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Prof Geoff Maitland (Immediate Past-President of IChemE) Visits School of Engineering & Pitches for Cleaner Fossil Fuels at the Inaugural Chemical Engineering Diamond Jubilee Keynote Seminar
Professor Geoff Maitland (Immediate past-president of IChemE and Chair of Energy Engineering at Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London) visited the School on 14-16 October 2015. On the occasion of the 60th year of Chemical Engineering Discipline at Edinburgh, he was invited to give the Inaugural Chemical Engineering Diamond Jubilee Keynote Seminar.
Prof Maitland in his talk emphasised that fossil fuels are here to stay as we will continue to rely on them even during second half of the century. He forecasted how the energy landscape might evolve over the coming decades and highlighted the difficult but crucial challenges we face in order to continue using fossil fuels. He also expressed his personal view on what needs to be done to meet challenging carbon mitigation targets to avoid the consequences of catastrophic climate change, whilst continuing to use fossil fuels. He stressed technological and scientific innovation but most importantly political courage as key drivers to help achieve a low-carbon fossil fuel future. Prof Maitland paid rich tributes to Prof Kenneth Denbigh, who founded Chemical Engineering as a discipline at the University of Edinburgh and was the first Profssor of Chemical Technology (as it was called then) jointly at the Universities of Edinburgh and the then Heriot-Watt College.
Prof Maitland also had discussions with the Chemical Engineering academic staff and a number of undergraduate and postgraduate (PhD) students. He was also shown several research facilities in Engineering such as the Multiscale & Multiphase Simulation Group, Multiphase Flow and Heat Transfer Lab, Adsorption Research Industrial Consortium Lab, Process Engineering Lab, Carbon Capture Group and the Scottish Microelectronics Centre. He also made a short visit to the School of Chemistry.
Representative Lecture Video
This Pint of Science video is of a similar talk given earlier this year.
Further Information
- Chemical Engineering Diamond Jubilee Keynote Lecture: Professor Geoff Maitland
- Keynote Lecture Slides [PDF]
- Chemical Engineering
- Institute for Materials and Processes (IMP)
- Professor G Maitland, Imperial College London
- Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London
- IChemE website
- Our Energy Future: Professor Geoff Maitland
- Prof Maitland Public Lecture, SCI where science meets business
- Chemical Engineering Diamond Jubilee website