Energy

Energy Key Points:

• “From a technical point of view, and the transition of refineries to a more sustainable and circular operating model will be an important challenge for metals and minerals such as lithium cobalt. 

• Production of carbon neutral fuels is a mammoth task, with many countries pledging to achieve net zero by 2050. We fear that countries have pledged to achieve net zero by 2050 but do their leaders don't know how much is involved to achieve this goal? 
• Consider energy poverty as well as climate change, a challenge to decrease energy poverty.  Both energy consumption and economic development have been closely linked and as a country develops, currently there's quite a disparity. 
• When we see the details laid out in front of us like that, we can practically feel every government representative sweating in their seat finding out what it really means to achieve the pledge to go net zero by 2050. 
• How do developed countries turn around, after developing and having a much higher quality of life using high-carbon energy, and say to the developing countries no, you can't do that because that because it would mean CO2 emissions and you have to stop these emissions. So, unless developing countries receive enormous assistance from developed countries at the same time as we're trying to limit our missions it is going to end-up badly for the Planet as a whole. I believe we have a duty to the world and ourselves to provide this assistance. 
• For our own collective survival and this is something we are very passionate about, is supporting the decarbonization of developing countries with for instance hydrogen exports. This is something that chemical engineers can lead the way for developing countries, we do need to be a bit more benevolent. 
• Hydrogen is a secondary energy source but an excellent fuel and transport medium so this will be important to the Chemical Engineer of the future, as we start to design processes using hydrogen and other combinations of carbon neutral feedstocks.”