Dow Chemical Company, a worldwide leader in the global chemical industry, and sponsor of the 2010 Dow Live Earth Run for Water, has entered into agreements with the new Saudi Arabian King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST)  for developing cleaner, new routes for producing chemical derivatives.

The two are also looking into ways for carbon capture –a method which proposes to suck up and store greenhouse gas emissions.

Although many of the chemicals produced by the American chemical giant are used in the petroleum distilling and petrochemical industries, with much of the company’s “raw material” is coming from Saudi Arabia.

Both Dow executives and the Saudi Arabian government know they need to become involved in projects that are  more environmentally friendly; especially in the energy market.

KAUST is a new graduate level academic institution that just opened its doors in September, and whose campus has been designed to be more eco-sustainable and better adapted to being located in the harsh, hot climate of the Arabia Peninsula.

Read a previous Green Prophet article about its unique architectural and environmentally friendly designs.

In addition to the joint chemical derivatives projects, Dow also plans to explore being involved in ecological projects which will be carried out at KAUST’s Research Park and Innovations Cluster. Some of these projects include CO2 capture, enhanced oil recovery, water desalination, solar energy and wind energy.

CO2 capture and storage or CCS, sequesters carbon dioxide gas that is present during the petroleum distillation process to prevent it from escaping into the atmosphere and contributing to global warming.

Dow for its part, appears to be getting more involved in areas dealing with the environment and the company’s social responsibility towards helping the planet after so many years of being heavily connected with the petroleum industry and its effect on the world environment.

Trying to find solutions to the water resource problems that many countries face, including Saudi Arabia, is now an important part of Dow’s environmental responsibility goals. Dow was part of August’s World Water Week, held in Stockholm, where delegates from nations all over the world met to explore ways in which  countries can work together to find solutions to preserving present fresh water resources, recycling waste water, and producing fresh water from desalination and other means.

For its part, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia now has what is said to be the world’s largest desalination plant and is now able to produce 70% of its fresh water from reverse osmosis and other methods of desalination.

These will be some of the projects that both Dow and KAUST research teams will be jointly involved in within the framework of this agreement, as well as the chemical derivatives research, which hopefully will not be dedicated to the long term continuation and dependence on fossil fuels.

Article by Maurice Picow appearing courtesy of Green Prophet

Related posts:

• Green University: Saudi Arabia’s KAUST With Eco-friendly Environment
• As Saudi Crude Flows to China, U.S. Need for Biofuels Grows
• Gulf Nations’ Social Policies Playing Role in Oil Price Rises, Report Says
• Michigan, the Saudi Arabia of Wind Energy?
• Shipping Industry Agrees to CO2 Emissions Standards

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia may still be considered as one of the most conservative from a religious standpoint. But with the opening of the new King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, otherwise known as KAUST, a new era in academic learning, combined with new innovations in ecological architecture and design, has begun in which both men and women students will benefit jointly.

The new campus opened its doors in September, in the Red Sea city of Thuwal,  80 km north of Jeddah. It is considered to be  the most environmentally innovative  campus of its kind in the Kingdom. Constructed in a manner to utilize the maximum benefit of sea breezes for cooling, the buildings themselves have been constructed in order to screen out a good deal of the heat that is generated by the hot Arabian sun; making the internal environment  more sustainable for the students.

Built close together, the buildings themselves are designed to shade each other, making the internal temperatures much cooler.

From an academic standpoint, the university will offer degrees in 11 fields of study, including Environmental Science and Energy Development, Biosciences and Bioengineering, Industrial and Chemical Engineering, Applied Mathematics, and Computer Science. One of the most innovative aspects to the new KAUST campus, for Saudi Arabia anyway, is that both male and female students will study together in the same classrooms; something that has not been common in other Saudi campuses.

Mr. Bill Odell, of HOK Architects, and one of the two principal designers of the project, noted that the design of the campus, in which the buildings were built close together to provide natural shading for each other, was taken from traditional forms of

Middle Eastern architecture in which buildings are built close together to lessen the heat of the sun’s rays.

This concept, together with using modern concepts of air conditioning, as well as utilizing the effect of the Red Sea breezes, will make the climatic environment within more comfortable while reducing energy costs.

Building designs from universities all over the world were studied, especially ones in hot climates, in order to find the right kind of architectural “model” that will accommodate the students in both classroom and research environments, as well as in residential ones. Each building incorporates a “solar tower” (another “innovation” used in early Islamic architecture) that heats the air, causing it to rise and pull in the sea breezes from the outside.

The residential part of the campus provides environmentally friendly living accommodations for both students and faculty members, and includes plenty of green spaces, shopping, health and recreational facilities. Special electric shuttle buses and other vehicles, including golf carts and two wheeled “Segways” will ferry students and instructors to and from classroom and residential facilities.

Being situated in a country where Wahhabi fundamentalist Islam is a way of life, women students still have adhere to all aspects of attire and other requirements for living in the Kingdom, even while being on campus. But being able to study and conduct research together with male students is at least a small beginning in a country where women are usually completely separated from men; even in an academic study environment.

We suppose it will be interesting to see a woman student, dressed in full Wahhabi dress, tooling along on her Segway on the way to class.

Article by Maurice Picow appearing courtesy of Green Prophet

Related posts:

• Dow Chemical and Saudi Arabia’s KAUST University Vow To Clean Up Environment
• As Saudi Crude Flows to China, U.S. Need for Biofuels Grows
• Gulf Nations’ Social Policies Playing Role in Oil Price Rises, Report Says
• Policy Efficacy: Feed-in Tariff vs. Competitive Bidding
• Shipping Industry Agrees to CO2 Emissions Standards