NAPENews Magazine June 2022 Edition

ENERGY TRANSITION AND
TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENTS
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURISTIC TRENDS:
THE PLACE OF GEOSCIENTISTS
"Oil and gas have given us advantageous gains
in terms of wealth creation, socio-economic
impact, improving quality of life and opportunities
to travel but sadly, it has also brought a high
carbon intensity in our lives. Owing to this fact,
every one of us has some role to play in the
decarbonizing industry and the energy transition,
in which oil and gas play an integral part", said
AAPG Member John R. Underhill, Professor of
Exploration Geoscience at Heriot-Watt
University in Edinburgh, Scotland.
The industrial revolution was initially fuelled by
coal and the subsequent development of modern
society underpinned by oil and gas, which led to
unprecedented economic growth and a rise in the
quality of life. Still, it has also come at the cost of
creating a carbon-intensive economy. Some
countries have made significant strides to
decarbonize the electricity sector with renewable
sources superseding coal. There has been a
drive toward hybrid and battery power replacing
petrol and diesel vehicles. Doing so leads to an
increased demand for a suite of raw materials
(e.g., minerals and rare earth elements) for the
batteries to store the energy. There is a similar
need for these raw materials in the construction
of solar panels and wind turbines in power
generation. Yet, more are required for
smartphones and other applications.
Given that demand cannot be met through
existing operations or recycling of materials
currently in circulation, there is a need to identify
new sources of critical elements, metals and
minerals. Some estimates suggest that the
demand for metals like lithium will lead to a fiveto-ten-fold
increase in production. The intensity
of operations will mean extraction issues will
have to be addressed if sustainable mining is
achievable.
The challenge before us is to decarbonize,
reduce greenhouse emissions and tackle climate
change while simultaneously alleviating fuel
poverty, meeting the energy needs of global
population growth, and maintaining a prosperous
society that ensures equity for all nations.
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE AGE OF
ENERGY TRANSITION
Geoscience has long been understood as part of
the solution to decarbonization. A paper in
Science magazine,'Stabilization wedges:
Solving the climate problem for the next 50 years
with current technologies' by Pacala&Socolow
(2004), established the critical concept which
could use several complementary technological
fixes and behavioral changes to bring about
reduction of emissions to a size that can make a
difference for climate change. Pacala & Socolow
(2004) argued that the climate problem could be
solved with presently proven technology and by
being less wasteful of energy.
Some of the emerging trends for geoscience in
the age of decarbonization (based on
Stephenson et al. 2019) are:
1. Energy storage for economies dominated by
renewable energy systems, including
thermal storage, compressed air storage
and hydroelectric dam storage.
2. Carbon capture and storage (CCS),
encompassing both CCS for net-zero
emission industries and as a vehicle for
enabling negative emissions pathways.
3. Sourcing raw materials (metals and rareearth
elements) to support the rapidly
growing solar and wind power sectors and
the associated demand for electrical
batteries and power transmission systems.
4. The hydrogen economy, where water
electrolysis or methane reforming is used to
drive a new 'green-molecule' economy.
5. Nuclear energy, where geological disposal
facilities for radioactive waste are
successfully deployed to make existing and
future nuclear power genuinely sustainable.
Several of the wedges in Pacala&Socolow (2004)
have a geoscience aspect, including the
geological controls on nuclear waste disposal in
increased nuclear scenarios and the increased
supply of gas to allow a switch of power
generation from coal to gas in thermal power
stations.
Perhaps, the purest geological solution in their
wedge concept was carbon capture and storage
(CCS) – suggesting that if it were applied to coal
power stations totalling 800 GW capacity (about
200 large coal power stations) and the CO2 was
stored underground, then this would achieve a
wedge of emission abatement. Moving on 17
years from Pacala&Socolow (2004), the range of
decarbonization solutions has increased, and the
commitment made by nations towards reducing
emissions has become more robust.
G E O S C I E N T I S T S I N T H E E N E R G Y
TRANSITION ERA
The future for a petroleum geoscientist might
seem more uncertain these days as the transition
to cleaner energy begins. Fewer students have
their ambitions set on oil and gas careers, and
industry professionals are beginning to question
how their knowledge and skills will fit into a world
of new energies. Many universities have
reviewed their undergraduate and Master's
(MSc) programs to see if they are fit for their
purpose. There is now an increasing awareness
of the need to blend traditional strengths in the
classroom, lab-based, and fieldwork with new
technologies like virtual reality and novel
teaching practices, something that has been an
unforeseen benefit of Covid-19 and the drive for
online learning in the absence of residential
opportunities.
What will energy-transition geoscience look
like?
Will there be a job for me as a practicing
geoscientist?
What happens to the previous skills learned?
How can our current developments meet the
demand for the energy transition?
These, amongst others, are the challenging
questions for the current generation of
geoscientists, particularly those working in the
extractive industries.
Now, with over two decades of the 21st century
behind us, the drive for a more sustainable
approach to geoscience, and particularly the
Earth-resource industries, is paramount, and the
urgency of responding to the climate-change
challenge is the dominant Earth-science
question. The energy transition is upon us – how
do we respond?
A new appreciation of the critical issues
associated with the energy transition and netzero
have led to a change in teaching and
learning content and methods to assess,
accurately image, characterize, parameterize
and quantify the subsurface. Where courses
have been found wanting, or the number of
students have declined to unsustainable levels,
universities are revamping them, and poor
rehabilitation of geoscience curriculum that's not
regulated among the professional bodies. Most
notably, this has led some institutions to drop
petroleum-related courses from their portfolio
and others to re-evaluate what constitutes the
essential parts of their studies.
In the United Kingdom, the Geological Society of
London (GSL) has similarly been examining the
issues and sought to articulate the place of
geoscience in addressing the key global
challenges. Their work shows how the role and
career pathway of the geoscientist map onto the
UN Sustainability Goals, describing career
pathways that contribute to making the energy
transition a reality (see Figure 1).
In a Low-Carbon future, apart from the
knowledge of the subsurface, geoscientists'
unique qualities and skill sets are highly
NAPENEWS JUNE 2022 20