A brilliant piece of news hit our desks this morning, and chemical engineering is at it’s heart. London-based start-up Bio-Bean have teamed up with Costa and Shell, to power London buses with bio-fuel derived from coffee waste.
Bio-Bean has a number of products in it’s growing portfolio, but it is it’s B20 biodiesel that has been hitting headlines, and powering London buses from today.
As the police and safety investigations into the Grenfell Tower fire continue, media across the world has been reporting on the tragic event that saw more than 150 homes destroyed and around 80 people presumed dead.
Police have said the London tower block fire started in a fridge-freezer, and outside cladding and insulation failed safety tests.
In the early stages of the investigation and as the incident unfolded, fire safety specialist Joe Ruane, Associate Member (Process Safety) of IChemE, was interviewed to give his expert opinion.
Listen to Mr Ruane speaking to Ireland’s RTE Radio 1 news on Thursday 15 June.
Watch Mr Ruane speaking to American news network CBS at the site of the fire.
Mr Ruane also spoke to the Associated Press news agency and the article was subsequently reported by media across the world, including The Daily Mail, Time, Fox News and Hindustan Times.
Last week (Thursday 12 January), the IChemE Energy Centre welcomed participants both online and in person to discuss the outcomes of ‘COP22 – what next?’.
Hosted by Chair of the IChemE Energy Centre, Professor Stefaan Simons, at the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), UK, participants first heard from Board members Dr Rachael Hall, Model Site Lead – Severn Trent Innovation Team, and Mark Apsey, Technical Services Director – Ameresco Limited, about their experience at COP22 in Marrakech.
This was followed by Dr Alison Cooke, Founder and Consultant – Cooke Associates, who gave a brief overview of what it’s like to work with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) as a mechanical engineer.
The audience was then invited for a discussion on on the outcomes of COP22 and the next steps we must take to implement the Paris Agreement.
We hope you have been following our series of #COP21 blog posts, focusing on the IChemE Energy Centre’s five priority topics for the COP21 climate talks.
As an agreement looks set to be on the horizon (fingers crossed!) the Energy Centre was involved in two events.
Both events asked the same question – Do you believe that the technical solutions to reducing greenhouse gas emissions already exist?
Find out what happened below.
Paris
Our official COP21 side event in Paris saw several leading thinkers – including our own Chair of the Energy Centre Stefaan Simons – deliver their thoughts on ‘Technology solutions for a two degree world’.
Continue reading From Paris to London – IChemE Energy Centre speaks out at #COP21
Yesterday proved to be a pivotal moment in my presidential year. We successfully launched the Energy Centre and outlined our plans for this new and exciting initiative – inspired by Chemical Engineering Matters, IChemE’s technical strategy.
I’m going to use today’s blog to explain what the Energy Centre is, what it will do and why it matters to chemical engineers, opinion formers and policy makers around the world.
IChemE is a global organisation, with over 42,000 members in 120 countries. The international launch of our Energy Centre reflected this. We held three simultaneous, video-linked events, with over 60 experts and opinion formers from industry, academia and government, in Brisbane, Kuala Lumpur and London.
Continue reading The energy grand challenges and our international Energy Centre launch (Day 297)
IChemE 
You must be logged in to post a comment.