The ‘BP Ultimate Field Trip’ is an international competition that challenges students and undergraduates to solve a real world problem - one that will help meet the world’s growing demand for energy safely and responsibly. The team competition, run in five countries: Angola, Canada, Trinidad and Tobago, United Kingdom and the United States, tasked entrants to: “Identify an innovative solution that will significantly reduce energy consumption and be implemented by 2025, with the potential to scale across the energy industry. This could apply anywhere from point of capture to point of sale of energy products, and potentially even create a new product stream.” In 2014, the winning teams from each territory will spend two weeks on an international field trip to BP’s operations in Alaska and Chicago. 

Team Greenergy - a group of UTT Engineering students committed to the application of chemical and process engineering principles as applied to a diverse range of processes, adopted the philosophy of Reduce, Reuse, Re-fuel as they developed a solution of utilising waste CO₂ from a combustion process to improve the efficiency of power generation THEN to create a biofuel. Team Greenergy comprised:

• Shameal Ali - a third year part time BASc Process Engineering student who is currently employed with Trinidad Generation Unlimited, a power generation company;
• Julio Bissessar, AMIChemE -  a Master of Engineering final year Process Engineering Student with a passion for T&T’s Energy Sector; and
• Laura Lewis, AMIChemE, - a final year Master of  Philosophy in Biomedical Engineering student, whose research is centered on the effect of caffeine on insulin-glucose dynamics and its implications for Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.  Laura also holds an Master of Engineering undergraduate degree in Process Engineering from UTT.

This is the second year that the competition was open to Trinidad and Tobago entrants and the first year that UTT was invited to be a part of it. According to Laura Lewis, “I enjoy applying engineering solutions to non-traditional problems, particularly in Health and the Environment. The BP UFT 2014 Challenge is the perfect platform for me, along with my excellent team, to contribute to an issue which is critical on both a national and international scale, because I believe that as Engineers it’s our job to fix problems before they become emergencies.”

Out of five final teams, two were comprised of UTT Students: Team Greenergy and Team Green Phoenix. Team Green Phoenix is a trio of Year 2 Process Engineering Students. The Trinidad and Tobago Finals were held on March 27th at BP’s Albion Plaza and Team Greenergy emerged victorious.

Team Greenergy (from left to right): Shameal Ali, Julio Bissessar, AMIChemE, and Laura Lewis, AMIChemE.