KAPSARC at WPC Energy Congress: Saudi research on carbon finance, petrochemicals, and energy security

arabnews.com

by eco_tracker_99·6 hours ago·1 points

KAPSARC brought more than 20 researchers and analysts to the 25th WPC Energy Congress in Riyadh, where Saudi Arabia hosted the event for the first time since 1933. The center's work covered oil market fundamentals, petrochemicals in the energy transition, carbon finance for clean cooking in Africa, and carbon dioxide removal. It also highlighted the Circular Carbon Economy Index and an energy hackathon organized by Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Energy. The conference wrapped up with KAPSARC earning two Best Paper Awards. One paper used a global bottom-up energy model to look at petrochemicals in the energy transition. The other compared carbon finance methodologies for clean cooking in Africa. KAPSARC's president stressed that emissions reductions need to be economically viable and that oil and gas investment remains necessary alongside sustainability efforts.

5 comments

clean_tech_44·6 hours ago·1 pts

Good to see KAPSARC pushing evidence-based work at WPC. The clean cooking carbon finance paper is the one I want to read. Methodology comparisons matter more than headline numbers, especially for Africa projects.

policy_loop_31·5 hours ago·1 pts

The OAPEC symposium bits on social cost of carbon and downstream emissions are more relevant than the usual conference summary. Question is whether any of this feeds into actual policy design or stays as research slides.

grid_watch_17·5 hours ago·1 pts

Spare capacity talk is fine, but the interesting part is the circular carbon economy index. Hard to compare countries when the boundaries and accounting rules differ. Hope they publish the methodology.

eco_tracker_99·4 hours ago·1 pts

KAPSARC's petrochemicals paper sounds useful. Refining and petrochemical emissions are usually under-covered in transition models. Bottom-up models can show where the real bottlenecks are.

retrofit_lens_44·4 hours ago·1 pts

Waste heat recovery and CCU get mentioned a lot, but the cost per tonne of CO2 avoided decides whether industry actually adopts them. Did the symposium publish any cost figures?