The CERE 2015 Discussion Meeting on 17-19 June united close to a hundred delegates from industry and academia for a three-day conference in the name of energy resources engineering. Delegates from nine different countries chose to travel all the way to Elsinore. Among these, was Dengen Zhou, Senior Advisor at Chevron’s headquarter in Texas. But what does Denmark have to offer this American state in which the Age of Oil began?
“With the whole climate and environment issue and the oil price, for me to travel, I need to have a very good reason to come here”, says Dengen Zhou, after travelling thousands of kilometres across the Atlantic to participate in the CERE 2015 Discussion Meeting. And according to him, the reasons are multiple.
“The group has a very good reputation in the industry of thermodynamics”, explains Dengen Zhou who knows CERE more than just by reputation. The now Senior Advisor at Chevron started his career at CERE where he did his PhD some 30 years ago. But the close connection to CERE is not what keeps Dengen Zhou coming back.
“I think there’s a tradition here, where they’re very good at the building laboratory capability. They have the facilities that only a few other places have. Especially, they have a high-pressure system, so that’s very attractive” says Dengen Zhou.
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| Dengen Zhou, Senior Advisor at Chevron. Photo by: Christian O. Carlsson |
The industry can help identify the real energy challenges
It is not only the companies visiting from abroad who believe participation in the Discussion Meetings is an important priority. Where the research in the area of energy resources should go in the future, is something the industry including Danish companies such as Maersk may offer an insight into. Besides following up on projects with CERE and keeping an eye out for new potential colleagues, giving his input to where the energy research should focus, is one of the reasons why Niels Lindeloff, Lead Reservoir Engineer at Maersk Oil, participates in the conference.
“I think from the perspective of the universities, the input we can provide makes a great difference. We can tell them, what are the major issues and what are the smaller issues we face,” says Niels Lindeloff and continues, “it may not be easy for the universities to predict which of the issues they are working on will have the most significant impact on the revenue that we expect to get from the North Sea and which will benefit our society the most – so that’s what we give our input to” concludes Niels Lindeloff.
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On the right: Niels Lindeloff, Lead Reservoir Engineer at Maersk Oil. Photo by: Christian O. Carlsson
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Read more interviews from the CERE Discussion Meetings here.
Wegener: The future is both black and green
Executive Vice President of DTU, Provost Henrik C. Wegener was invited to speak at the conference dinner. And, as the conference took place on the Danish Election Day, the theme of Henrik Wegener’s speech was the effects of a possible red or blue government. His point however, was that since big issues such as education and energy are based on large coalitions - which makes them rather long-lasting - a red or blue government doesn’t make a big difference, the future will still be “black and green”. And, as Henrik Wegener pointed out, that is good news for Denmark, because if the government changed its policies on energy every four years it would be unmanageable.
“We have to be able to exploit whatever is left in the North Sea otherwise there is no chance we can afford an expensive green transition. So whether it will be red or blue, I’m dead sure that it’s going to be both black and green for many years, and at least until 2050. So that’s why I think it’s incredibly important that the university stays active in oil and gas research and does a very good job at developing the next generations of experts and scientists to work in this field and that’s why I think this event is very, very important to the university as well as to the society” said Henrik Wegener in his speech. Watch a video of Provost Henrik Wegener’s speech here.
More conferences in the pipeline
The Thermodynamics 2015 conference includes many scientific and engineering disciplines such as physics, chemistry, chemical engineering, petroleum engineering and materials science. The Thermodynamics 2015 in Copenhagen is the 24rd meeting in a series of biennial thermodynamics conferences initiated in 1964 and will take place at Tivoli Congress Center 15-18 September.
Next year the Discussion Meeting will be held at the famous beach hotel Marienlyst and will be followed by the international conference Petrophase 2016 organised by former DTU employee Simon Ivar Andersen on 19-23 June.