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The M.S. Degree provides students with both a thesis and non-thesis option.
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The Ph.D. Degree is offered exclusively as a full-time program.
DATE: Tuesday, October 26, 2021
TIME: 03:00 PM - 05:00 PM
LOCATION:Zoom link: https://kaust.zoom.us/j/97352129718
Zoom link: https://kaust.zoom.us/j/97352129718
ABSTRACT: The demand for renewable energy resources has become increasingly urgent due to global warming and related environmental issues. Renewable energy systems require an energy storage solution because they are intermittent in nature. Among various alternatives, rechargeable aqueous zinc ion batteries (RAZIBs) with merits of cost-effectiveness, high safety, and environment-friendliness attracted great promise for grid-scale energy storage. Inspired by these merits, great efforts have been devoted to designing and fabricating Zn-based energy storage devices. However, the suitable cathode materials for RAZIBs and the details of the Zn2+ storage mechanism and have not been fully understood. Several methods have been proposed to tackle the issues for both at the cathode and anode side of the ZIB in this dissertation, including cathode structure engineering, interlayer strategy, and zinc anode protection.
DATE: Wednesday, October 27, 2021
TIME: 04:30 PM - 05:30 PM
LOCATION:KAUST, WEBINAR VIA ZOOM
ZOOM WEBINAR PRESENTATION
Check your email for the Zoom registration link. Join the webinar using your full name in order to register your attendance.Abstract: The increasing reliance of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar is a key component in the energy transition to a net-zero, carbon-free economy. Supplanting traditionally reliable energy sources such as coal, oil-and-gas, and nuclear with distributed renewable systems creates uncertainty the security of energy supply and deliverability on which the Nation depends. Underground energy storage can help to mitigate this issue through the use of gas storage in geologic traps and engineered salt caverns. Economically and socially critical gases already in underground storage include natural gas, CO2, compressed air, natural-gas liquids such as propane and ethane, and, increasingly hydrogen, along with crude oil in the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Maintaining storage containment and mitigating migration of energy-related products out of the storage zone into groundwater systems, the ground surface, or the atmosphere requires both increased technical understanding and increased public awareness of the benefits and safety of underground storage systems.In this presentation we provide an overview of the drivers for underground storage of natural gas, hydrocarbons, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, thermal energy, compressed energy, and nuclear waste in the subsurface and explore opportunities for improved characterization, lab testing, monitoring, risk analysis, and identification of key learnings and future opportunities.Biography: A geomechanicist by training, Richard A. Schultz works to advance underground energy storage and the energy transition toward a low-carbon energy future. Currently the owner of Orion Geomechanics LLC of Cypress, Texas, he was Senior Research Scientist at The University of Texas at Austin, Principal Geomechanicist with ConocoPhillips, and Foundation Professor of Geological Engineering and Geomechanics with the University of Nevada, Reno. He has published more than 115 research papers, 5 edited volumes, 15 chapters in books or edited volumes, and delivered more than 350 presentations to academia and industry worldwide including 94 invited; his book Geologic Fracture Mechanics was published by Cambridge University Press. Dr. Schultz is a member of the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission (IOGCC), the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD), the nonprofit resource BoardSource, a Fellow of the Geological Society of America, and a licensed Professional Geologist in the State of Texas. He serves on ARMA's Board of Directors, is the Founding Chair of its Technical Committee on Underground Storage and Utilization and its Distinguished Service Award Committee.www.raschultzunr.net
DATE: Thursday, October 28, 2021
TIME: 12:00 AM - 11:00 PM
LOCATION:KAUST Campus
DATE: Wednesday, November 03, 2021
Check your email for the Zoom registration link. Join the webinar using your full name in order to register your attendance.Abstract: Geological storage of CO2 in saline aquifers is a desirable measure to slow down and mitigate the trend of global warming, in terms of storage potential, cost and permanency. This talk introduces our systematic experimental and numerical simulation approaches to investigate the CO2 plume migration, trapping mechanisms and storage security. The effects of methane impurities, topography, reservoir architecture and mineralogy on the CO2 plume migration and trapping have been investigated. The results are of great significance on the predictions of short-term plume migration and long-term reservoir quality evolution and storage mechanisms, as well as on the storage site selections. Biography: Peng Lu is currently a Geological Specialist at EXPEC Advanced Research Center, Saudi Aramco and the Leader of Geology Technology Team of Beijing Research Center, Aramco Asia. He received his Ph.D. degree in geochemistry from Indiana University, U.S.A. His research focuses on integrating field observations, experimental and numerical modeling approaches to investigate the underlying processes and mechanisms of gas-water-rock-interactions, which are pertinent to many urgent energy and environmental problems, such as reservoir quality prediction of petroleum reservoirs, geological carbon storage, toxic metal contaminations and water quality. He led the development of carbonate and clastic diagenesis modeling software (CarbGen and ClastGen) and a toolbox to seamless couple forward depositional modeling with diagenetic modeling. He received the 2021 Kharaka Award from International Association of GeoChemistry (IAGC), EXPEC Advanced Research Center Awards in 2019 - 2021 and AAPG ACE 2017 Top Presentations Award. He was a finalist for Best Exploration Technology Award – World Oil Awards in 2017. Dr. Lu has more than 40 referred journal publications with a total citation of 1500+ and an H-index of 19, according to Google Scholar. He holds 8 U.S. patents and has additional 12 U.S. patent applications.
DATE: Thursday, November 04, 2021
TIME: 05:00 PM - 06:00 PM
LOCATION:Auditorium between Building 4 & 5
In the early 21st century, oil and gas production in the U.S. was conjectured to be in terminal-irreversible decline. But, thanks to the advancement of hydraulic fracturing technologies over the last decade, operators are now able to produce two-thirds of U.S. oil and gas output from almost impermeable shale formations. Despite the enormous success of the 'shale revolution', there are still debates about how long shale production will last and if there will be enough to subsidize a meaningful transition to 'greener' power sources. Most official pronouncements of shale oil and gas reserves are based on purely empirical curve-fitting approaches or geological volumetric calculations that tend to largely overestimate the actual reserves. As an alternative to these industry-standard forecasting methods, we propose a more reliable, 'transparent', physics-guided and data-driven approach to estimating future production rates of oil and gas in shales. Our physics-based scaling method captures all essential physics of hydrocarbon production and hydrofracture geometry, yet it is as simple as the industry-favored Decline Curve Analysis (DCA), so that most engineers can adopt it. We also demonstrate that our method is as accurate as other analytical methods and has the same predictive power as commercial reservoir simulators but with less data required and significantly faster computational time. To capture the uncertainties of play-wide production, we combine physical scaling with the Generalized Extreme Value (GEV) statistics. So far, we have implemented this method to nearly half a million wells from all major U.S. shale plays. Since the results of our analyses are not subject to bias, policy-makers ought not to assume that the shale production boom will last for centuries.
Zoom Link:
:https://kaust.zoom.us/j/91729166919
DATE: Thursday, November 11, 2021
DATE: Thursday, November 25, 2021
DATE: Thursday, December 02, 2021
