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Training carbon management engineers: Removing a major hurdle for geologic CO2 storage by increasing educational capacity
International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 4 (2010) 434–440
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International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijggc
Training carbon management engineers: Removing a major hurdle for geologic CO2 storage by increasing educational capacity Steven L. Bryant *, Jon E. Olson Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, United States
A R T I C L E I N F O
A B S T R A C T
Article history: Received 17 April 2009 Received in revised form 26 October 2009 Accepted 27 October 2009 Available online 1 December 2009
Implementing geologic storage of CO2 at a material scale (ca. 1 Gt C/year) will require an industry comparable in size to the current oil and gas industry and a workforce trained in subsurface engineering. Since the same technologies that apply to hydrocarbon production apply to the subsurface storage of CO2, petroleum engineering (PE) graduates will be valuable candidates to work in the carbon storage industry. We expect however that the demand for PEs from the oil and gas industry will increase, and that already strained educational capacity will not be sufficient to supply both industries. Thus we advocate building new targeted educational infrastructure. We present a model curriculum based on an existing accredited multidisciplinary degree program. This program combines the fundamentals of petroleum engineering with the subsurface architecture emphasis of geology and the environmental perspective of hydrogeology. We indicate key elements of this program that could be integrated with other, more traditional undergraduate engineering majors that also deal with the subsurface. ß 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Education Petroleum engineering Geologic storage Carbon sequestration
1. Introduction Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is one of the several technologies needed for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. Substantive mitigation will require geologic CO2 storage (GCS) at rates of magnitude 1 Gt C/year (=3.7 109 metric tons CO2 per year) by the middle of this century (Pacala and Socolow, 2004). At conditions typical of deep saline aquifers in which much of this CO2 will be stored (depths 1.5 km, 50 8C, 15 MPa fluid pressures), the density of pure CO2 is 630 kg/m3, and this storage rate corresponds to a volumetric rate of 100 million barrels per day. This rate is comparable to the current global rate of oil production, a good indication of the magnitude of the infrastructure and industry that will be needed (Orr, 2004; Bryant, 2007). GCS will involve hundreds, perhaps thousands of projects, and tens of thousands of injection wells. For reference, nearly one million oil and gas wells are presently producing in the US (EIA, 2009). Thus the scale of operation needed for GCS is large but appears attainable, at least if a few decades are available for implementation. The preceding assessment of feasibility leaves out an important factor: a skilled workforce will be needed to implement GCS. The
* Corresponding author at: Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station C0300, Austin, TX 787120228, United States. Tel.: +1 512 471 3250; fax: +1 512 471 9605. E-mail address: [email protected] (S.L. Bryant). 1750-5836/$ – see front matter ß 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijggc.2009.10.013
activities of designing, permitting, constructing, operating, optimizing, maintaining, monitoring, regulating and abandoning a geologic storage site will require engineers and scientists specifically trained in disciplines dealing with the deep subsurface. One such discipline is petroleum engineering. Indeed, to date only oil companies have carried out GCS at large scale and for long periods of time. However, as we argue in more detail below, it is unlikely that educational capacity (measured by number of BS graduates per year) in petroleum engineering will be sufficient to meet the needs of a GCS industry. Currently only 18 accredited PE programs exist at universities in the United States (EAC, 2009). Related disciplines such as civil engineering and geological sciences have greater capacity (for instance, the EAC lists 224 accredited civil engineering programs in the United States; EAC, 2009), but a typical BS program in these fields does not require and often does not offer courses in subjects critical to GCS. These considerations raise the prospect of a shortage of ‘‘carbon management engineers’’ when the number of GCS projects becomes significant. This would limit the rate at which mitigation by CCS could be achieved, even if other constraints (legal, technical, financial, etc.) were eliminated. In this paper we propose to prevent this limitation by introducing a curriculum that would attract and educate students specifically for GCS. We illustrate with a model based on an existing undergraduate degree program at The University of Texas at Austin, primarily because adapting an existing program greatly speeds up the process. Because other disciplines can contribute and will be needed, we also indicate how
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Table 1 Engineering and science professionals employed in oil and gas extraction industry, May 2008. Discipline
Number
Petroleum engineers Geoscientists, except hydrologists and geographers Engineers, all other Industrial engineers Mining and geological engineers, including mining safety engineers Mechanical engineers Civil engineers Environmental scientists and specialists, including health Environmental engineers Health and safety engineers, except mining safety engineers and inspectors Electrical engineers Physicists
8130 5810 2610 1160 990 470 420 250 180 100 40 40
Source: US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, ‘‘Occupational Employment Statistics: National Cross-Industry estimates and National 3-digit NAICS Industry-Specific estimates, May 2008’’, http://www.bls.gov/oes/oes_dl.htm, downloaded 24 October (2009).
key elements of the proposed program could be integrated into more traditional undergraduate degree programs. 2. Role of petroleum engineering in GCS Storage of CO2 in sedimentary rocks has an important advantage over other technologies of greenhouse gas mitigation. The oil and gas industry has decades of experience of injecting large volumes of fluids into such rocks. Thus, know-how and hardware for storage are available ‘‘off-the-shelf’’ and have been proven at the relevant scale. Demonstration of long-term storage, as opposed to injection for enhanced oil recovery, is still underway, but the tools for the job are at hand. Occupational data from 2008 (Table 1; US Dept. of Labor – BLS, 2009) shows that in oil and gas extraction, petroleum engineers represent the largest fraction of engineering and science professionals carrying out that work. Moreover, the skill sets and know-how needed for a geologic storage site are very similar to those for conventional petroleum exploration and production activities. Students graduating with petroleum engineering (PE) degrees are thus obvious candidates for working in the GCS industry. They will not be the only engineering candidates, as students from related disciplines (environmental, civil, and geological engineering) will also have been exposed to topics important to GCS, such as fluid flow in the deep subsurface. We focus upon PEs because a typical graduate will have been required to take the largest number and widest range of courses relevant to GCS.
