New Energy World™
New Energy World™ embraces the whole energy industry as it connects and converges to address the decarbonisation challenge. It covers progress being made across the industry, from the dynamics under way to reduce emissions in oil and gas, through improvements to the efficiency of energy conversion and use, to cutting-edge initiatives in renewable and low-carbon technologies.
On the front lines of the skills shortage
30/4/2025
8 min read
Feature
A four-storey carbon capture plant installed in a university building trains the next generation of engineers about measurement and process control, while the latest generation of instruments provides data aimed to ease their workloads. New Energy World Senior Editor Will Dalrymple goes back to college to learn more.
‘Given the rapid pace of change, institutions must invest in training to keep teams current with emerging technologies,’ says Professor Omar Matar, Head of the Imperial College London chemical engineering department. ‘Hands-on technology is critical for engineering students. Long-standing partnerships illustrate the benefits of this approach. While the classroom is good for understanding the theory, direct use allows people to do it in practice.’
The Professor was speaking beside the University’s fully-functioning 50 kg/h Pilot Carbon Capture Plant, which for the past 15 years has put through their paces thousands of chemical engineering undergraduate and postgraduate students, plus visiting scholars to its South Kensington campus.
Since its launch, those ranks of students have read live data off 250 gauges and tweaked parameters on the 800 XA digital control system supplied by the facility’s industrial partner ABB. But Matar was also referring to artificial intelligence (AI), as his remarks were made on the occasion of an ABB press launch at the facility of instrumentation that incorporate some (limited) AI functions (see Box).