UKCCSRC - Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS) Management Archives

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John is a senior geologist within the CO₂ storage research team at the British Geological Survey. His expertise includes storage site characterisation and estimation of storage capacity. He has published on a range of topics relevant to CO₂ storage on the UKCS, including pressure-limitations to CO₂ storage capacity, the nature of the contemporary in situ stress state, and fault reactivation potential. He is currently engaged in research into the subsurface structure, properties and geomechanical constraints to the storage capacity of the Bunter Sandstone saline aquifer formation of the Southern North Sea.

UKCCSRC Core Research Projects – Storage

Colin Snape FRSE has been involved in fuel science and technology for over 40 years and has 370 peer reviewed publications and has successfully supervised over 60 PhDs. He has led many UK Research Council, UK Government and Research Fund for Coal & Steel and Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and currently directs the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in CCS and Cleaner Fossil Energy. As well as adsorbents for CO₂ capture, his current research encompasses shale gas resource estimation, biochar and hydrothermal carbonisation for bio-waste utilisation. Honours include winning the Henry H. Storch Award in 2006 from the American Chemical Society and being an Honorary Chair Professor, Shandong University.UKCCSRC Research Project

David Reiner is Deputy Director for Systems and Policy of the UKCCSRC. David is University Senior Lecturer in Technology Policy at Judge Business School, University of Cambridge and Assistant Director of the Energy Policy Research Group (EPRG) at Cambridge. He is one of two academic members of the CCUS Council, which is chaired by the UK Energy Minister and co-chair of the BEIS Oversight Panel on Public Perceptions of CCUS. He is also on the Advisory Boards of the £180m Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF) on Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge, the International Energy Agency Greenhouse Gas Programme’s Social Research Network and the UK-China Guangdong CCUS Centre.

UKCCSRC Core Research Project – Systems & Policy: CAB1 – Cross-cutting Value of CCS

Professor Stuart Haszeldine is the UKCCSRC Deputy Director for Storage. He is a geologist and environmental scientist at the University of Edinburgh, with 45 years’ experience working with subsurface information from hydrocarbon extraction to waste disposal. From 2005 he has created the UK’s largest University group examining CO₂ storage geology, with a particular focus on natural analogues, containment processes and subsurface pressures. His research focuses on energy and environment, linking between academia, business, government, and public engagement. He served as advisor to the 2005-6 UK Parliament Science and Technology Committee on CO₂ capture and storage, and was the only academic on the seminal Oxburgh Report to BEIS of 2016. He currently serves as one of two academics on the CCUS Council, advising Secretary of State and Energy Ministers. His current work is developing the Carbon Take Back Obligation and carbon offsets, to align carbon storage tonnage with climate requirements, and also developing multi-seasonal hydrogen storage onshore and offshore UK. Stuart was awarded the Scottish Science Prize in 1999, elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2003, appointed OBE for services to climate change technologies in 2012, and in 2021 he was appointed Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.

Jon Gibbins is the Director of the UKCCSRC. He has worked on energy engineering, fuel conversion and CCS for 45 years, initially in industry and then as a university academic, latterly leading national academic research initiatives. With over 80 papers and more than 100 articles and reports on CCS and related topics, he is a Chartered Engineer, a Member of the IMechE, a Fellow of the Institute of Energy and Professor of CCS at the University of Sheffield. Since 2005 Jon has played a leading role in UK CCS academic capacity building, growing the UK CCS Research Centre as an inclusive and open virtual national hub and helping to start now-mainstream UK initiatives on industrial decarbonisation (2012) and CCS clusters (2016). His research activities centre around engagement with industry and policymakers on practical aspects of CCS deployment, with an emphasis on policy and economic requirements plus detailed practical analysis of matching capture plant designs to market conditions.

Paul Fennell (Deputy Director for Capture), CEng CSci FIChemE, is a deputy director of the UKCCSRC with more than 100 papers on energy and industry related subjects. He works with many industrial partners within EPSRC and EU projects, as well as regular consultancy. He has advised BEIS and the EA and was cited in the most recent IPCC Assessment Report. He chaired the IChemE Clean Energy Special Interest Group and was a member of the road-mapping team for the Iron and Steel sector. He was PI on 2 EPSRC grants, including the £1.3M “Opening New Fuels” project, 3 non-EPSRC grants and Co-I on 8 EPSRC grants. He has appeared on BBC radio and News 24 and regularly contributes on public engagement, winning the 2015 IChemE ambassador prize.

UKCCSRC Core Research Project – Capture: A1, Materials Development

Carys Blunt is the Finance and Centre Manager, and has been with the Centre since 2016. Her role encompasses financial management of the Centre, reporting to the UKCCSRC Board, along with the day to day running of Centre activities. She works closely with the Centre Director and the UKCCSRC Board to ensure the delivery of the Centre’s strategy and operationally works closely with the Finance Manager, Melissa Ayres. Carys has been employed at the University of Sheffield since 2013 working in a variety of roles, more latterly concentrating on research finance in the Engineering Faculty.

Melissa joined the centre in November 2015 as Finance Manager. She is based in the Centre’s Sheffield Office and is responsible for overall financial management to ensure satisfactory delivery of the UKCCRSC grant and sub projects funded from it.Melissa trained as a chartered accountant at KPMG, moving into a Financial Controller role in industry, subsequently working as a Finance Director; responsible for Finance, Procurement, IT and Human Resources of the UK subsidiary of a European Manufacturing Group.Melissa has worked in University Finance for the last ten years within a commercially focussed capital finance role. Responsibilities included Executive Board reporting, presentations to senior management of investment business cases for multi million pound projects. University commercial activities included setting up a subsidiary, financial due diligence, winding up a company, creation of legal agreements and contracts.

Mohamed Pourkashanian is the Head of the Energy Institute at the University of Sheffield, the Managing Director of the Translational Energy Research Centre (TERC), Sustainable Aviation Fuels Innovation Centre (SAF-IC) and the General Secretary of International Flame Research Foundation (IFRF). As a Professor of Energy Engineering, he has completed numerous major research projects on clean energy technology and has received substantial grants from partners such as BEIS, EU, NATO, industrial partners and UKRI-EPSRC. He is a member of several international and national scientific bodies e.g., member of the ISCF-Industrial Decarbonisation Advisory Group, and Chair of the International Test Centre Network (ITCN). He led the establishment of the PACT and TERC national facilities in 2012 and 2019. He has published more than 491 refereed research papers and co-authored four books.At the Translational Energy Research Centre – where we also fund ECR TERC training – Professor Pourkashanian provides expert academic, strategic and operational leadership to the project and its team members, directly contributing to all ongoing activity.See Mohamed’s related research project pages:

UKCCSRC Core Research Projects –
- Combined systems & capture: AC1, BECCS and
- Combined systems & capture: AC2, Advanced high-efficient cycles using gas turbines with S-CO₂ or direct oxy-fired CCGT-CCS

The UK Carbon Capture and Storage Research Community (UKCCSRC) is supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) as part of the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Energy Programme.

Mr John Williams