Fig. 1. Average productivity of oil wells and gas wells in the US.Source: US Energy Information Agency. http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/txt/ptb0405.html, downloaded 20 October 2009.
decades, the same period during which GCS needs to be implemented. In addition to workforce demands driven by expanding job opportunities, consider the demographic profile of the US oil and gas industry. According to data from the US Department of Labor, nearly half the personnel in the industry are eligible to retire in less than 10 years, and a very small fraction of the personnel are between the ages of 30 and 40 (NPC, 2007; US Dept. of Labor 2007). This will reinforce the demand for PEs in the US in the next 10–20 years. Another reason for an increasing demand for engineers in oil and gas production (in mature provinces such as North America) is the very large number of wells with small average productivity. Fig. 1 shows that the average productivity of oil and gas wells in the US increased steadily until the early 1970s. Oil well productivity declined steadily since then, while gas well productivity dropped rapidly, then flattened during the 1980s and 1990s, and dropped slowly since 2000. Consequently, the effort to maintain production leads to more wells being operated and more wells being drilled (Figs. 2 and 3). The number of wells drilled is also a strong function of the price, or expected price, for oil and gas; this accounts for the peak in oil wells drilled between 1975 and 1985. There can also be a substantial lag between the drilling of a well and the onset of production from that well, particularly for oil. Nevertheless, longer term trends are evident. The rapid increase in drilling for gas in the US since the late 1990s reflects the development of unconventional gas reserves. This is typical of a mature oil and gas province, where continued production will depend increasingly upon ‘‘low-mobility
3. Anticipated demand for petroleum engineering graduates Demand for oil and gas has risen steadily during the last 50 years, slowing or declining only during economic downturns. There is little prospect for declining demand in the coming decades, given projected population trends and the essential role of oil and gas in the transportation and power sectors. Thus the need for petroleum engineers in the oil and gas exploration and production sector is unlikely to decrease. The trends in oil and gas production and employment in the US are a useful indicator of demand for PEs. One reason is that the US is among the top three countries in each category of oil production, gas production and CO2 emissions (BP, 2009; EIA, 2009). The needs for subsurface engineers in GCS and in oil and gas production will thus be additive in the US. Moreover the production trends in the US will be replayed elsewhere in the world as other oil and gas provinces mature. This evolution will occur over the next few
Fig. 2. Number of gas wells drilled and number of producing gas wells in the US.Source: EIA (2008a).
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Fig. 3. Number of oil wells drilled and number of producing oil wells in the US.Source: EIA (2008b). Fig. 5. The global combined oil and gas production rate has risen steadily for the last 20 years (Source: BP, 2009). The production increase was obtained with a constant number of drilling rigs operating worldwide between 1990 and 2000, but in the last decade the number of operating rigs has increased. Source: Baker Hughes International Rig Count. Downloaded 24 October 2009 from http://investor. shareholder.com/bhi/rig_counts/rc_index.cfm.
Fig. 4. Because an increasing share of production is coming from ‘‘low-mobility’’ resources, more petroleum engineers are being employed in the oil and gas extraction industry in the US to produce a given amount of oil and gas. Employment data from US Bureau of Labor Statistics (2009); production data from US EIA (2008a,b).
resources’’: heavy oil and tar sands, tight gas sandstones and shale gas. Many more wells are required to extract hydrocarbons at commercial rates from these reservoirs, increasing the workload and demand for PEs. Fig. 4 shows that the number of PEs employed to produce a unit of hydrocarbon (one million barrels of oil equivalent, the weighted sum of oil and gas production) in the US increased during the last decade, the same period as the increase in exploitation of unconventional gas reservoirs. Much of the rest of the world has not yet entered the mature phase of oil and gas production. But global production statistics are beginning to show evidence of production and drilling trends similar to those in the US (Fig. 5). The number of operating rigs began to increase around 2000, long before the recent increases in oil price. Moreover an increasing number of oil producing countries are creating degree programs in petroleum engineering, as companies seek to staff operations with local citizens (Swartz, 2008). In summary, due to increasing industry activity and accelerating workforce retirements, the National Petroleum Council in 2007 stated that the petroleum workforce must be replenished and rapidly trained in order to avoid ‘‘a severe human resource challenge’’ (NPC, 2007). We therefore conclude that graduates in petroleum engineering, who would be valuable in the GCS industry, will simultaneously be in strong demand in the oil and gas industry.
Fig. 6. Engineering occupational data from the US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics (2009), depicting numbers employed and mean salaries for petroleum engineers and all engineering fields combined.
4. Constraints of educational capacity The demand for PEs within the US oil and gas industry is overtaxing the capacity of US universities. According to the US Department of Labor (BLS, 2009), companies involved in oil and gas extraction (i.e., petroleum exploration and production) employed approximately 140,000 workers in 2008, of whom 14,100 are engineers. Of the engineers, the largest fraction is petroleum engineers, at 8130 employed. Fig. 6 depicts occupational data from the last 12 years which have been normalized to 1999 levels, indicating that the growth rate in employment and salary for petroleum engineers is outstripping the average for all engineers combined. Employment of petroleum engineers more than doubled from 1999 to 2008, while employment for all engineering fields combined increased by a more modest factor of 1.4. Another strong indicator of demand is that during the entire period analyzed (1997–2008), petroleum engineers were the highest paid of all engineering disciplines by a substantial margin. In 2008 (Table 2; US Department of Labor, BLS, 2009), the average petroleum engineering salary was 20% higher than the next highest
S.L. Bryant, J.E. Olson / International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 4 (2010) 434–440 Table 2 US Employment and Salary Data for Engineers in All Industries, May 2008. Engineering discipline
# Employed
Mean salary, US $
Petroleum engineers Computer hardware engineers Nuclear engineers Aerospace engineers Engineers, all other Chemical engineers Electronics engineers, except computer Electrical engineers Materials engineers Biomedical engineers Mining and geological engineers, including mining safety engineers Civil engineers Mechanical engineers Environmental engineers Marine engineers and naval architects Industrial engineers Health and safety engineers, except mining safety engineers and inspectors Agricultural engineers
20,880 73,370 16,640 67,800 169,240 30,970 139,930 154,670 24,160 15,220 6,900
$119,140 $100,180 $99,750 $93,980 $89,080 $88,760 $88,670 $85,350 $84,200 $81,120 $79,910
261,360 233,610 52,590 6,480 214,580 25,190
$78,560 $78,200 $77,970 $77,920 $75,740 $73,830
2,640
$72,850
Source: US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, ‘‘Occupational Employment Statistics: National Cross-Industry estimates and National 3-digit NAICS Industry-Specific estimates, May 2008’’, http://www.bls.gov/oes/oes_dl.htm, downloaded 24 October, 2009.
