 | ||
 | | |
 | ||
| | |
 | ||||||||||||||
|  |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | | |||
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
 | ||||||||
Dutch IGCC pioneers chalk up pain and gain Emergency response is behind schedule in the European public sector A new refining industry in Europe's Asian Corridor Commission proposes milestone energy proposal Replace fuel oil with distillate? Cancelled projects will sustain margins “Marine distillate not fuel oil from 2010” Branson's biofuels megastore You heard it here first: refinery CO2 storage a reality in Norway Buncefield 2: Investigation critical Where now for Swedish Class 1 diesel My slow awakening to climate change The luckiest motorist alive Safety row goes on over Europe's largest LNG terminal New WHO guidelines on city air quality put focus on diesel Would LNG really 'evaporate harmlessly' in an accident? Another lesson in the thermobaric bomb Spare a thought for the oil-rich But will the good times keep on rolling? Carbon storage and the zero emissions refinery Everything just changed E85 and high octane gasolines The problem of small-minded young engineers New Permit Regulations Biodiesel newbuilds and a new green superfuel Spilled wine and our split industry Drilling down into the prospects for IGCC The beginning of the start of the end of oil | Congress mulls problem of small-minded young engineers Europe’s largest meeting of chemical engineers will this month attempt to reconcile an increasing divergence between the nuts and bolts of practical engineering and the at times mystical science of tiny things. At stake is the traditional process industry’s share of each summer’s crop of bright young talent. And, in Europe at least, the possibility that a domestic focus on next generation technology will enable developing economies to assume the leading role in practical chemical engineering. For 150 years, process engineering has been the natural home of the chemical engineer. Now young people considering an engineering career often want to make molecules instead. Formulating products, not processing commodities, is exciting graduate candidates most. According to the organisers of the World Congress of Chemical Engineering, the meeting also has a few surprises in store for those who think that shifting atoms around is the preserve of the ivory towers of research. Things are changing in that inevitable and constant way they do. As usual, not being wrong-footed is a matter of keeping your eye on those changes and tipping the balance of threats and opportunities gently in your favour. That’s what the programme of the meeting, organised by the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE), aims to do for its attendees. It’s kicking off in Glasgow on the 10th to an audience which increasingly represents industry. Corporate delegates will account for 30-40% of attendees this year, compared with perhaps one for every six academics and researchers in previous years. “Chemical Engineering stands at an interesting and challenging position,” says IChemE’s Chief Executive, Dr Trevor Evans. “It was borne out of the needs and traditions of Texas and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, combined with our own western European approach, but nowadays the opportunities in the traditional industries have changed. Energy remains a strong recruiter here, but chemicals has been going offshore.” “At companies like Petronas and Sinopec the demand is for traditional Chemical Engineering skills,” says Dr Evans. “In Europe, there’s a move towards nano, bio, pharma and activities like that,” he says. “So there’s a tension and an opportunity for chemical engineering between the leading edge science dimension versus the engineering practice interests of others.” Professor Jonathan Seville, Head of Chemical Engineering at the University of Birmingham, confirms a shift towards product engineering. His department even debated changing its name to include the term formulation. “The money is in formulating products, not producing commodities,” he says, “but we’d nevertheless say you need the same skills for both fields.” “Even though products in petrochemicals are generally more simple than, say, in the world of fast-moving consumer products, molecular level technology will be making itself felt increasingly on the traditional industries,” he adds. “Molecular level understanding of catalysis, for example, is revolutionising the way people see the operation of catalysis.” His own department has been working on what he describes as positronic emission particle tracking, using techniques from medicine, and he says the implications for reaction instrumentation are very promising. Although all commercial catalyst developers would tell you their work is research-intensive and leading edge, Haldor Topsøe was being lauded by the North American Catalysis Society for its work at the atomic level as I wrote this. Henrik Topsøe, Haldor’s son and Manager of Strategic Research at the Danish company, is the recipient of the society’s 2005 Eugene J Houdry Award in Applied Catalysis, which recognises individual research efforts. “Henrik has led our more fundamental research and he’s provided the definitive evidence for the CoMoS description of the synergy between MoS2 structures and Co and Ni promoters,” says Barry Cooper, at Topsøe’s Lyngby office. “The photos he’s taken show individual atoms and the actual active sites on the hydrotreating catalyst. We don’t go in and change molecules at the atomic level, but we can compare the results of manufacturing processes and then make specific changes,” he says. Mr Cooper is sensitised to the issue of attracting good quality graduates. The company supports programmes at local colleges to inspire students in their late teens to take up chemical engineering. And, yes, he says, it does count to be seen as at the leading edge. “We now characterise our work as in the nanotechnology field,” he says. While Topsøe can meet its current recruitment requirements within Denmark, it hired from The Netherlands and Easter Europe to meet the booming demand as Ultra Low Sulphur Diesel was introduced. And fresh from a trip to Korea, Mr Cooper has no difficulty imagining how such countries will make gains from attracting the best talent. “My impression was that the refineries there were able to hire the best chemical engineers. It’s a status thing. Whereas here the biotech and nanotech industries are the status industries to go into.” • Professor Jonathan Seville of Birmingham University’s Centre for Formulation Engineering kindly provided a paper which compares and contrasts formulation and chemical engineering and which can be downloaded from the energy pages of timlloydwright.com [temporarily unavailable due to a hardware breakdown]. Details of IChemE’s event: www.chemengcongress2005.co.uk • Tim Lloyd Wright has edited refining publications, chaired international downstream meetings and reported for UK newspapers and BBC Radio. Tim runs a motivation and lifestyle business in Sweden which has developed The Downstream Health and Fitness Challenge for individuals and companies within the hydrocarbon processing industries (see www.DownstreamChallenge.com). | |||||||
Download Energy Industry Resumé with work samples Profile: Tim Lloyd Wright MA Here you'll find a brief profile of my work with international energy, transport and associated environmental issues. Energy trends articles You heard it here first: refinery CO2 storage a reality in Norway From the archive... Over-processed fuel leaves oil tankers adrift | ||||||||
| | | | | | | | |
