The Abu Dhabi National Energy Company (Taqa) has signed a letter of agreement with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

The move will make the publicly listed firm on the Abu Dhabi Securities Market a member of the Industrial Liaison Program (ILP), according to a statement.

Under the agreement, lasting at least two years, experts from Taqa and faculty members from MIT will explore Taqa’s interests, needs and objectives as they relate to cutting-edge technology.

The objective is to identify reliable and environmentally sustainable technology solutions that could benefit Taqa’s business and the global communities in which the company provides energy to.

As a member of the ILP, Taqa will explore potential key work streams in renewables, energy efficiency, climate change, hydrogen, carbon sequestration, enhanced oil recovery, gas storage and LNG. Commenting on the agreement, Taqa chief executive officer Peter Barker-Homek said: “As a global responsible company, our (Taqa’s) objectives include a desire to improve our common future and protect the environment.”

“The average person in a developed country uses 9 times as much fossil fuel and 20 times as much aluminium as his or her counterpart in developing countries. 

In terms of waste, the average person produces 4 times as much household refuse, 11 times more carbon dioxide, 26 times more chlorofluorocarbons, and 75 times more hazardous wastes.  For example, average Americans use 43 times as much gasoline as average Indians, 45 times as much copper, and 34 times as much aluminium. 

“North Americans have double the ecological footprint of Europeans, and seven times the average footprint of Asians and Africans. 

“Bringing emerging markets up to North American living standards would require a 5-10-fold increase in world industrial output, yet the contingent combination of depleted resource stocks (e.g. fossil fuels, fisheries, forests) with degraded life-support systems (e.g. ozone depletion, global warming, acid rain) demonstrate the impossibility of the entire world consuming at the rate of North America. 

“Taqa’s goal is to put the firm on the leading edge of technology as it relates to the energy industry with the aim of providing reliable and environmentally sustainable solutions for the planet today as well as future generations. “

Through ILP MIT, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, facilitates interactions between companies and the university on new technology developments.

“We are delighted to welcome Taqa into the MIT ILP community of companies and look to further our productive interactions with companies and organizations in Abu Dhabi,” says Karl Koster, Executive Director, MIT Office of Corporate Relations. - TradeArabia News Service