Fig. 7. US undergraduate petroleum engineering enrollment and student/faculty ratio data (US Petroleum Engineering Department Heads, 2009).
field, and almost 40% higher than the mean salary among engineering disciplines of $85,000. Given these statistics, it is not surprising that undergraduate enrollment in petroleum engineering has recently ballooned as well (Fig. 7), from 1742 undergraduates nationwide in 1999 to 4199 undergraduates in 2009 (US PE Department Heads, 2009). As indicated by the dramatically increasing student to faculty ratios, faculty hiring has not kept up with increasing student enrollment, and petroleum engineering programs in the US are operating at or above capacity, with student to faculty ratios well above the average in other engineering departments. For example, at the University of Texas at Austin, Petroleum Engineering has a student to faculty ratio of 29, while the mean ratio for the engineering school is 20 (UTAustin OIMA, 2009). Demand for still more PE graduates is certain in the near future and very likely for the next couple of decades. PE departments will have to expand simply to produce enough graduates for the exploration and production industry. In this context, educating
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similar numbers of students for a geologic CO2 storage industry is not feasible without new capacity, from classrooms to instructors. Simply redirecting some of the existing PE capacity toward carbon management engineering is not a practical proposal: neither the carbon management industry nor the exploration and production industry would have enough engineers. And although petroleum engineering training is a good foundation for carbon management engineering education, students could be better served with a distinct and separate curriculum that focused on the unique combination of chemical, geological, economic and public policy circumstances they will encounter. 5. A model curriculum for carbon management engineers What would a dedicated carbon management curriculum look like? GCS will involve projects that require secure and verifiable transport of fluids between the biosphere and the deep subsurface (>1 km depth) at a scale comparable to the oil and gas industry. Thus beyond the requisite basic science and math common to all engineering, the curriculum will need to draw from petroleum, chemical, and geological engineering, as well as geology, geophysics, and hydrogeology. A solid understanding of geologic principles is key to any subsurface endeavor. The practitioner must appreciate the potential for heterogeneity and the reality of data-poor analysis involved with subsurface projects. Since stored CO2 is intended to endure tens of thousands of years, the study of petroleum geology and hydrogeology can give the perspective of natural fluid movements through reservoirs and the effectiveness of seals over geologic timespans in various geologic settings. Geology can also provide the needed perspective on the science of climate change through the study of historical climate variations, as well as the technology of monitoring present day atmospheric and oceanic compositional and temperature trends. Knowledge of the chemistry and thermodynamics of the water–CO2 and water–CO2– hydrocarbon system is required to properly determine the storage capacity of saline aquifers and depleted hydrocarbon reservoirs. Principles governing subsurface injection and transport are needed to design injection programs and to test long-term phase stability and movement, while production engineering and drilling expertise are required to put reservoir models into practice. The monitoring of long-term storage will require skills in well-logging techniques, tracers and remote geophysical methods. Knowledge of the science of carbon capture will be beneficial to round out a carbon management engineer’s technical education, although this part of the process will probably be carried out by a separate engineering group coming out of chemical engineering. Additional educational topics could include the study of public policy, climate change science and politics, and economics. Given the scale and breadth of the GCS, it is clear that no one discipline can perform all the tasks required for a successful project—like many operations, it will require interdisciplinary teams. US Department of Labor data (BLS, 2009), Table 1 show that a broad range of professionals – a wide variety of engineers, geoscientists, and even physicists – work in oil and gas extraction. Yet petroleum engineers are clearly the most numerous discipline working in oil and gas extraction. Given the analogy between the technical processes involved in GCS and in oil and gas exploration and production, a petroleum engineering curriculum is a good starting point for a carbon management engineering (CME) curriculum. It is not the only starting point, as other engineering disciplines also involve the subsurface. But PE departments have long, routine experience in subjects that tend to be rare or highly specialized in non-petroleum-related fields of study. This experience can provide insight into how a carbon management engineering curriculum could be organized in other disciplines.
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Any discussion of engineering curriculum requires reference to the definitions of the different engineering disciplines as provided by the US Engineering Accreditation Commission (EAC), a part of ABET, Inc. The program criteria for petroleum engineering, which all accredited PE programs must satisfy, has the following statement about curriculum (EAC, 2007): The program must demonstrate that graduates have competency in: mathematics through differential equations, probability and statistics, fluid mechanics, strength of materials, and thermodynamics; design and analysis of well systems and procedures for drilling and completing wells; characterization and evaluation of subsurface geological formations and their resources using geoscientific and engineering methods; design and analysis of systems for producing, injecting, and handling fluids; application of reservoir engineering principles and practices for optimizing resource development and management; use of project economics and resource evaluation methods for design and decision making under conditions of risk and uncertainty. No other engineering discipline is so comprehensively tasked to deal with all aspects of subsurface engineering related to fluid injection, extraction and handling, as well as subsurface formation and fluid characterization. The closest curriculum requirements are in geological engineering, whose program criteria include similar basic math and science preparation, more extensive geomechanics and geology, but less specific well system and fluid handling coverage (EAC, 2007): The program must demonstrate that graduates have: 1. the ability to apply mathematics including differential equations, calculus-based physics, and chemistry, to geological engineering problems; 2. proficiency in geological science topics that emphasize geologic processes and the identification of minerals and rocks; 3. the ability to visualize and solve geological problems in three and four dimensions; 4. proficiency in the engineering sciences including statics, properties/strength of materials, and geomechanics; 5. the ability to apply principles of geology, elements of geophysics, geological and engineering