Carbon Capture and Storage - Biographies

Maxine Akhurst, Project Leader and Geologist, British Geological Survey

Maxine Akhurst is a project leader and geologist at the British Geological Survey. She holds a BSc, MSc and PhD in geology and has broad research expertise from ancient sedimentary rocks to recent deep-sea deposits and leads geoscientific research projects. She has led research and resurvey for the Midland Valley of Scotland for over ten years during which time has led construction of onshore and offshore multi-scalar 3D digital geological models and publication of geological maps, reports and scientific papers for the region. Recently,, Maxine has lead the consortium-funded Scottish Carbon Capture and Storage Joint Study to screen CO2 storage sites, evaluate transport of CO2 from source to store and investigate costs and business constraints.

Richard Bellingham, Senior Research Fellow, Fraser of Allander Institute, University of Strathclyde

Richard Bellingham is a Senior Research Fellow at the Fraser of Allander Institute in the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. He specialises in energy policy and sustainable energy issues, and is the Programme Director for the Sustainable Glasgow Initiative. This major feasibility study is assisting the development of low-carbon energy systems, homes, businesses and sustainable transport systems – helping Glasgow become a sustainable city. The study is being led by the University of Strathclyde – with partners including Glasgow City Council, as well as major energy companies, Veolia and Scottish and Southern Energy. The study is expected to be completed in early Summer 2009.

Richard is also leading one the first initiatives at the new Institute of Advanced Studies at Strathclyde. This research study is examining public attitudes to energy, and how these might be changed to support secure low carbon energy futures.

Richard is on secondment from the Scottish Government - where he was Head of Energy Policy. Working as a policy analyst and senior manager he has experience in policy areas across government. He also has several years experience in IT, digital inclusion and e-government - working as Head of Corporate IS Strategy, and Head of e-Government policy. He is a member of the advisory board for the UK Energy Research Council, and a former member of the UK coal forum.

Richard has a B.Sc. in Fuel and Energy Engineering, and an MBA from the University of Edinburgh.

Richard Cockburn, Partner, Shepherd and Wedderburn

Richard is a partner with leading UK law firm Shepherd and Wedderburn.

He is a member of the top-ranked Energy Group and is dual qualified in English and Scots law, having worked in London, Brussels and Scotland. He specialises in oil and gas and utilities regulation and is a member of the Association of International Petroleum Negotiators.

Richard's clients include Marathon (where he was recently on secondment), Total, Bridge Resources Corporation and ITI Energy. Chambers 2008 remarks, "Aberdeen-based Richard Cockburn is regarded as a highly adept practitioner in the energy and utilities sectors."

Richard sat on the UK North Sea decommissioning steering group, is legal adviser to the new Decom North Sea industry body and was on the organising committee of the annual global conference of the Association of International Petroleum Negotiators, which is an industry flagship event.

Richard is currently advising in respect of the UK's carbon capture and storage competition.

Dr J Mike Farley BSc, CPhys, FEI, FInstNDT, Director of Technology Policy Liaison, Doosan Babcock Energy Limited

Dr Farley has worked with Doosan Babcock and its predecessors since 1974, initially within the Research & Development Department and later in the Technology Centre, becoming Director of Technology in 1998 and Director of Technology Policy Liaison in 2002.

Dr Farley represents the company on the Advanced Power Generation Technology Forum and is a member of the Government’s Advisory Committee on Carbon Abatement Technology. Both these groups are involved in the preparation of the UK government’s Carbon Abatement Technologies Strategy for Fossil Fuel Power Generation and agenda for Research, Development and Demonstration. Dr Farley is also a member of the Energy Research Partnership and a strong advocate of a strategic approach to government programmes for clean coal technology.

Through membership of the Coal Forum and Chairmanship of the TUC Clean Coal Group, he has promoted Clean Coal and Carbon Capture and Storage strongly, in both UK and global contexts. He is a Vice President of EPPSA - the European Power Plant Suppliers’ Association - and a member of the Advisory Committee of the European Technology Platform for Zero-Emissions Fossil Fuel Power Plant.

