Nigeria LNG Limited (NLNG), in partnership with the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), presented the winning work of The Nigeria Prize for Science for 2019 to industry players to help reduce country’s carbon footprint and kick-start a vibrant bioenergy industry.
The winners, Professor Meihong Wang and Dr Mathew Aneke, on Thursday presented their work on Carbon Capture, Carbon Utilization, Biomass Gasification and Energy Storage for Power Generation at the annual NLNG-LCCI Business Interactive Forum. This year’s forum was held as a webinar.
The 2019 winning work provides solutions to the capture of carbon from the atmosphere and subsequent utilization as well as providing alternative and safe energy for cooking and electricity, with the potential of reversing the trend of tree cutting for cooking and contributing positively to the roll-back of droughts and desertification in the country.
The Nigeria Prize for Science is a $100,000 award sponsored by NLNG, in the last 15 years, to promote innovations in science and technology that will solve age-old problems and drive development in Nigeria. The prize is awarded annually.
In her remarks, NLNG’s General Manager, External Relations and Sustainable Development, Mrs Eyono Fatayi-Williams, said the company has gotten an inspiring list of winning works in different areas of science through The Nigeria Prize for Science. She added that the force behind NLNG’s drive was its vision of “helping to build a better Nigeria”.
She remarked further that the Company’s interest was to make solutions, recognised through the prize, practicable and beneficial to Nigerians. She stated that NLNG was keen to contribute to solutions that will uplift the country beyond its developmental challenge and that will bring value to ordinary Nigerians.
She stated further that NLNG was partnering with the Lagos Chambers of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) to build an interface with industry players that will push these novel solutions beyond research to commercial success. She called on the LCCI members to explore opportunities presented by the winning works in the Nigeria Prize for Science.
In her speech, the President of Lagos Chambers of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), Mrs Toki Mabogunje, represented by the Deputy President of the Chamber, Dr Olawale Cole, said the handshake between the industry players and scientists is the path to generating value that can turn around the narrative on the country’s development.
She added that the NLNG/LCCI Business Interactive Webinar will help drive healthy conversations that can enable wide-scale use of the winning works, urging scientists seeking solutions to Nigeria problems not to relent in generating innovations that will improve the lives of Nigerians.
Professor Wang is a Professor of Energy Systems at the University of Sheffield. He is a Chartered Engineer and has published over 180 technical papers and industrial reports. Some of his papers have won awards such as the SAGE Best Paper Prize 2014 and Ludwig Mond Prize 2014 by IMechE.
Dr Aneke, a graduate of the Federal University of Technology, Owerri, Imo State, is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Sheffield with expertise in process design and modelling, power systems analysis, power generation, renewable energy and environmental protection, amongst others. He has authored and co-authored over 27 research works. Dr Aneke has played various roles in major researches. He was co-investigator in the South Africa Green Fund Research and the Swiss-NRF Research Grant in 2013. He also received the “Applied Energy Most-Cited Paper” Award for two consecutive years (2016/2017 and 2017/2018).