field methods; and 6. engineering knowledge to design solutions to geological engineering problems, which will include one or more of the following considerations: the distribution of physical and chemical properties of earth materials, including surface water, ground water (hydrogeology), and fluid hydrocarbons; the effects of surface and near-surface natural processes; the impacts of construction projects; the impacts of exploration, development, and extraction of natural resources, and consequent remediation; disposal of wastes; and other activities of society on these materials and processes, as appropriate to the program objectives. The diversity and fluidity of an emerging, multidisciplinary specialty like carbon management engineering (CME) suggest that it would thrive as part of the undergraduate program at a major research university with strong programs in the geosciences, engineering and public policy. To address the staffing needs that are likely to arise in GCS, modifying existing programs or creating new programs in established departments that have faculty with the appropriate expertise seems most viable. This can be most readily accomplished in association with petroleum engineering departments, but departments that offer geological engineering degrees may also be able to cover the required breadth of topics with the addition of new faculty with petroleum drilling,
completion and production expertise. Although geological engineering programs are often part of or associated with civil engineering departments (for instance, at the University of Minnesota), standard civil engineering programs typically do not require the extent of geologic characterization nor of well construction topics that are necessary for GCS. Civil engineering students could cover some of the required topics via electives, but including all the necessary topics and still meeting the general requirements for civil engineering would be difficult in a 4-year program. An alternative is to establish a degree plan where the core topics are required. We propose a curriculum modeled after an existing, interdisciplinary degree plan at The University of Texas at Austin called ‘‘Geosystems Engineering and Hydrogeology’’ (GEH), offered jointly by the Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering Department and the Department of Geological Sciences. We discuss the GEH program here to demonstrate that it is possible to establish an interdisciplinary engineering program and gain ABET accreditation. The GEH degree is ABET accredited under the Geological Engineering category, and includes 23 semester credit hours of geological sciences, 10 h of hydrology and hydrogeology, and 22 h of petroleum engineering, plus the other requisite science, engineering science and liberal arts requirements. The petroleum engineering degree at The University of Texas at Austin, in contrast, requires only nine semester credit hours of geological sciences but 39 h of petroleum engineering. The interdisciplinary GEH program was designed to produce an undergraduate level engineer who is expert in all aspects of subsurface fluid flow, from petroleum reservoirs to aquifers, and we anticipated those engineers to pursue a career in the petroleum or hydrology/environmental fields. That has largely been the case after 10 years and 41 graduates (UT-Austin OIMA, 2009). The approach of a carbon-constrained economy presents an opportunity to redesign the GEH degree program to be better suited for the GCS industry. The main difficulty is fitting the desired components of the curriculum into a program that can be completed in 4 years. The alternative of a 5-year undergraduate degree is unlikely to be well received by the college-bound US student population. Students interested in that level of education tend to complete a 4-year undergraduate degree, then pursue a 2 year master’s degree program. While a graduate program in carbon management is also useful – several universities around the world have already implemented them – much of the work in GCS will be done by BS graduates, just as in the oil and gas industry. We have divided the curriculum into six parts, I – University Core Curriculum, II – Basic Math and Science, III – Engineering Science, IV – Geological Sciences, V – Petroleum Engineering, and VI – Other Requirements. Table 3 enumerates the semester credit hours for three existing UT-Austin degree plans (UT-Austin, 2008– 2010 Undergraduate Catalog) – the Hydrogeology Option within the Geological Sciences degree (GEO/Hydro), the interdisciplinary GEH degree, and the PE degree – plus the proposed CME curriculum. Although the proposal is based on the UT catalog of courses, any university offering both geological sciences and petroleum engineering degrees should be able to adapt readily the proposed curriculum. First, it is apparent that there is a substantial difference in the basic requirements between engineering and science. The existing GEH and PE degrees require between 18 and 21 h of engineering science topics, but the GEO/Hydro degree does not have comparable requirements. These engineering fundamentals are prerequisites to much of the upper division engineering curriculum, so they are an essential part of our proposed CME curriculum. The geology requirements in the CME curriculum are lesser than in GEH and comparable to those in petroleum engineering. However, we have expanded beyond the petroleum engineering requirements by
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Table 3 Curriculum modeled after institutional requirements at UT-Austin. Curriculum content
Geo/Hydroa
GEHa
PEa
CME
I. University core curriculum (rhetoric, literature, social science, history, etc.) Subtotal 28
24
24
24
II. Basic math and science Calculus and differential equations Chemistry Calculus-based physics Biology
12 8 8 3
12 6 8 0
12 6 8 0
12 6 8 0
31
26
26
26
0 0 0 0 0 0
3 6 3 3 0 3
3 6 3 3 3 3
3 6 3 3 3 3
0
18
21
21
19 (a,b,c,d,e)
10 (a,b,f)
10 (a,b,f)
Subtotal III. Engineering science Programming and numerical methods Engineering mechanics (statics and solid mechanics) Thermodynamics Transport phenomena and fluid mechanics Geostatistics Economic evaluation Subtotal IV. Geological sciences Geology, selected from (a) physical geology, (b) sedimentary rocks (+lab), (c) mineralogy (+lab), (d) geologic field methods (+lab), (e) structural geology (+lab), and (f) petroleum geology Geophysics (+lab) Hydrology and hydrogeology (+lab) Hydrogeology field course Climate science Geology electives (upper division) Subtotal V. Petroleum Engineering Introduction to engineering and problem solving Oilfield chemistry and fluid phase behavior Petrophysics (+lab) and well logging Drilling (+lab) and Production Reservoir engineering theory and practice Numerical fluid flow simulation Oilfield physical chemistry (+lab) Subsurface (reservoir) Geomechanics Capstone design Subtotal VI. Other requirements Physical geochemistry (+lab) Geotechnical engineering Technical electives Technical writing Foreign Language Subtotal Total curriculum
19 (a,b,c,d,e)
0 7 6 0 15
4 7 3 0 0
0 0 0 0 0
4 4 3 3 0
47
33
10
24
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 3 7 0 6 3 0 0 3
3 3 7 7 6 3 4 3 3
3 0 7 7 6 3 0 3 3
0
22
39
32
4 0 7 0 10
0 3 0 3 0
0 0 6 3 0
4 0 0 3 0
20
6
9
7
122
129
129
134
a
Source: The University of Texas at Austin, Undergraduate Catalog, 2008–2010, http://registrar.utexas.edu/docs/catalogs/ug/ut.cat.ug0810.pdf, downloaded 24 October, 2009.
