Jan Mertens, Chief Science Officer, ENGIE Research, Professor, Ghent University
Speaker Biography
Jan Mertens is ENGIE’s Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) co-building ENGIE’s long term vision on technologies, identifying key international research players on selected emerging technologies and initiating partnerships.. He holds a PhD in Environmental engineering from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (2006). After various research positions in Belgium and New-Zealand, Jan joined the environmental team of Laborelec, ENGIE in 2008. He was responsible for the research program on emerging energy technologies as well as for carbon capture and valorisation. In March 2016, he joined ENGIE corporate research department and was in charge of technology watch on new emerging technologies until November 2018 when taking up the position of CSO.
His main research topics are related to life cycle assessment, emissions monitoring, Carbon Capture, Carbon use, Water footprinting and he holds over 50 international peer reviewed publications. Since 2019, Jan is also visiting Professor at the University of Ghent in the domain of sustainable electricity generation.
Abstract
We are obsessed with CO2 and its impact on climate change, and this is rightly so! This presentation has as objective to convince you to start seeing CO2 no longer as (only) a problem but start seeing it as a resource and thus we should show our affection for it. At the same time, it is not all about CO2 and some other climate change allies deserve our attention, maybe even also our obsession.