He has always been drawn to alternative energy and engine technologies. His senior project for his undergraduate degree was a solar powered aircraft, and his graduate work focused on diesel engine combustion and emissions.
After graduate school, he began his career working in a small research lab in Ohio. Quickly he learned that the real action was near Detroit, the heart of the automotive industry, and he joined German engineering services provider IAV. There, he worked on diesel engine development for passenger cars, heavy trucks, and off-road machines and became a manager of a business unit with 25 employees along the way.
At Aramco, he recently worked with a team to build a heavy-duty truck that can capture around 40 percent of the CO2 emissions from its exhaust.
During the Offshore Technology Conference in Houston, Texas, Traver discussed a marine carbon capture feasibility study conducted by his OGCI team and leading tanker shipper Stena Bulk. It showed it is technically feasible to outfit ships with mobile carbon capture systems as the industry looks to find decarbonization pathways.
“We've found a high-level of interest from ship-owners and operators to explore the potential of carbon capture,” said Traver.
The next step will be to carry out a demonstration project to gather data from a real-world application as researchers think about how to scale up the technology and handle the unique characteristics of vessels.
It is the challenge and natural curiosity that drives Traver and others in Aramco's global R&D network.
“Sustainability has become a priority for us as a society and I take great pride in what I do. It's an enormous challenge, and it makes for an absolutely fascinating career," he said.