including geophysics (the basis for seismic reservoir monitoring and detection of fault activation), hydrogeology (equivalent to groundwater hydrology), and a hydrogeology field course. The hydrogeology content reflects the importance of aquifers to GCS operations. A climate science course is also added to give students a motivational and global perspective on energy usage and climate impact. Several courses closely related to petroleum engineering practice but not required in GEH are included in the CME program. The drilling course is added, in acknowledgment of the key role of well construction theory and practice for effective injection isolation and injectivity control. Well production is included because of the need for surface and wellbore equipment for fluid injection, as well as the need to understand the controls on longterm well injectivity and the available stimulation methods to
safely enhance injection rates while still maintaining zonal isolation. A reservoir geomechanics class is included (in lieu of geotechnical engineering and structural geology) because it directly treats the in situ stress state and its variation with injection (and reservoir fluid pressure), and it quantifies how these variations may affect reservoir compaction/dilation, the stability of existing faults and long-term wellbore integrity. The inclusion of petroleum-specific reservoir engineering courses, notably the enhanced oil recovery (EOR) topics, recognizes that a significant fraction of CO2 storage may occur in the oilfield, creating economic value through incremental production. This kind of engineering work requires knowledge of petroleum fluid chemistry as well, which is another topic for the CME curriculum borrowed from PE. Finally, as a topic to round out the CO2-specific content of the curriculum, a comprehensive geochemistry class is included,
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treating the reactions between injected fluids, in situ fluids and formation minerals. Unintended near wellbore reactions will have well injectivity consequences, and long-term reservoir reactions may help to lock carbon in to the formation. At 134 semester credit hours, the proposed CME curriculum could be reasonably finished in 4 years. It is only slightly higher in hours than UT’s existing PE and GEH programs, but the course selection makes for a superior preparation for anticipated GCS needs. We remark that this CME curriculum contains sufficient petroleum engineering and hydrogeology content for graduates to work in the petroleum or water resources fields. This is an important consideration for any program that wants to increase enrollment to staff a carbon management industry, given the uncertainty of the timing and early demand for that industry. Suppose a university implements the proposed curriculum to add a CME program and hires the faculty needed to accommodate the increased number of students. (This would be easier at universities that already have substantial geoscience and petroleum engineering faculty.) Will prospective students choose CME over more traditional options, such as petroleum engineering, geoscience or geological engineering? Will students inclined toward engineering of the earth’s subsurface position themselves to work in the oil and gas industry, drawn by the larger salaries? Table 2 indicates that salary is not the only motivating factor for career choice. Two of the largest engineering professions, civil (260,000 employed) and mechanical (230,000 employed), promise salaries that are below the mean of $85,000 for all engineering disciplines (US Department of Labor, BLS, 2009). Environmental engineers are still lower on the pay scale, but compared to petroleum engineers more than twice as many of them (about 50,000) are employed. Evidently significant numbers of engineering students are selecting majors for reasons other than expected salary. The opportunity to work in a field like GCS with widespread societal impact will draw such students. A CME program that is distinct from existing degree programs, including petroleum engineering, is thus likely to provide the additional graduates needed to staff the GCS industry, even as petroleum engineering departments expand to provide graduates for the oil and gas industry. 6. Conclusions Using experience, technology and know-how accumulated in oil, natural gas and groundwater, geologic CO2 storage (GCS) can substantially mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. Achieving the needed rate of storage (several billion tons of CO2 per year) will require a large workforce. This workforce must include a large contingent of technically trained people to ensure that GCS is carried out safely and effectively. Because so many of the activities in GCS (site selection, well construction, permitting and monitoring, multiphase fluid transport, reservoir management, risk assessment, surface facilities design, etc.) are similar to activities in the oil and gas industry, graduates in petroleum engineering (PE) will be good candidates
for the GCS workforce. It is unlikely that sufficient PEs will be available, however, because the demand from the oil and gas industry for these graduates is likely to remain strong, and the existing educational capacity is already straining to meet that demand. Other engineering disciplines that deal with the subsurface can help, but typically their curricula would need to be expanded to treat topics important for GCS. Thus a shortage of technical staff appears likely to limit the scale at which GCS could be implemented. To remove this limit, we have proposed a new curriculum that would educate carbon management engineers. The prototype described in this paper is based on an existing, accredited interdisciplinary program between petroleum engineering and geologic sciences, with elements that distinguish it from both. If faculty with suitable background are available, the prototype program could also be implemented in other departments that deal with the subsurface, such as civil engineering, geological engineering and environmental engineering. References BP, 2009. BP Statistical Review of World Energy, 2009. , Downloaded 20 August 2009 from http://www.bp.com/productlanding.do?categoryId=6929&contentId=7044622. Bryant, S., 2007. Geologic CO2 storage—can the oil and gas industry help save the planet? J. Petrol. Technol. (September), 98–105. EIA, 2008a. Annual Energy Review 2008. Report Number DOE/EIA-0384(2008), Downloaded 20 October 2009 from http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/txt/ stb0604.xls. EIA, 2008b. Annual Energy Review 2008. Report Number DOE/EIA-0384(2008), Downloaded 20 October 2009 from http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/txt/ stb0502.xls. EIA, 2009. US Energy Information Agency. Downloaded 25 October 2009 from http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/tableh1co2.xls. Engineering Accreditation Commission (EAC), 2007. 2008–2009 Criteria for Accrediting Engineering Programs. ABET, Inc., Baltimore, MD http://www.abet.org/ Engineering Accreditation Commission (EAC), 2009. Accredited Petroleum Engineering Programs. ABET, Inc. Downloaded 25 October 2009 from http://www. abet.org/AccredProgramSearch/AccreditationSearch.aspx# National Petroleum Council (NPC), 2007. Global Oil and Gas Study July 18, 2007. Executive Summary Page 21. Orr, Jr., F.M., 2004. Storage of carbon dioxide in geologic formations. J. Pet. Tech. Sept. 90. Pacala, S., Socolow, R., 2004. Stabilization wedges: solving the climate problem for the next 50 years with current technologies. Science (August), 968–972. Swartz, S., 2008. Where oil experts come from. Wall Street J. (April), B5A Downloaded 24 Oct 2009 from http://royaldutchshellplc.com/2008/04/09/where-oilexperts-come-from/ The University of Texas at Austin, Undergraduate Catalog, 2008–2010. http:// registrar.utexas.edu/docs/catalogs/ug/ut.cat.ug0810.pdf. Downloaded 24 October, 2009. The University of Texas at Austin, Office of Information Management and Analysis (OIMA), 2009. 2008-2009 Statistical Handbook. Downloaded 24 October, 2009 from http://www.utexas.edu/academic/ima/stat_handbook. US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), 2009. Occupational Employment Statistics: National Cross-Industry estimates and National 3-digit NAICS Industry-Specific estimates, 1997-2008. Downloaded 24 October, 2009 from http://www.bls.gov/oes/oes_dl.htm. US Department of Labor, 2007. Identifying and Addressing Workforce Challenges in America’s Energy Industry, President’s High Growth Job Training Initiative. U.S. DOL Employment Training Administration. US Petroleum Engineering Department Heads, 2009. Petroleum Engineering Enrollment. Lloyd Heinze, Texas Tech University, personal communication, October 2009.
