DOHA: A part of a long- term research and development (R&D) project on carbon capture and storage held in London to reduce CO2 emissions is set to be brought to Qatar soon.
The 10-year, $70m research project will explore effects of long-term carbon capture and storage and find new technologies by a joint programme between Qatar Shell, Qatar Petroleum and Imperial College of London.
Certain elements of the research being held at the Imperial College, London, will be moved to Qatar Shell’s research centre at Qatar Science and Technology Park, said an official.
“It’s a multi-year significant partnership worth $70m and already there are a number of Qatari PhD students working as researchers with the project,” Rob Sherwin, General Manager, Corporate Affairs and Deputy Country Chairman at Qatar Shell, told The Peninsula.
“Some elements of the project will be moved to Qatar before the end of the year,” he added.
Carbon capture and storage is the process of capturing waste carbon dioxide (CO2) from large point sources, such as fossil fuel power plants, transporting it to a storage site, and depositing it where it will not enter the atmosphere, normally an underground geological formation.
The research will look at carbon reservoirs in the Middle East and how they behave in the long term. “The principle of carbon storage is to inject it into the ground,” said Sherwin.
“The research will look at how it would react in the long term. That’s one of the main focuses. But more broadly it will learn about how the carbon capture and storage affects sub-surfaces in the geology of Qatar,” he added.
The per capita carbon emission in Qatar, the world’s largest producer of liquefied natural gas (LNG), is 16.73 tonnes per year whereas the total emission is estimated at 13,596 tonnes per year, according to reports.
The Peninsula
