The UK’s efforts to move towards clean energy can be seen around the UK, whether it’s the wind turbines across the hills of the countryside or solar panels on the roofs of city skyscrapers. There is, however, a technology that most people will never see, and it is set to be one of the biggest breakthroughs in a low-carbon economy yet.

Deep in the North Sea are miles of offshore pipelines, once used to transport natural gas to the UK. The pipelines all lead to a hub called the St Fergus Gas Terminal – a gas sweetening plant used by industry – that sits on the coast of north-east Scotland.

 

St Fergus Gas Terminal in North-East Scotland. 

This network has now been reimagined as a low-cost, full-chain carbon capture, transport and offshore storage that will provide the UK will a viable solution to permanent carbon capture and storage (CCS) called the Acorn project.

CCS is a process that takes waste CO2 produced by large-scale, usually industrial, processes and transports it to a storage facility. The site, likely to be underground, stops the waste CO2 from being released into the atmosphere, storing it for later use for another purpose, such as the production of chemicals for coatings, adhesives or jet fuel.

Carbon Capture Explained | How It Happens. Video: The New York Times  

High levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have been linked to global warming and the damaging effects of climate change, and CCS is one of the only proven solutions to decarbonisation that industry can currently access.

Taking advantage of existing infrastructure means that the Acorn project is running at a much lower cost and risk to comparable projects and is expected to be up and running by 2023. It is hoped the project will bring competitiveness and job retention and creation across the UK, particularly in the industrial centres of Scotland.  

In 1942 the Leverhulme Trust endowed a lecture in memory of the first Viscount Leverhulme, founder of the Lever Brothers 

The Lecture is given every three years before the Liverpool and North West Regional Group to promote chemical or technological research or education.

Prof Maitland is the 20th recipient of this prestigious award and gave his lecture on ‘Avoiding catastrophic climate change; Paris 2015 set the targets, can the UK deliver?’.

Read our full write-up on the lecture here.    

 

Geoffrey Maitland (second left) receives his award from Alan Bayliss, Chair of the Board of Trustees, with Trevor Rhodes (left), Chair of SCI’s Liverpool and North West Group, and Sharon Todd, SCI’s Executive Director. Image: Mike Halliday

 

Reace Edwards, from Chester University, collects her award from Prof Maitland. She is the top scoring second year student on the BEng/MEng Chemical Engineering degree course. Image: Mike Halliday

 

Oliver Stanfield won his award for highest-achieving third year student on the BSc Chemistry with Industrial Experience course at the University of Bangor. Image: Mike Halliday

 

Aaisha Patel, from Liverpool John Moores University, is the best second year student on the BSc (Hons) Chemical and Pharmaceutical Science programme. Image: Mike Halliday