The materials that make an energy company: BP chief scientist Ellen Williams discusses sustainable energy
- PDF / 285,928 Bytes
- 2 Pages / 585 x 783 pts Page_size
- 78 Downloads / 170 Views
•
The materials that make an energy company: BP chief scientist Ellen Williams discusses sustainable energy Interviewed by Martin Green and Prachi Patel
After over three decades in academia, Ellen Williams left her position as a Distinguished University Professor of physics at the University of Maryland to take on the role of Chief Scientist at BP in January 2010. Williams is responsible for keeping a pulse on science and technology developments that could advance BP’s energy portfolio and serves as a liaison to the company’s university partners. She provides assurance for research and development spending and strategic scientific advice to BP senior executives. She has been instrumental in developing the BP International Center for Advanced Materials (ICAM) that will initially fund research at three UK-based universities and one US university. The center’s research foci encompass materials integrity to advance corrosion protection during operations as well as the development of stronger, lighter materials for use in the challenging environments of hydrocarbon production and processing.
MRS BULLETIN: How does BP define sustainability? ELLEN WILLIAMS: We think about it in terms of a balance of meeting the world’s energy needs, which are immutably growing, while reducing energy risks including climate change. For example, we are looking at cleaner, more efficient ways for extracting hydrocarbons and processing them. Let’s touch on the ramifications of sustainable development. Water is a good example. BP produces lots of wastewater. What do you do with this water? The big issue is being able to clean up the water to the point where it’s possible to release it into the environment, and then to figure out what to do with the concentrated contaminants that remain: heavy metals for example. Dealing with wastewater is the biggest part of our
water cost, larger than the cost of getting water to use in our operations. A major aspect of what we do in terms of water sustainability is figuring out ways to minimize our overall water use. Right now, of all the freshwater used in the world, about 2% is used to extract fossil fuels. One approach BP has used in water-stressed areas is developing ways to run our operations with the maximum amount of water recycling. How do you view photovoltaics and why did you get out of it? Do you think there are still some meaningful research challenges in photovoltaics? When you look at photovoltaics or any other power generation, you have to look at availability and the cost to the consumer. Hydropower is low-cost, but not available everywhere. Coal and natural gas are more generally avail-
Martin Green, National Institute of Standards and Technology Prachi Patel, [email protected]
1002
MRS BULLETIN
•
VOLUME 37 • NOVEMBER 2012
•
www.mrs.org/bulletin • Energy Quarterly
able and are neck and neck in price in terms of use for power generation. Of course gas is in many ways a cleaner power generation source than coal. Wind price is coming down so it’s getting very close to coal and gas, but
Data Loading...
