07 May 2009 10:53
E.ON and EPSRC announce £6.9 million carbon capture research funding

E.ON and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council have today (Thursday) announced the award of £6.9 million of research funding to four university-led projects investigating carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies which could drastically cut CO₂ emissions from fossil-fuel power stations.

CCS is a process that allows carbon dioxide to be captured from power stations and then stored underground to prevent it from entering the Earth's atmosphere. It's a technology that is advancing all the time and could well make fossil-fuelled generation a true low-carbon source of energy.

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.

Announcing the funding, Dr Paul Golby, the Chief Executive of E.ON UK, said: "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.

"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.

"Collaborations such as this one with EPSRC are combining innovation and some of the best minds in our universities to deliver clean, sustainable energy systems for the future."

The UK is committed to reducing carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. In the short-term the Government advisory body, the Committee for Climate Change, has suggested an interim cut of at least 34 per cent by 2020.

David Delpy, EPSRC Chief Executive, said: "This illustrates the enormous benefit that can arise from strategic partnerships like the one we have with E.ON. 

"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. 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."

The three projects funded under the E.ON/EPSRC Partnership are:

• The University of Nottingham will lead a consortium of four universities looking at how the surfaces of materials can be chemically altered to enhance C02 absorption or ‘soak up' rates. This may be an alternative to chemical absorption using amines in post-combustion capture systems. The other participants are the University of Birmingham, the University of Liverpool and University College London.
  
• Newcastle University is leading a project to address some of the technical and material challenges of large-scale transportation of C02 through pipelines.  This will help the development of a storage pipeline network. The other members of the group 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 are working on the oxyfuel combustion process in which coal is burned in a mix of pure oxygen and power station flue gases, creating a stream of CO₂ that can be captured for storage.
  
• The EPSRC is funding a fourth consortium, led by the University of Edinburgh, on improving the economics of large-scale carbon capture and storage and how to separate C02 formed by emissions from fossil fuel power stations.

Ends

Notes to editors:

• E.ON is one of the UK's leading power and gas companies - generating and distributing electricity, and retailing power and gas - and is one part of the E.ON Group, one of the world's largest investor-owned power and gas companies. We employ around 17,000 people in the UK;
• We are investing up to £50 million in new technologies and approaches over 10 years, through the Energy Technologies Institute.
• This is the third phase of the partnership between E.ON and EPSRC. More than £6 million of research into low carbon and energy efficiency technologies is already taking place in other projects launched by the partnership during the last three years.
• This funding is part of Research Council's Energy Programme. EPSRC leads the programme on behalf of the Research Councils. The mission of the Energy Programme is to position the UK to meet its energy and environmental targets and policy goals through high quality research and postgraduate training.
  
• The EPSRC is the UK's main agency for funding research in engineering and the physical sciences.
• The EPSRC invests around £740 million a year in research and postgraduate training to help the nation handle the next generation of technological change.  The areas covered range from information technology to structural engineering, and mathematics to materials science. This research forms the basis for future economic development in the UK and improvements for everyone's health, lifestyle and culture.
• The EPSRC also actively promotes public awareness of science and engineering. EPSRC works alongside other Research Councils with responsibility for other areas of research. The Research Councils work collectively on issues of common concern via Research Councils UK.

For more information contact:

E.ON - Andrew Barrow 024 7618 3677
EPSRC - Jane Reck 01793 444312