APPENDIX 39
Supplementary evidence from Alstom Power,
submitted by Mr Nick Otter, Director, Technology and External
Affairs
1. ALSTOM POWER
R&D
Typically the Company spends about 180 million
euro per year on R&D&Technology and this is distributed
worldwide. It represents a ratio of about 1.5% with turnover in
the power side of the business. The UK activity is mostly performed
through and involving the Technology Centre at Whetstone, Leicester
where the annual turnover for the ALSTOM funded work in 2004/05
was ~35 million euro. Activities undertaken are all on advanced
power generation technologies, mostly associated with fossil and
associated fuels where combustion is an important issue and leading
to zero emission plant involving capture of CO2.
2. EU ZERO EMISSION
INITIATIVE
Details of this and the new Technology Platform
on "Zero Emission Fossil Fuel Power Plant" are given
in the attachments below. From these you will see that five UK-based
individuals are on the TP Advisory Council of what will certainly
a major initiative within Europe. Representation is held by people
in ALSTOM, BGS, BP, Mitsui Babcock and Shell, all significant
players in this field. The UK also takes a leading position in
the governmental EC co-ordination action on clean fossil energy
(termed FENCO) that is seeking to establish synergy across Europe
in this area. This action has a strong link to the Zero Emission
TP through a Member State Mirror Group which is chaired by the
DTI. As stated at my witness session, the UK has established a
prominent position in these EU initiatives and needs a robust
CAT/CCS national programme to ensure a proactive role and hence
get the benefit.
3. CO2 AUTHORITY
My personal view is that the establishment of
this would be a good idea and would be analogous to the Coal Authority
that has to handle the long term issues of coal in the UK. It
could be that the Coal Authority could be used as a model or even
be extended to cover the CO2 issues. The long term
ownership of CO2 is clearly a very important issue
in the context of CCS and so must be addressed.
December 2005
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