A bigger brain

Princeton University and the CMI

BP-supported work at CMI spans technologies such as CCS in geological formations and advanced battery technology, as well as developing more accurate measurements of methane emissions.  

Princeton’s CMI has also published more than 600 peer-reviewed papers on climate science, modelling and other related areas on its website. Some of these studies have been particularly influential, helping to sharpen the focus on finding solutions to climate change.

One example is the ‘Stabilization Wedges’ paper, co-authored by Princeton professors and CMI co-directors Pacala and Robert Socolow. The concept was featured in Al Gore’s seminal 2006 climate change film An Inconvenient Truth. It has also been turned into a game that teachers can use to explain the efforts needed to address climate change.  

The Wedges paper provides a framework to assess the varying contributions needed from wind, solar and nuclear energies, and technology like CCS, to achieve the Paris Agreement goals. 

First published in 2004, the paper has been updated every few years to incorporate advances in technologies, as well as increases in emissions and changes in countries’ commitments. 

Another influential paper from Princeton’s CMI found that a disproportionate amount of the world’s emissions comes from its wealthiest citizens, regardless of nationality. The study proposed a more equitable way of allocating carbon caps that exempts the poorest one-third of the world’s population from emissions reductions until their standard of living improves.

From 2001 to 2016, in a bid to protect the planet’s future, the CMI stepped back into the distant past to examine trapped carbon dioxide  and methane frozen in the world’s oldest ice samples from Antarctica.

From the samples, the scientists were able to go back a million years in time to log changes in the Antarctic climate and the amounts of GHGs in the atmosphere.

More recently, in a US National Science Foundation-supported effort building on the CMI work, Princeton scientists and their collaborators extended this record of carbon dioxide and Antarctic climate back to 2 million years. 

Data on the carbon dioxide concentrations and climates of the distant past are critical to test the predictive power of climate models, and thus to improve confidence in their ability to determine efforts needed to reduce emissions. 

And, CMI’s work around monitoring and measuring methane emissions is particularly important for the energy industry’s efforts to tackle the issue, which previously relied on calculations that were based on estimates. The Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI) has identified methane and CCS as the two most important issues for the energy transition.

The BPI at the University of Cambridge

In 2000, BP helped to establish the BP Institute for Multiphase Flow (BPI) at the University of Cambridge. Over the years, the BPI’s research has helped to enhance recovery from challenging and mature hydrocarbon reservoirs. Improving the efficiency at oil and gas fields reduces the number of new wells that need to be drilled, helping to improve safety and reduce environmental impact, as well as lowering the carbon intensity of producing the energy.

Now, the BPI is stepping up its testing of carbon sequestration technologies, where carbon dioxide is stored in soil or deep saline aquifers, or locked in cement, says Professor Andy Woods, who heads up the institute.

This work is essential to proving the capacity and viability of a particular type of carbon dioxide storage technology to regulators. As well as making the results public and transparent, it will be important in helping CCS gain public acceptance, which is key if the technology is to be scaled up, he says.

“There is still only a small number of CCS projects operational at scale globally, but there is huge potential and active planning going on. What we’re doing is helping to build up the scientific knowledge base, which complements the work that BP is doing to highlight the role of sequestration in accelerating to carbon neutral energy provision,” Woods says.

CCS is a big lever to reduce emissions from the power sector and other industries, such as cement and chemicals processing. The BPI offers a multi-disciplinary approach to research and BP has encouraged research collaborations with other industries and sectors. For example, insights into the physics of heat transfer and natural ventilation helps architects and designers to make buildings more energy efficient. 

Reducing emissions in the building sector is an important factor in reaching climate targets and research at the BPI has contributed to the design of low-energy heating systems for large buildings, including the one in use at BP’s North Sea headquarters in Aberdeen. 

In 2006, the technology was spun out of Cambridge University with support from BP to form Breathing Buildings, a natural ventilation company whose technology has been deployed in more than 100 schools.

The BPI is now applying these scientific insights of ventilation to make transport tunnels safer and help to reduce hospital infections by preventing the transmission of infectious microbes in buildings’ ventilation systems.

Tsinghua University and the CEC

China’s Clean Energy Research Center (CEC) was established in 2003 with an initial five-year grant from BP. Its research includes energy systems and strategy, energy savings, natural gas development, improving the efficiency at coal plants, low power generation and transport modelling. 

So far, the CEC’s efficiency work has been applied at more than 10 coal power plants and made a substantial contribution to energy savings and reducing emissions.

 
BP has also supported some of the CEC’s work on roadmaps for deploying hydrogen, renewables, biofuels and CCS in China, as well as developing a strategy for alternative energy in China.

The CEC is also looking to the CMI and BP for support in its study of ways to reduce methane emissions from China’s natural gas production and its coal mining sector.

“This is very important work,” says Professor Li Zheng, director of the Tsinghua-BP CEC. “Collaborating with BP has helped to inform and strengthen our work towards China’s energy transition.” 

With the need for sustainable solutions to tackling climate change an ever-growing concern, investing in these long-term relationships with leading universities is vitally important to BP. “It’s like making a rope – the threads come together and they’re stronger than the sum of their parts,” says Greenaway. “BP was at the forefront of the word’s energy transitions in the last century and we are committed to advancing the transition to low energy, working in partnership with the best minds from all around the world.”