Abandoned oil fields in Bohai Bay or the southern marine areas may be used to store carbon dioxide captured from the atmosphere in a Sino-European project to reduce greenhouse gases.

In an exclusive interview with China Daily, Janez Potocnik the European Commissioner in Charge of Research, said the Near Zero Emissions Coal Project, launched by the governments of China and EU countries in 2006, is now almost at the end of the first phase of research and moving toward the second and third phases of preparation and implementation. It aims to build a coal power plant that emits almost no carbon dioxide by 2015.

The carbon dioxide it emits will be captured and stored underground.

Scientists are in the process of finding a location for the plant, it has to be a place where there is enough space to store carbon dioxide. They think abandoned oil fields a good choice, Potocnik said on the sidelines of the two-day Forum on Climate Change and Science & Technology Innovation, which opened yesterday.

The construction of the power plant is one of about 350 projects of joint scientific research and development that Europe and China have launched since 2002, one-third of which deal with climate change, Potocnik said.

"We are cooperating with China on a range of energy solutions to fight climate change, from nuclear energy to renewable energies," he said.

In another move, the EU is proposing to China that it extend their collaboration in nuclear fusion research beyond the ongoing International Thermonuclear Energy Reactor project, Potocnik said.

The project involves US, Japan, Korea, India, the EU and China. It aims to develop a viable fusion power reactor.

(China Daily April 25, 2008)