Synopsis
Industry is the second-largest source of CO2 emissions after the power sector. It accounted for nearly 28% of global CO2 emissions in 2014, increasing to 40% in 2017 – with the Energy Intensive Industries (EII) comprising chemicals, iron & steel, aluminium, glass, cement, pulp and paper, and refineries and petrochemicals contributing 33%. It is technically feasible for CO2 emissions from industry to drop by 20% today, 60% in 2040 and by 80 to 95% by 2050. Yet, adoption of technical solutions (TS) is zero because the huge capital and risk involved could undermine industrial competitiveness.
This talk will discuss industrial decarbonisation broadly and with specific focus on zero carbon low-to-very high temperature heat and electricity provision in the EII, its impact on the UK economy, and pathways to achieve market driven (natural) adoption and accelerated adoption of TS. Accelerated adoption can ensure increase in production costs from decarbonisation is not pass-through to customers nor shouldered by industry.
Bio
Dr Gbemi Oluleye research expertise is at the interface of engineering, policy and economics. She develops optimisation based frameworks to support decision making for technology assessment, integration and energy systems design in the domestic and industrial sector. These frameworks are used to analyse the impact of policy and business models in delivering a low to net zero carbon energy system.
She is currently an Imperial College Research Fellow (2019 Cohort) in the Centre for Environmental Policy. She received a BSc in Chemical Engineering from the Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria in 2008, completed an MSc in Advanced Chemical Process Design at the University of Manchester in 2010, worked as a research assistant on the ETI Macro Distributed Energy project in 2010, before beginning her PhD in 2012. She has worked as the lead researcher in a range of projects, covering fabric integrated thermal storage for low carbon dwellings, advanced waste heat recovery in the energy intensive industry, integration of renewable energy in small scale industry, efficient energy integrated solutions for manufacturing industries, commercialisation of biogas fuelled solid oxide fuel cells in Europe, emerging strategies for decarbonising energy intensive industries, and renewable gas production in Europe.