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijggc
Training carbon management engineers: Removing a major hurdle for geologic CO2 storage by increasing educational capacity Steven L. Bryant *, Jon E. Olson Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, United States
A R T I C L E I N F O
A B S T R A C T
Article history: Received 17 April 2009 Received in revised form 26 October 2009 Accepted 27 October 2009 Available online 1 December 2009
Implementing geologic storage of CO2 at a material scale (ca. 1 Gt C/year) will require an industry comparable in size to the current oil and gas industry and a workforce trained in subsurface engineering. Since the same technologies that apply to hydrocarbon production apply to the subsurface storage of CO2, petroleum engineering (PE) graduates will be valuable candidates to work in the carbon storage industry. We expect however that the demand for PEs from the oil and gas industry will increase, and that already strained educational capacity will not be sufficient to supply both industries. Thus we advocate building new targeted educational infrastructure. We present a model curriculum based on an existing accredited multidisciplinary degree program. This program combines the fundamentals of petroleum engineering with the subsurface architecture emphasis of geology and the environmental perspective of hydrogeology. We indicate key elements of this program that could be integrated with other, more traditional undergraduate engineering majors that also deal with the subsurface. ß 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Education Petroleum engineering Geologic storage Carbon sequestration
1. Introduction Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is one of the several technologies needed for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. Substantive mitigation will require geologic CO2 storage (GCS) at rates of magnitude 1 Gt C/year (=3.7 109 metric tons CO2 per year) by the middle of this century (Pacala and Socolow, 2004). At conditions typical of deep saline aquifers in which much of this CO2 will be stored (depths 1.5 km, 50 8C, 15 MPa fluid pressures), the density of pure CO2 is 630 kg/m3, and this storage rate corresponds to a volumetric rate of 100 million barrels per day. This rate is comparable to the current global rate of oil production, a good indication of the magnitude of the infrastructure and industry that will be needed (Orr, 2004; Bryant, 2007). GCS will involve hundreds, perhaps thousands of projects, and tens of thousands of injection wells. For reference, nearly one million oil and gas wells are presently producing in the US (EIA, 2009). Thus the scale of operation needed for GCS is large but appears attainable, at least if a few decades are available for implementation. The preceding assessment of feasibility leaves out an important factor: a skilled workforce will be needed to implement GCS. The
* Corresponding author at: Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station C0300, Austin, TX 787120228, United States. Tel.: +1 512 471 3250; fax: +1 512 471 9605. E-mail address: [email protected] (S.L. Bryant). 1750-5836/$ – see front matter ß 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijggc.2009.10.013
activities of designing, permitting, constructing, operating, optimizing, maintaining, monitoring, regulating and abandoning a geologic storage site will require engineers and scientists specifically trained in disciplines dealing with the deep subsurface. One such discipline is petroleum engineering. Indeed, to date only oil companies have carried out GCS at large scale and for long periods of time. However, as we argue in more detail below, it is unlikely that educational capacity (measured by number of BS graduates per year) in petroleum engineering will be sufficient to meet the needs of a GCS industry. Currently only 18 accredited PE programs exist at universities in the United States (EAC, 2009). Related disciplines such as civil engineering and geological sciences have greater capacity (for instance, the EAC lists 224 accredited civil engineering programs in the United States; EAC, 2009), but a typical BS program in these fields does not require and often does not offer courses in subjects critical to GCS. These considerations raise the prospect of a shortage of ‘‘carbon management engineers’’ when the number of GCS projects becomes significant. This would limit the rate at which mitigation by CCS could be achieved, even if other constraints (legal, technical, financial, etc.) were eliminated. In this paper we propose to prevent this limitation by introducing a curriculum that would attract and educate students specifically for GCS. We illustrate with a model based on an existing undergraduate degree program at The University of Texas at Austin, primarily because adapting an existing program greatly speeds up the process. Because other disciplines can contribute and will be needed, we also indicate how
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Table 1 Engineering and science professionals employed in oil and gas extraction industry, May 2008. Discipline
Number
Petroleum engineers Geoscientists, except hydrologists and geographers Engineers, all other Industrial engineers Mining and geological engineers, including mining safety engineers Mechanical engineers Civil engineers Environmental scientists and specialists, including health Environmental engineers Health and safety engineers, except mining safety engineers and inspectors Electrical engineers Physicists
8130 5810 2610 1160 990 470 420 250 180 100 40 40
Source: US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, ‘‘Occupational Employment Statistics: National Cross-Industry estimates and National 3-digit NAICS Industry-Specific estimates, May 2008’’, http://www.bls.gov/oes/oes_dl.htm, downloaded 24 October (2009).
key elements of the proposed program could be integrated into more traditional undergraduate degree programs. 2. Role of petroleum engineering in GCS Storage of CO2 in sedimentary rocks has an important advantage over other technologies of greenhouse gas mitigation. The oil and gas industry has decades of experience of injecting large volumes of fluids into such rocks. Thus, know-how and hardware for storage are available ‘‘off-the-shelf’’ and have been proven at the relevant scale. Demonstration of long-term storage, as opposed to injection for enhanced oil recovery, is still underway, but the tools for the job are at hand. Occupational data from 2008 (Table 1; US Dept. of Labor – BLS, 2009) shows that in oil and gas extraction, petroleum engineers represent the largest fraction of engineering and science professionals carrying out that work. Moreover, the skill sets and know-how needed for a geologic storage site are very similar to those for conventional petroleum exploration and production activities. Students graduating with petroleum engineering (PE) degrees are thus obvious candidates for working in the GCS industry. They will not be the only engineering candidates, as students from related disciplines (environmental, civil, and geological engineering) will also have been exposed to topics important to GCS, such as fluid flow in the deep subsurface. We focus upon PEs because a typical graduate will have been required to take the largest number and widest range of courses relevant to GCS.
