Universities get £6.9 million to study carbon capture, storage

E.ON and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council have awarded £6.9 million in research funding to four university-led projects investigating carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies to cut carbon dioxide emissions from fossil-fuel power stations.

Project teams led by the universities of Nottingham, Newcastle, Edinburgh and Leeds will investigate combustion and CO2 capture and transport technologies that could help make a crucial step towards meeting UK and global emission reduction targets.

“CCS is the most important technology we have in the fight against climate change — if we can get it right then we can look forward to a secure, low-carbon energy future for the UK,” said Paul Golby, CEO of E.ON UK. “Alongside new nuclear and renewable sources, coal is a vital part of our energy mix. These latest research projects are vital in identifying solutions that will enable fossil-fuel generation to be a key part of maintaining secure, affordable and low carbon energy.”

The UK has committed to reducing carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050, with a suggested interim cut of at least 34 per cent by 2020.

“Carbon capture and storage is already a research priority for UK researchers and through previous Research Council funding we have built up a significant expertise within the academic sector,” said David Delpy, CEO of EPSRC. “The research programmes we’re announcing today mean that we can rapidly build on this expertise and speed up the introduction of these vital greener energy technologies.”

Universities receiving E.ON/EPSRC funding are:

• The University of Nottingham, which will lead a consortium of four universities studying how material surfaces can be chemically altered to enhance C02 absorption or “soak up” rates. The other participants are the University of Birmingham, the University of Liverpool and University College London;
• Newcastle University, which is leading a project to address some of the technical and material challenges of large-scale transportation of carbon dioxide through pipelines.  Other schools participating in the project are University College London, the University of Nottingham, Cranfield University, and Imperial College London, as well as range of industry partners;
• Leeds University, Imperial College London, Cranfield University, the University of Kent, the University of Nottingham and the University of Cambridge, which are all studying the oxyfuel combustion process in which coal is burned in a mix of pure oxygen and power station flue gases, creating a stream of carbon dioxide that can be captured for storage; and
• The University of Ediburgh, which will lead a fourth consortium focused on improving the economics of large-scale carbon capture and storage and separating carbon dioxide formed by emissions from fossil fuel power stations.