Statoil's refinery in Kalundborg (Denmark) is at the heart of an industrial symbiosis or eco-park in which a power plant, the refinery, a gypsum factory, a biotech company and the district heating system form a perfect resource cascade, utilizing each others waste streams.
Statoil's Norwegian refinery, in contrast, has no symbiotic partners, nobody who utilizes the resources, and therefore relatively high energy costs. Statoil is now financing a 3-year research effort in which IndEcol, in collaboration with scientists at NTNU, NHH/SNF and the University of Bergen , will develop proposals for creating an industrial symbiosis around the Mongstad refinery, increasing the resource utilization, creating value-added, and reducing pollution. NTNU's Dep. of Chemical Engineering and Dep. of Biology will make important contributions to this project.
NTNU's role in the project will be two-fold. On the one hand, NTNU will provide ideas for new businesses which can utilize these resources and develop some of these ideas to specific proposals. On the other hand, NTNU will develop a model of mass and energy flows at the facility, so that changes required by new processes can be evaluated in their dimension, their contribution, and their ability to increase eco-efficiency. NTNU will closely work with economic geographers at SNF, who will contribute to the generation of ideas through a careful literature search and who will evaluate refinery-related businesses in Norway . SNF will also contribute to the evaluation of our business proposals and describe steps required to realize these ideas.
NTNU is looking for PhD candidates and a PostDoc working on different aspects of the project. In addition, a new assistant professor position in environmental systems analysis will contribute. There is also an opportunity for highly qualified international Master's students in chemical engineering to do their thesis in connection with the research being done.
