Chairman Hur Dong-soo of GS Caltex attends the 22nd World Energy Congress held at Daegu Coex in Daegu Oct. 13-17. 

Chairman Hur Dong-soo of GS Caltex said energy demand and supply management is an answer to both stable energy supply and confronting climate change. 

During his speech at the 22nd World Energy Congress held from Oct. 13-17 at Daegu Coex in Daegu, he said nuclear power generation has reached the limit with the accidents at the nuclear power plants in Fukushima, Japan, and at the same time, bio fuels would take a long time to replace petroleum fuels due to their economic feasibility and the speed of development. “So what we have left to do is proper management of supply and demand of the existing fuels to raise their effectiveness,” the GS Caltex chairman said.

“The high prices of petroleum fuels would reduce their consumption and the effectiveness of energy can be improved through drastic processes to make them more effective backed up by the development of equipment to boost their effectiveness and production processes. They are the best methods to reduce the greenhouse gas exposure,” Hur said. 

Under the theme of “Securing Tomo-rrow’s Energy Today,” the premier global energy forum provided delegates with a high-level exclusive and informative program featuring addresses by government ministers, chief executives, and experts from around the world. ?There were more than 250 speakers, including more than 50 ministers, from nearly 70 countries.

In the meantime, GS Caltex has been engaged in R&D activities in the areas of biochemical and carbon textile related with oil refining and petrochemical businesses.

The Technology Institute, launched in 1998, is where those R&D activities are being undertaken including petrochemical compound material and others to find future growth engines for the oil refinery to expand its portfolio centered around the existing refined oil and petrochemicals.

The institute has also been engaged in joint research with other similar organizations and university research units to expand its cooperative relations with them.

GS Caltex has been leading the researches on by products from its oil refining to develop petrochemical compound products with researches on carbon textile leading the activities.

The oil refinery has completed the development of production facilities for carbon textile with pits left over from heavy oil cracking processes and is expected to turn out 60 tons of the petrochemical product before it starts commercial production in 2015.

The GS Caltex Exhibition Hall where the oil refinery displayed its projects to develop bio 

chemical and petrochemical compound material including such products as carbon textile on 

display at the World Energy Congress at Daegu Coex in Daegu Oct. 13-17. (photo:NewsWorld)

Carbon textile is only 25 percent the weight of steel, but it is ten times harder than steel, and thus is being eyed to one day replace steel. The product is already used in automobiles, space exploration, and other industries to make their products lighter. It is being used to replace glass textile in the plastics industry to strengthen textiles.

The pits line carbon textile developed by GS Caltex is very good at absorbing pollutants and refining them and thus is used in the production of plate filters used in the production of semiconductor chips, air purifiers, and water purifiers.

GS Caltex has forged a consortium with seven research institutions, universities, and SMEs including KAIST since 2011 to undertake research on oil pits to find ways to produce carbon textile and use them in the production of auto parts. They want to replace certain auto parts with those made from carbon textile.

The company has also been engaged in the development of ‘bio butanol,’ a fuel made with plant produce including sugar beats, dilapidated timbers, and rice straw, among others.

Bio butanol is one of the three next-generation energy that can replace petroleum fuel, along with bio diesel, and bio ethanol. The energy density is 90 percent compared with gasoline and it doesn’t cause corrosion to engines, which is why those bio fuels can be used in place of gasoline without modifying engines that burn gasoline. It also doesn’t necessitate the modification of the existing facilities such as transportation equipment and storage tanks.

The company has secured the technologies to mass produce bio butanol over the past seven years of research on the fuel, including studies on fermentation, separate refining, and integration.