Proceedings of the Second International Energy 2030 Conference,
November 4-5, 2008, Abu Dhabi, U.A.E.

Carbon Sequestration and Chemical Synthesis

Prof. Adel F. Sarofim
University of Utah & Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA

Abstract
Fossil energy supports industrial economies both in providing energy for mobile and stationary applications and raw materials for the petrochemical industry. Natural gas and petroleum currently account for the majority (~62%) of our energy consumption, followed by coal/peat (21%) and combustible renewables and wastes (3.9%) [1,2]. Non-energy uses in 2006 accounted for 10.9% of the consumption of gas and 16.5% of the consumption of oil, including use as feedstocks for petrochemicals (chemical feedstocks account for 3% of the global oil and gas market). The consumption of fossil energy does not mirror the availability of the energy resources; the current ratios of reserves to production in 2007 [1], are 41.6 years for oil, 60.3 years for gas and 133 years for coal, showing the preferential consumption of oil and gas over coal that has exacerbated the rate of depletion of oil and gas reserves. The future use of fossil energy will face major challenges both in the power generation and chemical synthesis fields as a consequence of the increasing pressures to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, diminishing reserves of oil and gas, and the rising costs of fossil energy. These are broad issues and this presentation will be restricted to the consideration of climate change and technologies proposed for its mitigations, including a limited discussion on its implication to the use of biomass for chemical feedstocks.