Assessment of industry needs for oil shale research and development

Oil shale utilisation losses reach 70% in some cases. These are closely related to legislation, backfilling and waste rock usage. Much smaller sections include production of oil, electricity and chemicals in which most of the research and development is performed today. Current urgent topics for investigating, testing and developing of oil shale mining related questions are backfilling, mechanical extracting of shale, fine separation, selective separation and optimised drilling and blasting. Reducing oil shale losses will be more actual in the future, because the depth of mining increases and the taxes for resource and pollutants are increasing as well.

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The Scottish Research Institutes

Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Section B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1017/s0269727000004280 ◽

1986 ◽

Vol 87 (3-4) ◽

pp. 173-184

Author(s):

L. P. Hamilton

Keyword(s):

Research And Development ◽

Shelf Life ◽

Food Quality ◽

Research Programme ◽

Research Progress ◽

Human Diet ◽

Research Institutes ◽

Social Environmental ◽

Industry Needs

SynopsisThe organisations concerned with agricultural and fisheries research and development in Scotland are outlined and the institutional and funding arrangements are explained. The role of DAFS is presented in an AFRS context and the operation of the customer/contractor principle discussed. The overall objective is to improve the efficiency of plant and animal production in northern Britain, taking account of social, environmental and welfare considerations. Flexibility to respond to changing requirements is an important factor. The remits of the institutes and colleges are set out and are appropriate to the major agricultural sectors. The integrative and collaborative strengths of the commissioned work are illustrated with selected examples of relevance to produce yield, food quality, shelf-life and human diet. Advice on research and development priorities and the allocation of budgets is provided by the new Priorities Board and there is close liaison between DAFS, MAFF and AFRC to ensure co-ordination of effort.Reference is also made to the main elements of the fisheries research programme. Revised review procedures to monitor research progress and respond to changing industry needs are described. The paper concludes by examining the problems arising from reduced funding.

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