Built environment expert calls for more R&D on how to make use of captured carbon
An influential architect has said that the government must fund more research into technologies to store and make use of carbon once it has been taken out of the atmosphere.
Bobby Chakravarthy was speaking to Research Professional News on 1 October at a fringe event hosted by the Institution of Engineering and Technology at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester.
The event explored how to create a decarbonised world through engineering solutions.
Rather than emitting carbon up in the air, he said, we need to try to capture it and figure out what to do with it once it is captured.
“We need to start looking at technologies that will try to see what we do with the carbon that has been captured,” said Chakravarthy, who sits on the IET’s built environment panel. “There needs to be complementary technologies between capturing the carbon and what we do with that carbon afterwards.”
Chakravarthy added that more funding should be directed towards development of such technologies. “I want government to really push their boat in terms of funding for research in UK universities.”
He also said that the UK would be facing “a phenomenal amount of competition” in clean energy over the next few decades from countries including China and India, and that universities should lead the way in making sure Britain stays at the top.
“I think we have the best institutions in the world,” he said, adding that support must be provided for those institutions “in terms of research grants and in terms of research capabilities and enabling the startups to have functionality, providing them support with entrepreneurship”—all the things required to remain in a leading position in green technology.
“You can only really achieve it by…putting money into research,” Chakravarthy said. “Because that’s what we’re really good at.”