UK Resilience System Working Group

Image: Fracking fight: In mid-August, the energy company Cuadrilla Resources suspended operations of this exploratory shale gas drilling site in southeast England after protests from residents and environmentalists.

technologyreview.com - September 10th, 2013 - Peter Fairley

Proposed U.K. government policies to encourage hydrofracking of natural gas ignited a firestorm of protest this summer, with critics complaining that they were not consulted and that rules will restrict local planners’ authority. But the country appears to have few other options. The United Kingdom is in an energy quagmire that is forcing it to turn to shale gas.

The country’s aggressive carbon emissions goals call for the U.K.’s power supply to be virtually carbon-free by 2030.

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This report, produced for policy makers and practitioners, gives the results of a two-year project funded by the EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council) and the ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) entitled ‘Game Theory and Adaptive Networks for Smart Evacuations’. The project brought together expertise from both the physical and social sciences to bring interdisciplinary work to bear on the issue of city evacuations in the 21st Century. In particular, issues of social media and mobile communications have revolutionised emergency management and evacuation policy and this was foremost in our minds when conducting the project.

City evacuations: preparedness, warning, action and recovery

Final report of the DFUSE project (41 page .PDF file)
(Game theory and adaptive networks for smart evacuations: EP/I005765/1)