Alstom, a global developer of CO2 capture and storage technologies, is supporting the Federal Government in the launch of its Australia’s Global Carbon Capture & Storage Institute, launched today.
The Institute is an initiative of the Australian government and the Prime Minister, and is currently headed by Alstom’s director of technology and external affairs, Nick Otter as interim CEO.
The Institute aims to seek ways of working in a cooperative fashion to help reduce the amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere. Its key focus is on the commercialisation and financing of carbon capture technologies.
“As a global leader in the world of power generation technologies, Alstom’s commitment to providing a total range of solutions to meet the climate change challenge is a long standing one. Our development of a range of CCS technologies continues across the R&D, pilot and demonstration phases throughout the world, working closely with our partners toward full scale commercialisation,” said Alston Power Technologies senior vice president, power and environmental policies, Joan Macnaughton CB.
“Strong leadership in the areas of regulation and commercial support are essential to ensure continued focus and timely commercialisation of these technologies,” she added. “We congratulate the Australian government for their leadership role in this field and we look forward to working closely with the Global Carbon Capture and Storage institute.”
Alstom claims to be at the forefront of carbon capture technology development. In 2007 and 2008, as part of its multi-product strategy, Alstom announced agreements with AEP, Statoil, Vattenfall, E.ON and PGE Elektrownia to test CO2 capture technologies in the U.S. and Europe.
Today, Alstom has started operation at three CO2 capture pilot projects, with EPRI and We Energies in Wisconsin, USA, E.ON in Sweden and Vattenfall in Germany. This year, Alstom plans to recruit between 60 and 100 staff to work on the CCS demonstration projects in which it will be involved.