Keeping a cool head at a time of global warming

30th March 2009

Marco Mazzotti

Professor of process engineering at ETH Zurich - coordinating lead author of the IPCC Special Report on Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage (2002-2005)

Biography

Marco Mazzotti, an Italian citizen born in 1960, married, with two children, has been professor of process engineering at ETH Zurich since May 1997 (associate until March 2001 and full professor thereafter). He holds a Laurea (M.S., 1984) and a Ph.D. (1993), both in Chemical Engineering and from the Politecnico di Milano, Italy. Before joining ETH Zurich, he had worked for IBM Italy (1985-1987) and Montefluos (1988-1990), and had been assistant professor at the Politecnico di Milano (1994-1997). His research activity deals with adsorption based separations and chromatography, and with crystallization and precipitation processes. The application areas of interest are the purification of biopharmaceuticals and the development of carbon dioxide capture and storage systems. He teaches classes on Separation Processes, Mathematical Methods for Chemical Engineers and Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage. Fifteen PhD students have graduated with him and fourteen are currently advised by him. His refereed publications include more than 140 journal articles, 20 articles in books and 6 book chapters. Marco Mazzotti has been coordinating lead author of the IPCC Special Report on Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage (2002-2005).

Abstract

In order to mitigate climate change and reduce its impact on society and on the environment, various countermeasures can be taken in sectors such as energy, transport, agriculture, construction. The fourth report on climate of the IPCC has estimated the potential for reduction of greenhouse gasses, especially carbon dioxide, in the short and medium term in the various sectors. But it also demonstrated obstacles of a technical, regulatory and economic nature which inhibit the implementation of such countermeasures on a wide scale. In relation to electric energy, all future scenarios indicate that it will be produced primarily from fossil fuels for several decades to come. Therefore technologies are being developed and tested to minimise CO2 emissions from thermoelectric power stations fuelled by natural gas or coal - to capture them at the stations themselves and sequester them in suitable geologic formations. The characteristics of such systems, their advantages and disadvantages, will be discussed in detail, with examples given of their current use. This presentation will also help clarify the working methods of the IPCC, and show how themes linked with climate change can be classified into three categories, corresponding to the three working groups of the IPCC and to the three reports periodically produced by them: (i) the basic physical principles, (ii) the impacts of climate change adaptation and vulnerability, (iii) the mitigation of climate change.