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The conference is the eighth in this series of biennial meetings, and it will be hosted this year by NTNU-SINTEF’s Gas Technology Centre.
“In its first few years, the conference gathered only a small community of scientists, but today it is attracting a quite different level of attention, since now practically no-one dares to claim that anthropogenic CO2 emissions could not pose a problem”, says SINTEF scientist Nils Røkke, who chairs the organising committee.
CO2 in the foreground
The first conferences in this series dealt with all the greenhouse gases. But because the world is focusing ever more sharply on CO2, the whole of this year’s conference is dedicated to the capture, transport and storage of CO2 from gas and coal-fired power stations and industrial processes.
This year’s conference, the 8th International Conference on Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies (GHGT-8), will be held on June 19 - 22. It is the first time that the IEA will be holding the conference in Norway.
“There is always a lot of competition to get this meeting. The fact that it is coming here this year is undoubtedly due to the leading position won by Norwegian industry and research in dealing with CO2”, says Nils Røkke.
Sleipner showed the way
Norwegian research and industrial groups were early in making a name for themselves with studies on the capture and storage of CO2 from electricity generation and industrial processes. The scope of Norway’s R & D efforts in this field is unique at international level.
Norway is absolutely the pioneering nation as far as underground storage of CO2 is concerned. We gained this position in the 90s, when Statoil decided to send CO2 from its Sleipner field in the North Sea back down again to be stored in geological layers beneath the continental shelf.
The organising committee expects that GHGT-8 will attract around 800 participants.
By Svein Tønseth
