It is widely accepted that China is the engine for worldwide economic recovery. But as the country continues to post staggering economic growth figures, its hunger for the commodity without which no engine can function - fuel - is becoming ever more apparent.

Guaranteeing a long-term and stable supply of oil is China's paramount consideration for safeguarding national economic security. Alongside oil, however, is another crucial component of China's enduring potency: coal.

China will need to burn coal in quite staggering quantities if it is to sustain its economic ascent during the decades ahead. And to do that without irreparably damaging the environment it will have to employ technology designed to arrest the rising CO2 levels that bring about global warming - specifically, carbon capture and storage (CCS).

In 2006, almost all the new power plants built in China were coal-fired, so as to keep pace with spiraling industrial output and the domestic construction industry's demand for building materials. However, this trend cannot be maintained without effective abatement measures, the nation's CO2 emissions from coal-fired power stations are expected to double by 2030. The UK and China have, in recent years, built up highly productive relationships in the field of CSS. British scientists are already supporting a three-stage project, funded by the European Union and the UK's Department for Energy and Climate Change, to run a full-scale CCS demonstration in China by 2020.

Our decision to launch the National Centre for Carbon Capture and Storage in China at the Shanghai Expo was therefore not a difficult one. The findings of UK-China collaborative projects, such as COACH (Cooperation Action within Carbon Capture and Storage China-EU) and NZEC (Near Zero Emissions from Coal), have highlighted the potential of CSS in China.

Both projects looked at the potential for geological storage of CO2 in parts of Northeast China where the coal power generation capacity is increasing at an amazing rate. They found that China's saline aquifers offer the potential for very large amounts of storage between 70 and 700 gigatonnes over one particular region to the north of Beijing.