BHP Billiton, Chinese university sign deal on clean tech
The world’s largest mining company and a major Chinese university are investing more than US$7 million in a project that could lead to China’s metallurgical industry using clean technology pioneered in Saskatchewan.
The three-year, US$7.37 million agreement between BHP Billiton and Peking University is expected to identify the “key policy, technical and economic barriers” to the use of carbon capture, use and storage (CCS) in China’s industrial sector, the mining firm said Tuesday.
“The application of (CCS) may prove to be important to reducing the volume of greenhouse gas emitted by the steel sector in China and elsewhere. However investment in the technology is behind where it needs to be,” BHP Billiton CEO Andrew Mackenzie said in a statement.
The deal builds on BHP Billiton’s contribution of $20 million over five years to establish the BHP Billiton SaskPower Carbon Capture Knowledge Centre in Regina.
Announced in February, the centre is designed to share knowledge gleaned from SaskPower’s $1.47 billion Boundary Dam Power Station, the world’s first commercial power plant with a fully integrated carbon capture system.
SaskPower is not directly involved in BHP Billiton’s agreement with Peking University, but a spokesman for the Crown Corporation said it expects the Carbon Capture Knowledge Centre to engage with research and development in China’s power generation sector.
CCUS is a process by which waste carbon dioxide from coal-fired power plants and other sources of emissions is contained and reused for another purpose.
Carbon dioxide from Boundary Dam is sold to Cenovus Energy Inc. for use in enhanced oil recovery.
Peking University president Lin Jianhua said the research institution recognizes the importance of collaboration in addressing climate change, and that its partnership with BHP Billiton is expected to “help support China’s carbon reduction.”
BHP Billiton, headquartered in Perth, Australia, is currently building what is expected to become the world’s largest potash mine near Jansen Lake, about 100 kilometres east of Saskatoon.