UWA pursues safer, clean energy

The world’s multibillion-dollar oil and gas industries will benefit from a new research project aimed at securing long-term, safer and cleaner forms of energy.

Winthrop Professor Mark Cassidy, Director of The University of Western Australia’s Centre for Offshore Foundation Systems (COFS), said the centre’s $2.4 million program, supported by The Lloyd’s Register Educational Trust (The LRET), would help provide solutions to the challenges of harnessing resources from beneath our oceans.

“We have signed an agreement with The LRET, an independent global charity that works to achieve advances in transportation, science, engineering and technology education, training and research for the public benefit,” Professor Cassidy said.

UWA has committed $1.2 million to the initiative, which will provide a Chair and Research Centre of Excellence in Offshore Foundation Systems, three assistant professor positions and a number of top-up PhD scholarships.

“The program means UWA will have a critical mass of researchers in deep-water engineering, renewable energy and risk assessment for oil and gas facilities,” Professor Cassidy said.

“It will allow COFS to engage more effectively with local and international oil, gas and renewable-energy industries - and with other universities in The LRET research network, such as the University of Southampton and the National University of Singapore’s Centre for Offshore Research in Engineering.

“The Chair will establish scientific expertise to help engineers overcome some major challenges, including how to safely and economically anchor oil and gas infrastructure in ultra-deep water (one- to three-kilometre depths) and provide new foundation solutions for generating renewable energy offshore,” he said. “Reducing the uncertainty in foundation and anchoring behaviour also will be a target of the research, as it is a major risk associated with new offshore development.”

The LRET’s Director Michael Franklin said: “We are excited to be undertaking this research program with UWA. Exploration firms are having to look in increasingly challenging deep-sea environments to extract energy, which consistently demands new innovative technical solutions. Few initiatives are more fundamental to The LRET’s mandate than supporting research and education that helps to assure that the energy the public requires is extracted in a safe and efficient manner.”