Environment and Clean Growth: Projects and Programmes

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export opportunities for Cornwall and the UK. Helping to position Cornwall as a global centre of excellence in these technologies, the Marine-i project brings together key infrastructure and expertise to enable technology innovation in the local marine sector. Led by Professor Lars Johanning, Marine-i is a pioneering project designed to help marine technology businesses in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly grow through research, development, and innovation. Part funded by the European Regional Development Fund, Marine-i is a collaboration between the University of Exeter, University of Plymouth, Cornwall College Group, Cornwall Marine Network, Cornwall Development Company, and the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult. The current programme is focused on accelerating the development of innovative product ideas, working closely with businesses to take their products to the next stage of commercialisation. Marine-i has supported local companies working in wind, wave and tidal power generation, helping to pioneer new ways of delivering the green energy of the future. The next ten years will see the most exciting development yet in our area – the building of floating offshore wind farms in the Celtic Sea. Find out more by contacting the Marine-i team.

SeaCURE - Capturing Carbon from the World’s Oceans A new method of capturing carbon from seawater, pioneered by the University of Exeter’s ‘SeaCURE’ project, takes a novel approach to reducing CO2 emissions which could help us tackle climate change. The SeaCURE project – led by the University of Exeter‘s Dr Paul Halloran in collaboration with Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Brunel University London and industrial partner tpgroup – takes advantage of the facts that the concentration of CO2 in seawater is around 150 times higher than in air, and that seawater low in carbon naturally ‘sucks’ CO2 out of the atmosphere. The SeaCURE method makes use of natural processes and renewable energy to remove carbon from seawater, before returning that seawater to the ocean, where it can take more CO2 out of the atmosphere. After receiving a £250,000 grant from the UK Gov’s Net Zero Innovation Portfolio, the project is in the final stages of designing a demonstration plant with the capacity to remove CO2 from the atmosphere at a rate of 100 tonnes per year. This is a crucial first step in understanding how the carbon capture technology can be developed into a large-scale, commercially viable model, and realizing SeaCURE’s huge potential to support the UK’s net zero ambitions and our ability to reach ‘negative emission’ levels in the second half of this century. Please contact the Environment and Clean Growth team to find out more.

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