Fig. 1. Average productivity of oil wells and gas wells in the US.Source: US Energy Information Agency. http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/txt/ptb0405.html, downloaded 20 October 2009.
decades, the same period during which GCS needs to be implemented. In addition to workforce demands driven by expanding job opportunities, consider the demographic profile of the US oil and gas industry. According to data from the US Department of Labor, nearly half the personnel in the industry are eligible to retire in less than 10 years, and a very small fraction of the personnel are between the ages of 30 and 40 (NPC, 2007; US Dept. of Labor 2007). This will reinforce the demand for PEs in the US in the next 10–20 years. Another reason for an increasing demand for engineers in oil and gas production (in mature provinces such as North America) is the very large number of wells with small average productivity. Fig. 1 shows that the average productivity of oil and gas wells in the US increased steadily until the early 1970s. Oil well productivity declined steadily since then, while gas well productivity dropped rapidly, then flattened during the 1980s and 1990s, and dropped slowly since 2000. Consequently, the effort to maintain production leads to more wells being operated and more wells being drilled (Figs. 2 and 3). The number of wells drilled is also a strong function of the price, or expected price, for oil and gas; this accounts for the peak in oil wells drilled between 1975 and 1985. There can also be a substantial lag between the drilling of a well and the onset of production from that well, particularly for oil. Nevertheless, longer term trends are evident. The rapid increase in drilling for gas in the US since the late 1990s reflects the development of unconventional gas reserves. This is typical of a mature oil and gas province, where continued production will depend increasingly upon ‘‘low-mobility
3. Anticipated demand for petroleum engineering graduates Demand for oil and gas has risen steadily during the last 50 years, slowing or declining only during economic downturns. There is little prospect for declining demand in the coming decades, given projected population trends and the essential role of oil and gas in the transportation and power sectors. Thus the need for petroleum engineers in the oil and gas exploration and production sector is unlikely to decrease. The trends in oil and gas production and employment in the US are a useful indicator of demand for PEs. One reason is that the US is among the top three countries in each category of oil production, gas production and CO2 emissions (BP, 2009; EIA, 2009). The needs for subsurface engineers in GCS and in oil and gas production will thus be additive in the US. Moreover the production trends in the US will be replayed elsewhere in the world as other oil and gas provinces mature. This evolution will occur over the next few
Fig. 2. Number of gas wells drilled and number of producing gas wells in the US.Source: EIA (2008a).
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Fig. 3. Number of oil wells drilled and number of producing oil wells in the US.Source: EIA (2008b). Fig. 5. The global combined oil and gas production rate has risen steadily for the last 20 years (Source: BP, 2009). The production increase was obtained with a constant number of drilling rigs operating worldwide between 1990 and 2000, but in the last decade the number of operating rigs has increased. Source: Baker Hughes International Rig Count. Downloaded 24 October 2009 from http://investor. shareholder.com/bhi/rig_counts/rc_index.cfm.
Fig. 4. Because an increasing share of production is coming from ‘‘low-mobility’’ resources, more petroleum engineers are being employed in the oil and gas extraction industry in the US to produce a given amount of oil and gas. Employment data from US Bureau of Labor Statistics (2009); production data from US EIA (2008a,b).
resources’’: heavy oil and tar sands, tight gas sandstones and shale gas. Many more wells are required to extract hydrocarbons at commercial rates from these reservoirs, increasing the workload and demand for PEs. Fig. 4 shows that the number of PEs employed to produce a unit of hydrocarbon (one million barrels of oil equivalent, the weighted sum of oil and gas production) in the US increased during the last decade, the same period as the increase in exploitation of unconventional gas reservoirs. Much of the rest of the world has not yet entered the mature phase of oil and gas production. But global production statistics are beginning to show evidence of production and drilling trends similar to those in the US (Fig. 5). The number of operating rigs began to increase around 2000, long before the recent increases in oil price. Moreover an increasing number of oil producing countries are creating degree programs in petroleum engineering, as companies seek to staff operations with local citizens (Swartz, 2008). In summary, due to increasing industry activity and accelerating workforce retirements, the National Petroleum Council in 2007 stated that the petroleum workforce must be replenished and rapidly trained in order to avoid ‘‘a severe human resource challenge’’ (NPC, 2007). We therefore conclude that graduates in petroleum engineering, who would be valuable in the GCS industry, will simultaneously be in strong demand in the oil and gas industry.
Fig. 6. Engineering occupational data from the US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics (2009), depicting numbers employed and mean salaries for petroleum engineers and all engineering fields combined.
4. Constraints of educational capacity The demand for PEs within the US oil and gas industry is overtaxing the capacity of US universities. According to the US Department of Labor (BLS, 2009), companies involved in oil and gas extraction (i.e., petroleum exploration and production) employed approximately 140,000 workers in 2008, of whom 14,100 are engineers. Of the engineers, the largest fraction is petroleum engineers, at 8130 employed. Fig. 6 depicts occupational data from the last 12 years which have been normalized to 1999 levels, indicating that the growth rate in employment and salary for petroleum engineers is outstripping the average for all engineers combined. Employment of petroleum engineers more than doubled from 1999 to 2008, while employment for all engineering fields combined increased by a more modest factor of 1.4. Another strong indicator of demand is that during the entire period analyzed (1997–2008), petroleum engineers were the highest paid of all engineering disciplines by a substantial margin. In 2008 (Table 2; US Department of Labor, BLS, 2009), the average petroleum engineering salary was 20% higher than the next highest
S.L. Bryant, J.E. Olson / International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 4 (2010) 434–440 Table 2 US Employment and Salary Data for Engineers in All Industries, May 2008. Engineering discipline
# Employed
Mean salary, US $
Petroleum engineers Computer hardware engineers Nuclear engineers Aerospace engineers Engineers, all other Chemical engineers Electronics engineers, except computer Electrical engineers Materials engineers Biomedical engineers Mining and geological engineers, including mining safety engineers Civil engineers Mechanical engineers Environmental engineers Marine engineers and naval architects Industrial engineers Health and safety engineers, except mining safety engineers and inspectors Agricultural engineers
20,880 73,370 16,640 67,800 169,240 30,970 139,930 154,670 24,160 15,220 6,900
$119,140 $100,180 $99,750 $93,980 $89,080 $88,760 $88,670 $85,350 $84,200 $81,120 $79,910
261,360 233,610 52,590 6,480 214,580 25,190
$78,560 $78,200 $77,970 $77,920 $75,740 $73,830
2,640
$72,850
Source: US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, ‘‘Occupational Employment Statistics: National Cross-Industry estimates and National 3-digit NAICS Industry-Specific estimates, May 2008’’, http://www.bls.gov/oes/oes_dl.htm, downloaded 24 October, 2009.
