Purer power: energy group BP is a major player in China’s industrial expansion, shown by this purified terephthalic acid plant at Zhuhai. BP is one of the largest foreign investors in China where it is now taking a leading role to develop clean-coal conversion technologies.

　　A MAJOR oil and energy group has joined forces with the Chinese Academy of Sciences to set up a new centre to accelerate the development of clean-coal conversion technologies - key to the future use of coal as a feedstock for fuel production, chemicals manufacturing and power generation.

　　The Clean Energy Commercialisation Centre (CECC) is an initiative being created jointly by the United Kingdom’s BP group and the Chinese Academy of Sciences and will be dedicated to promoting and commercialising clean-coal technology in China. The country is the world’s second largest energy consumer and coal accounts for more than 70 per cent of this consumption.

　　A BP spokesman said: “The CECC will strive to become a profitable and world-class platform to identify, evaluate, select, develop and commercialise strategic clean-coal conversion technologies. It will also integrate and consolidate individual technologies from both within and outside the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) into commercially viable technological systems and solutions in order to contribute to China’s clean energy development and energy security.”

　　Many countries are engaged in research and development (R&D) work to turn coal into a clean fuel and some of the top companies and academic centres are engaged in the search for a clean energy technology that will allow the world to exploit the gigantic reserves of coal while reducing air pollution.

　　China, now in the middle of an industrial revolution, is the world’s largest and fastest growing coal-consuming nation with an annual consumption of more than two billion tonnes. After the United States and Russia, it has the third largest coal reserves in the world.

　　To many people, clean coal is regarded as a contradiction in terms and the technical limits of conventional pulverised coal power-generation technology have earned coal a reputation of being a very dirty energy source by modern standards.

　　As a result, many industrialised countries have moved away from coal as a power source and switched to oil, gas and/or nuclear. The technical challenge now is to establish how to de-couple coal and pollution.

　　Research has produced many potential ways of cleaning coal, including:

　　* coal gasification to produce coal-derived synthesis gas - syngas;

　　* a process to convert syngas into fuels;

　　* shaftless underground coal gasification (UCG) that produces clean fuels from underground coal deposits;

　　* direct conversion of methane to hydrogen and aromatics;

　　* coal liquefaction, during which a tonne of coal can be converted to produce 84 gallons (about 380 litres) of gasoline and diesel.

　　Although China has eight coal liquefaction plants in various stages of development - and the China University of Mining & Technology recently field-tested improved methodology demonstrating that UCG could be economic - there is an urgent need to take an overall look at the many forms of experimental clean coal technology, evaluate their potential and to commercialise the best technologies.

　　BP and the CAS believe this can best be done by the creation of the Clean Energy Commercialisation Centre. CAS vice-president Professor Jiang Mianheng said: “Cleaner use of energy resources, coal in particular, is critical for the sustainable development of the Chinese economy.

　　He continued: “Building upon CAS’s expertise and advantaged resources in natural science research, and BP’s experience and its international best practices in technology commercialisation and project management, this new partnership will bring breakthroughs in the development of conversion and commercialisation which will generate materially significant clean energy investment opportunities, contributing to the development of China’s energy industry, its economic growth and environment.”

　　BP managing director and chief executive Iain Conn added: “Given the increasingly important role [that] China plays in the global economy, China’s choice and efforts in promoting new and cleaner energy applications will have a profound impact on both the future of the Chinese economy and the global energy market.

　　“I believe the establishment of CECC will play a significant role in facilitating indigenous Chinese innovation capability to meet the environmental and energy challenges faced today by China and the world.”

　　The creation of the clean energy centre will bring together a powerful force of expertise in this field. London-based BP is one of the world’s largest oil, gas and petrochemical companies with operations in more than 100 countries and a workforce of some 100,000. It is actively involved in the technologies needed to handle all forms of fossil fuel and renewable energy.

　　BP has been operating in China since the early 1970s and has invested more than 4.2 billion US dollars in commercial projects there. As one of China’s largest foreign investors, it now has more than 30 joint ventures and wholly owned companies there together with more than 3,000 staff. Its long-term partnership programmes are not only with the CAS but also Tsinghua University, both links being dedicated to understanding and developing clean energy technologies.

　　The Chinese Academy of Sciences - China’s highest academic institution and national comprehensive R&D centre in natural sciences and high-tech innovation - has always attached great importance to the academic exchange and cooperation with international science and technology communities. The CAS has established formal contacts with major research and academic organisations in more than 60 countries.

　　In addition to various kinds of cooperative activities on mutually interested issues, the CAS has signed more than 70 cooperative agreements at academy level and more than 700 agreements at institute level with their partners spread across about 40 countries and regions of the world.

　　By 2010, the CAS will have about 80 national institutes noted for their science and technology innovation, and 30 of them will become internationally acknowledged high-level research institutions, plus three to five that will be world class.

　　The partnership between BP, the CAS and Tsinghua University dates from 2001 when they launched a joint 10-year, 10 million US dollars R&D programme under the title of Clean Energy, Facing The Future.

　　The initiative, which is funded by BP and managed by the CAS, includes several projects at the CAS’s Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics and the Shenyang Institute of Metals Research, both located in north-east China.

　　Tsinghua University in Beijing has created a model of China’s energy economy that can provide scenarios of energy development over the next 50 years, and this will be developed to create better understanding of the implications and opportunities of various energy policy choices.

　　There are also plans to model the implications of large-scale use of polygeneration, based on converting coal to synthesis gas, to satisfy the entire energy needs of a city with reduced environmental impact.

　　Laboratory and pilot technology work is also being carried out at the Dalian Institute, and the Shenyang Institute is conducting experiments into new methods for hydrogen storage.

　　The link-up also brought the launch in 2003 of the Tsinghua-BP Clean Energy Research & Education Centre. The centre aims to combine the strengths of the partners to create a world-leading institute for energy strategy study for China and has attracted a broad range of important players in various aspects of energy, industry and environment to serve on its advisory board.

　　(Source: British Consulate-General in Chongqing)