Abu Dhabi, June 5th, 2011 (WAM) -- Dr. Sergio Kapusta Director General and Chief Scientist, Shell and materials physics has hailed Abu Dhabis initiative for launching Masdar initiative for renewable energy.

In an interview with Emirates News Agency "WAM", Kapusta said that Abu Dhabi has placed renewable energy and climate change high on its agenda. This has been made clear through the variety of actions taken during the past few years, like the setting up of the Masdar initiative and the World Future Energy Summit. Abu Dhabis initiative is a good example for other governments to follow.

In respect to Shell's strategy on global energy future, he said that Global society uses more energy now than at any point in our history and global energy demand could increase by two thirds to 2050. So the challenge is stark and increasingly diverse and secure supplies will be a key part of the response. Against this backdrop, the Twenty First Century is century is set to be the Century of Natural Gas.

He added that Natural gas is the cleanest burning fossil fuel and the reduced CO2 emissions benefits achieved by switching to it are startling. For example, in power generation, modern gas plants emit between 50% and 70% less CO2 than conventional coal plants for every kilowatthour of electricity generated.

Kapusta also highlighted that Natural gas resources can be developed at a cost that ensures energy affordable to the consumer as generating electricity with gas is much less capital intensive than coal and nuclear energy. Further, using technology, Shell can turn natural gas into some of the most versatile and high quality energy products in the world.

And for Shell's efforts to protect the environment, particularly for the reduction of carbon emissions, he said that natural gas is available, affordable, and acceptable, plus it plays an important role in power generation and is also important in conjunction with renewable power sources, to counter problems of intermittency. Shells own production will be 50% or more natural gas by 2012.

Also, he highlighted Shells emerging technologies' and its role in energy efficiency and carbon reduction noting that the energy infrastructure currently in place is not only well established, but fully functioning expecting that renewable energy sources will increase significantly in the coming years.

Moreover, on the decline in demand for crude oil in the global demand for renewable energy and clean energy sources, Kapusta said that the global energy demand increasing by two thirds to 2050, the world will need all energy it can get. For example, in its 2010 World Energy Outlook, IEA suggest that demand for crude oil is likely to be 99 MMbbl/d, up from todays figure of around 87 MMbbl/d.

In respect of the exploration of new technologies and the platform floating liquefied natural gas, he said that technology and innovation are the keys to taking the energy industry to the next level. In 2010 Shell once again had the highest R&D spent among the international oil companies, more than 1 billion USD. Take Floating LNG as one example for our innovation potential. Our expertise across the value chain and across technology and engineering has allowed us to break the frontier of liquefying natural gas directly offshore, at the site of the gas field, rather than piping gas to shore for further processing.

This innovative proprietary technology allows to develop offshore gas fields that otherwise would be too costly or too difficult to develop, or where due to environmental concerns land-based LNG projects would not be feasible. By this we can bring more gas successfully to market, whether that is powering industry or just cooking dinner. Shell has just announced the decision to build the first floating LNG facility for the Prelude field in Australia, he added.

Copyright Emirates News Agency (WAM) 2011.