Opportunities for Process Development Engineers in Accelerating the Transport Sector Energy Transition

Shyamal Bej

Abstract:

The energy mixture presently used to fuel the transport sector is predominantly of fossil origin and leads to significant net carbon dioxide emissions. As a result, there is an urgent need to transition the existing energy mixture into one which consists of renewable sources and has minimal fossil origin. After giving a brief overview of the history of previous energy transitions and the vast amount of knowledge generated while working through these transitions, this talk will focus on future fuels proposed for the transport sector and the technologies required to produce these future fuels. A summary of examples where knowledge gained during earlier transitions can be leveraged and where new technologies need to be developed will be reviewed. Enormous opportunities exist for process development engineers in improving current technologies as well as developing new technologies for successfully achieving the goals of the current energy transition.