek to influence it.

Technology is also set to transform the industry itself. In terms of R&D — the industry's lifeline and link to its future — computer modelling will drive both basic science and engineering research. Finer's in a position to know all about this — as a chemicals researcher in the mid-60s, he said, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy involved calculating spectra by punching cards by hand, then sending them off to Harwell to be processed in a computer which occupied two storeys of a building. Today, NMR's a job for undergraduates.

And in the next decade? 'Improved computer models of molecular behaviour, replacing some experimental work and allowing the invention of pharmaceuticals and catalysts before any test-tubes get dirtied.' Improved computer models of processes will also transform chemical engineering, making 'more efficient, safer, greener plant.'

The changes in engineering will be seen more at the smaller end of the engineering scale, Finer believes. The huge bulk petrochemical plants will be victims of their own success. 'The trend has been to ever-growing size and for much of the growth to be through debottlenecking rather than major additions,' he observed: an average ethylene plant in Europe is 350 000tpa, and in the US it's 510 000tpa. The latest world-scale plants now being built are approaching and even exceeding a million tonnes per year. 'We are unlikely to see many completely new petrochemical plants in Europe, because consolidation in the industry and the decline of state influence means that the days of over-investment are somewhat — though not totally — receding.'

Downscale a little and the picture is very different. Take batch plants. 'The fundamentals of the processes have not changed over the last decade or so — the reactor vessels and associated pipework look the same as they did then, and in many cases they are the same.' But over the next decade, the design philosophy of small-scale plants will change completely, with 'smaller, semi-continuous plants which are more versatile, more efficient and more process intensive.'

Other pressures will also be acting on design. 'Increased liberalisation of the energy markets and physical connection between the UK and the rest of Europe will bring UK and Continental prices more closely together and re-establish links between oil and gas prices,' Finer said. Meanwhile, there will be 'increasing synergy' between gas and electricity prices, and environmental and market pressures will push energy prices higher. Resource efficiency is set to be the driving factor in plant design, he said.

It's often said that the most important resource of the chemical industry is its staff. Their importance will continue in the next decade, but Finer expects their numbers to decrease. 'Productivity has risen by 5 per cent per year, and — sadly in human terms — we can expect continuing improvements in productivity to lead to future job losses.' Current staffing levels in the UK chemical industry stand at about 240 000. By 2010, Finer expects this to be down to 180 000.

In such circumstances, it's fitting that the younger members of the CIA should have their say on the sort of industry they want to work in. Finer has put this question to the nominees for the association's Young Person of the Year award. 'They felt that employers will have to put more effort into humanising the working environment,' he said. 'We should not let IT take control, we should ensure that people do not work in isolation. Generally, we should keep the personal touch.'