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Chemicals

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24/1/2024 Feature / McKinsey’s Chemicals Practice

Finding the formula for chemical sector recarbonisation

Reducing emissions of greenhouse gases is essential for chemical companies to remain competitive. Investing in feedstock sources and conversion technologies can help close the gap to net zero. So writes a team* representing views from McKinsey’s Chemicals Practice.

Net zero / decarbonisation / energy transition

Close up of rectangular Teesside University’s Net Zero Industry Innovation Centre building with tall windows and supporting pillars

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28/2/2024 Feature / Dave Roberts

Helping deliver the Tees Valley’s net zero ambitions

The UK’s Tees Valley has long been home to major heavy industrial and petrochemicals manufacturing sites. But is now also home to the Teesside University’s Net Zero Industry Innovation Centre, which aims to help the emergence of several low and zero carbon initiatives including carbon capture, direct air capture and hydrogen. The University’s Dave Roberts writes.

Aviation fuel

Close up of lots of pipework at industrial facility

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21/2/2024 Feature / Lighthouse Green Fuels

Tees’ green kerosene

Dr Simon Owens, Technical and Engineering Director of Alfanar Energy, outlines the company’s plans to build in Teesside what it calls Europe’s largest advanced second-generation facility in the sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) supply chain, which takes material from bio-sourced feedstocks.

Skills, education and training

Four computer keyboards on long bench table set under two large monitors displaying flow chart graphics and data, mounted on clear wall showing pipework and industrial plant equipment behind

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30/4/2025 Feature / Will Dalrymple

On the front lines of the skills shortage

A four-storey carbon capture plant installed in a university building trains the next generation of engineers about measurement and process control, while the latest generation of instruments provides data aimed to ease their workloads. New Energy World Senior Editor Will Dalrymple goes back to college to learn more.

Biomass

Aerial overview looking straight down at canopy of green pine forest

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20/11/2024 Feature / Michelle Meineke

The ‘push-pull’ debate around using biomass

Is biomass an environmentally-friendly component of the energy transition amid net zero targets or adding to emissions? There’s no simple answer, explains sustainability consultant Michelle Meineke.

Energy from waste

Aerial view over waste-to-energy power station and incinerator and surrounding industrial estate

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16/10/2024 Feature / Janet Wood

Trading down: Is the UK’s energy-from-waste sector ready to trade carbon emissions?

What are the implications of including energy-from-waste plants in the UK Emissions Trading Scheme (UK ETS)? Energy journalist Janet Wood examines how the UK emissions reduction scheme compares to that of the European Union (EU ETS).

Greenhouse gases

Tables and maps showing modelling results for the land-use scenario providing biomass supply to BECCS projects

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9/4/2025 Feature / Lindsay-Marie Armstrong

Research update on... carbon dioxide removal technologies

Technologies such as bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), decarbonised steelmaking techniques and direct air capture (DAC) are investigated in this review article written by Lindsay-Marie Armstrong, Professor of Decarbonised Systems and Deputy Director of the Sustainability and Resilience Institute at the University of Southampton. Below is an edited and abridged synthesis of UK research on the topic commissioned by the UK Industrial Decarbonisation Research and Innovation Centre (IDRIC) over the last few years.

Petrochemicals

Aerial view over energy and chemical industrial facilities in Rotterdam

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27/7/2022 Feature / Brian Davis

Transition to a sustainable future

Petrochemicals is one of the largest and most greenhouse gas (GHG) intensive industry sectors, but it has ambitions to become climate neutral by 2050. Brian Davis reports on key European initiatives.

Carbon capture and storage

Graphic showing web of green lines representing biomass routes across land, and blue line across land and sea representing BECCS supply change storing CO2

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30/4/2025 Feature / Benjamin Sovacool

Research update on.... policy and governance

The energy transition is not only about technological innovation; the ways in which public policy incentivises and regulates decarbonisation initiatives bear greatly upon society, writes Benjamin Sovacool, Professor of Energy Policy, University of Sussex. Below is an edited and abridged synthesis of UK research on these topics commissioned by the UK Industrial Decarbonisation Research and Innovation Centre (IDRIC) over the last few years.

Carbon capture and storage

Computer simulation of blue hydrogen plant proposed for the East Coast CCS Cluster showing expanse of pipework, tanks and cylindrical towers

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7/5/2025 Feature / Brian Davis

What’s going on with CCUS and hydrogen plans in the UK?

The UK government has plans for ambitious carbon capture, use and storage (CCUS) projects alongside hydrogen developments, despite Parliamentary concerns about the high cost and challenges of relatively unproven technologies being used ‘at scale’. With the first tranche of projects underway, New Energy World Features Editor Brian Davis looks at the current state of play of the East Coast Cluster and the HyNet Cluster.

New Energy World™

Search results:

Finding the formula for chemical sector recarbonisation

Helping deliver the Tees Valley’s net zero ambitions

Tees’ green kerosene

On the front lines of the skills shortage

The ‘push-pull’ debate around using biomass

Trading down: Is the UK’s energy-from-waste sector ready to trade carbon emissions?

Research update on... carbon dioxide removal technologies

Transition to a sustainable future

Research update on.... policy and governance

What’s going on with CCUS and hydrogen plans in the UK?