In Scotland, he is Chairman of the IPA (Industrial and Power Association in Scotland) and a member of the Scottish Energy Advisory Board.

Dr Farley is a graduate and PhD of Durham University, Department of Applied Physics and Electronics.

Stuart Haszeldine, Professor of Geology, University of Edinburgh

Current research examines geological storage of CO2, in the context of climate change and changing energy use. He was topic leader for the Carbon Management theme of the UK Energy Research Centre 2005-09. He co-leads the UK’s largest university research group for CO2 storage (at Edinburgh, Heriot-Watt and British Geological Survey at Edinburgh) www.geos.ed.ac.uk/sccs/ and is co-leader of the academic UK Carbon Capture and Storage Consortium. He was a technical advisor to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee on CCS in 2006, and since 2007 has been a member of the ACCAT committee advising UK Government (DECC) at Minister level on Carbon Abatement Technologies, and a personal adviser to the Scottish Government and Energy Minister. He has provided numerous media comments on Carbon Capture and Storage, and is an invited speaker on CCS at public and technical conferences.

David Hughes, Technical Head Carbon Storage, Senergy Alternative Energy

David Hughes is an oil reservoir engineer with 30 years’ experience specialising in enhanced oil recovery and carbon storage. He is principal investigator or project manager on a variety of carbon storage assessment studies currently ongoing and recently completed at Senergy which cover the full range of storage options (saline aquifers, and oil and gas fields). David is a 2008-2009 ‘Distinguished Lecturer’ for the Society of Petroleum Engineers on the subject of carbon storage and its significance to the oil industry.

Dr Eric Mackay, SCCS and Lecturer, Heriot Watt University

Dr Eric Mackay is a lecturer at Heriot-Watt University, where he has worked since 1990. He holds a BSc in Physics, a PhD in Petroleum Engineering and is a Chartered Physicist. Current research topics include oilfield scale and flow assurance, aquifer modelling for CO2 injection and capacity estimation and modelling geochemical reactions during CO2 Storage. He was invited to be a Distinguished Lecturer for the Society of Petroleum Engineers during 2007-08.

Isabelle McKenzie

Isabelle McKenzie is the CCS Technical Manager at the Energy Institute. Within the wider technical programme at the Institute, Isabelle set up the health and safety working group in 2007 to address concerns raised by the HSE and industry surrounding the implementation of CCS. The working group currently has 18 members from across industry working together to resolve issues surrounding the modelling of dispersion of large scale CO2 releases. It is also shares best practice on operational and health and safety issues and holds technical workshops to facilitate technical knowledge sharing.

Stuart Murray, Senior Consultant, Pöyry

Stuart Murray is a Senior Consultant who joined Pöyry in 2005. Since joining Pöyry he has worked on various projects developing models for asset valuations in Great Britain, Ireland and across Central and Eastern Europe. Recent work has focused on the economics of Carbon Capture and Storage and the implications of its introduction to world markets.

Stuart has worked with a range of international energy companies and new entrant firms on strategic evaluation of European electricity markets, carbon abatement and asset valuations in Great Britain, France, Spain, Italy and Ireland. Other major clients have included BERR (formerly DTI) and DEFRA, projecting power sector GHG emissions, CO2 prices, and assessing the impact of gas shortages on UK industry.

Stuart Murray graduated from University College London in June 2004 with a 1st Class Honours BSc. in Economics.

Harsh Pershad, Senior Consultant, Element Energy

Harsh Pershad is a Senior Consultant at Element Energy. His work to date has examined policy options for CO2 reductions and related business opportunities in the transport, buildings, and power sectors in Scotland, the UK and internationally. Harsh’s current projects include:

• An examination of the designs, financing and regulations for global CCS pipeline infrastructure (for the IEA).
• Assessment of the global economic storage capacity in depleted gasfields (for the IEA)
• Understanding consumer behaviour for loans for household energy efficiency (for the Department for Energy and Climate Change).
• Mapping the likely growth of recharging infrastructure for electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (for the Committee on Climate Change).
• An economic appraisal of CCS opportunities within the portfolio of a FTSE 100 energy company.

