British Flame held their one-day “interactive workshop” on the subject of “Carbon Abatement: A catalyst for Business Opportunities” last week Thursday, 20th April 2005.

The meeting was hosted by British Flame Member Organisation, E.On UK, the former PowerGen, at their laboratories at Ratcliffe-on-Soar, near Nottingham, UK, and included a tour of the experimental facilities.  There was a full house nearing 50 participants, to hear the invited presentations on:

• A UK perspective: Dr Frank Fitzgerald – Former Managing Director (technical) British Steel, President of British Flame
• Power Sector View: Dorian Matts – Manager – Boiler and Combustion, RWE npower
• Large Process Sector View: Richard Boarder – General Manger Energy – Castle Cement Ltd
• SME Sector View: Brian Chamberlain – Managing Director of TM Resource, Past President of the Energy Institute

• The Response: Phillip Sharman – Manager DTi

British Flame stressed that the workshop would be interactive and would act as a catalyst to develop concepts and consortia for collaborative projects in the field of carbon abatement, in readiness for the expected DTI call for proposals in this particular field.

How it will develop consortia remains to be seen, but the commitment to provide the environment for interactivity was well met.  Twice during the meeting, the whole group divided into three “break-out groups” dealing with the topics: Fuels, Processes and new Technologies, on each occasion reporting back to full group. The general reaction to the concept was very positive.

A full report will be prepared on the Presentations made and the conclusions drawn – for background information, refer to: http://mnm.ifrf.net/mnm/article.html?aid=349.