Working together to advance global CCS

In January 2018, I delivered a week long workshop in Mexico alongside my UKCCSRC colleagues Prof Jon Gibbins, Director of the UKCCSRC, Dr Bruce Adderley, UKCCSRC Executive Manager, Dr Maria Elena Diego De Paz, University of Sheffield and Bill Elliot, Betchel.

The purpose of the workshop was to share knowledge about CCS between the UK and Mexico. The Mexican Government are in the process of developing plans for a pilot plant at a natural gas combined cycle power station in Poza Rica. Therefore, much of the workshop was spent looking the UK Peterhead and White Rose Projects and how the learnings from these projects can be fed into planning for the Poza Rica plant.

Over the course of the week I gave three presentations; Post-combustion Carbon Capture with solid and liquid solvents, Carbon Capture in Natural Gas Cycle Plants and Carbon Capture: the Implementation. However, in addition to this very technical information, many of the delegates were new to CCS so it was also important to convey the “big picture” message of CCS and its critical role in mitigating climate change.

We received good feedback from the event with the majority of delegates reporting that they felt their understanding of CCS was either good or excellent by the close of the workshop.

Knowledge exchange events such as this are vital to meet global CO₂ reduction targets. I hope that the UK and Mexico continue to work collaboratively whilst they seek to establish a national CCS research centre, and that learning from the Poza Rica project is shared to help the worldwide advancement towards affordable CCS.