Before joining Element Energy, Harsh was a Wellcome Trust and Fulbright Scholar at the University of California at Berkeley and Medical Research Council in Cambridge. As part of his PhD at Oxford University, Harsh developed a novel biological hydrogen fuel cell. Harsh can be contacted at harsh.pershad@element-energy.co.uk

Martyn Quinn, Geologist, British Geological Survey

Martyn Quinn is a geologist at the British Geological Survey. His main area of expertise is in Petroleum Geology where he has carried out regional and focussed assessments of the hydrocarbon prospectivity of offshore UK and other parts of the world for government and industry for more than 20 years. Recently he has applied this expertise to Carbon Capture and Storage issues. He has also contributed to a variety of mapping and research projects in many areas of the offshore UK, most recently in the Faroe-Shetland Basin and in the offshore extension of the Midland Valley of Scotland.

Alastair Rennie, Project Director – Renewables, AMEC

Alastair Rennie is responsible for developing renewable energy work centred on AMEC Power & Process Europe. His present focus is on carbon capture and storage, with other areas being green hydrogen and marine energy. He moved to working in the Renewables area at the beginning of 2002. The role tests the options of new and clean energy chains, such as conventional wind interfacing with wave power and hydrogen generation and networking of CO2 sources and storage. He is currently Chair of the UK Hydrogen Association and on the Board of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association.

Alastair came to this job with a career in managing offshore oil and gas facilities and sub-sea projects, civil engineering design and construction, and engineering management in the South Atlantic.

Stina Rydberg, Vattenfall Power Consultant

Stina Rydberg has been working for Vattenfall since 2004, first at Vattenfall Research & Development in Stockholm and now, since 2007, at Vattenfall Power Consultant in Gothenburg on the Swedish west coast.

Ms Rydberg has been working in Vattenfall’s CCS project since 2004, both with technical development and with communication. The technical work has its focus on the downstream processes, i.e. flue gas cleaning and CO2 purification and compression, in the Oxyfuel process. The Oxyfuel process is the capture technology that Vattenfall puts most efforts into; the pilot plant in Schwarze Pumpe is built with this technology.

In the work with communication she is editor of Vattenfall’s newsletter on CCS, Bridging to the Future, and is formally responsible for information material about CCS and Vattenfall’s activities on the topic.

Ms Rydberg’s academic background is a MSc in Chemical Engineering from Chalmers Technical University in Gothenburg.

Richard Vernon, Principal Consultant, SLR Consulting Ireland

Richard is a Principal Consultant with SLR Consulting Ireland. In this role, he has been involved recently with a number of major assignments, including ‘An Assessment of the Potential for the Geological Storage of CO2 for the Island of Ireland’ (2008) and ‘Common Approach to Natural Gas Storage and LNG on an All Island Basis’ (2007). Prior to joining SLR, he worked as an independent consultant undertaking a wide range of energy related projects in Ireland, the UK and further afield.

Prior to moving to Ireland in 2000, Richard was Director of External Affairs for Phillips Petroleum Company’s Europe-Africa Division for ten years based in the UK. During this period, he was responsible for public and corporate affairs, internal and external communications, emergency response, government relations, and trade associations, together with a number of business development sectors. In this latter role he helped Phillips obtain exploration acreage off the west coast of Ireland in the mid 1990’s.

Before joining Phillips, he had been a senior consultant with Petroleum Economics Limited where he was involved in all aspects of the international oil industry, including oil company strategies, the exploration/production and refining/marketing sectors, taxation & licensing regimes, price forecasting and OPEC politics.