Cutting edge technology with the potential to unlock the secrets of the universe could help other industries, including the natural gas sector, meet the growing global demand for energy.

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, in Geneva, combines state-of-the-art science and engineering. Its revolutionary cryogenics system has been designed to keep the machine at a temperature so close to absolute zero that it can operate in a superconductive state.

Now similar technologies are being considered for use in both the energy and electrical power industries.

Dr Philippe Lebrun, who led CERN’s Accelerator Technology Department for the construction of the LHC, has today been revealed as one of speakers at Gastech’s CoTEs seminars. He will talk about the cryogenic technology at the heart of the system, and several projects that are following this trend.

He said, “While the work we are doing is very exotic and has not yet fully invaded the field of energy, there is the potential in the longer-term for it to be applied more to the mainstream. There is, for example, a link with liquefied natural gas (LNG) in that we share a number of technologies used for the liquefaction and distillation processes, as well as for the construction of LNG tankers.”

Tags: Gastech 2012