Hans Kuipers, scientific director of the participating UT research institute IMPACT and professor of fundamentals of chemical reaction engineering, says the project is an enormous challenge. He thinks the request has a chance. There will be more clarity in the fall, but for now the signals look good. Kuipers says a collective national research incentive is `absolutely necessary' to prevent doom scenarios like in the movie An inconvenient truth by former American presidential candidate Al Gore. Catastrophic disasters like extreme temperatures, flooding and epidemics will occur if there is no intervention. `That's why we should invest right now in innovative research into new and affordable technologies for sustainable energy. Better to be safe than sorry. The Netherlands is very ambitious with the proposed 30% less CO2 discharge in 2020, determined by the EU. If the government is serious about the problem, it should pay now.'
`We all dream of a car that runs on hydrogen. Prototypes are driving around. Still, it's not possible to buy hydrogen at your local supermarket. The conversion of methane to hydrogen is simply too expensive. We should look for a cheaper method. The UT wants to invest in that. Just like in research into the use of biomass. At IMPACT we are doing a lot of that sort of research. If we want to take it a bit further, we will arrive at research in suitable conversion technologies with which we can isolate chemical building blocks. With those we can convert fossil fuel into efficient, clean energy sources. The key is ceramic membranes for oxygen separation, also called oxyfuel processes. With the combustion of fossil fuel the membrane separates the nitrogen from the oxygen. Only pure oxygen is used for combustion. That way we tackle the problem by its source.'
Kuipers says that the 3 TUs and ECN are in for an enormous challenge with this project. `A total of 70 trainee research assistants from the three universities will be involved. I think that the Netherlands can play a vital role in environment-friendly energy policy.' This fall the participating parties hope to get approval.