Fig. 7. US undergraduate petroleum engineering enrollment and student/faculty ratio data (US Petroleum Engineering Department Heads, 2009).
field, and almost 40% higher than the mean salary among engineering disciplines of $85,000. Given these statistics, it is not surprising that undergraduate enrollment in petroleum engineering has recently ballooned as well (Fig. 7), from 1742 undergraduates nationwide in 1999 to 4199 undergraduates in 2009 (US PE Department Heads, 2009). As indicated by the dramatically increasing student to faculty ratios, faculty hiring has not kept up with increasing student enrollment, and petroleum engineering programs in the US are operating at or above capacity, with student to faculty ratios well above the average in other engineering departments. For example, at the University of Texas at Austin, Petroleum Engineering has a student to faculty ratio of 29, while the mean ratio for the engineering school is 20 (UTAustin OIMA, 2009). Demand for still more PE graduates is certain in the near future and very likely for the next couple of decades. PE departments will have to expand simply to produce enough graduates for the exploration and production industry. In this context, educating
437
similar numbers of students for a geologic CO2 storage industry is not feasible without new capacity, from classrooms to instructors. Simply redirecting some of the existing PE capacity toward carbon management engineering is not a practical proposal: neither the carbon management industry nor the exploration and production industry would have enough engineers. And although petroleum engineering training is a good foundation for carbon management engineering education, students could be better served with a distinct and separate curriculum that focused on the unique combination of chemical, geological, economic and public policy circumstances they will encounter. 5. A model curriculum for carbon management engineers What would a dedicated carbon management curriculum look like? GCS will involve projects that require secure and verifiable transport of fluids between the biosphere and the deep subsurface (>1 km depth) at a scale comparable to the oil and gas industry. Thus beyond the requisite basic science and math common to all engineering, the curriculum will need to draw from petroleum, chemical, and geological engineering, as well as geology, geophysics, and hydrogeology. A solid understanding of geologic principles is key to any subsurface endeavor. The practitioner must appreciate the potential for heterogeneity and the reality of data-poor analysis involved with subsurface projects. Since stored CO2 is intended to endure tens of thousands of years, the study of petroleum geology and hydrogeology can give the perspective of natural fluid movements through reservoirs and the effectiveness of seals over geologic timespans in various geologic settings. Geology can also provide the needed perspective on the science of climate change through the study of historical climate variations, as well as the technology of monitoring present day atmospheric and oceanic compositional and temperature trends. Knowledge of the chemistry and thermodynamics of the water–CO2 and water–CO2– hydrocarbon system is required to properly determine the storage capacity of saline aquifers and depleted hydrocarbon reservoirs. Principles governing subsurface injection and transport are needed to design injection programs and to test long-term phase stability and movement, while production engineering and drilling expertise are required to put reservoir models into practice. The monitoring of long-term storage will require skills in well-logging techniques, tracers and remote geophysical methods. Knowledge of the science of carbon capture will be beneficial to round out a carbon management engineer’s technical education, although this part of the process will probably be carried out by a separate engineering group coming out of chemical engineering. Additional educational topics could include the study of public policy, climate change science and politics, and economics. Given the scale and breadth of the GCS, it is clear that no one discipline can perform all the tasks required for a successful project—like many operations, it will require interdisciplinary teams. US Department of Labor data (BLS, 2009), Table 1 show that a broad range of professionals – a wide variety of engineers, geoscientists, and even physicists – work in oil and gas extraction. Yet petroleum engineers are clearly the most numerous discipline working in oil and gas extraction. Given the analogy between the technical processes involved in GCS and in oil and gas exploration and production, a petroleum engineering curriculum is a good starting point for a carbon management engineering (CME) curriculum. It is not the only starting point, as other engineering disciplines also involve the subsurface. But PE departments have long, routine experience in subjects that tend to be rare or highly specialized in non-petroleum-related fields of study. This experience can provide insight into how a carbon management engineering curriculum could be organized in other disciplines.
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Any discussion of engineering curriculum requires reference to the definitions of the different engineering disciplines as provided by the US Engineering Accreditation Commission (EAC), a part of ABET, Inc. The program criteria for petroleum engineering, which all accredited PE programs must satisfy, has the following statement about curriculum (EAC, 2007): The program must demonstrate that graduates have competency in: mathematics through differential equations, probability and statistics, fluid mechanics, strength of materials, and thermodynamics; design and analysis of well systems and procedures for drilling and completing wells; characterization and evaluation of subsurface geological formations and their resources using geoscientific and engineering methods; design and analysis of systems for producing, injecting, and handling fluids; application of reservoir engineering principles and practices for optimizing resource development and management; use of project economics and resource evaluation methods for design and decision making under conditions of risk and uncertainty. No other engineering discipline is so comprehensively tasked to deal with all aspects of subsurface engineering related to fluid injection, extraction and handling, as well as subsurface formation and fluid characterization. The closest curriculum requirements are in geological engineering, whose program criteria include similar basic math and science preparation, more extensive geomechanics and geology, but less specific well system and fluid handling coverage (EAC, 2007): The program must demonstrate that graduates have: 1. the ability to apply mathematics including differential equations, calculus-based physics, and chemistry, to geological engineering problems; 2. proficiency in geological science topics that emphasize geologic processes and the identification of minerals and rocks; 3. the ability to visualize and solve geological problems in three and four dimensions; 4. proficiency in the engineering sciences including statics, properties/strength of materials, and geomechanics; 5. the ability to apply principles of geology, elements of geophysics, geological and engineering field methods; and 6. engineering knowledge to design solutions to geological engineering problems, which will include one or more of the following considerations: the distribution of physical and chemical properties of earth materials, including surface water, ground water (hydrogeology), and fluid hydrocarbons; the effects of surface and near-surface natural processes; the impacts of construction projects; the impacts of exploration, development, and extraction of natural resources, and consequent remediation; disposal of wastes; and other activities of society on these materials and processes, as appropriate to the program objectives. The diversity and fluidity of an emerging, multidisciplinary specialty like carbon management engineering (CME) suggest that it would thrive as part of the undergraduate program at a major research university with strong programs in the geosciences, engineering and public policy. To address the staffing needs that are likely to arise in GCS, modifying existing programs or creating new programs in established departments that have faculty with the appropriate expertise seems most viable. This can be most readily accomplished in association with petroleum engineering departments, but departments that offer geological engineering degrees may also be able to cover the required breadth of topics with the addition of new faculty with petroleum drilling,
completion and production expertise. Although geological engineering programs are often part of or associated with civil engineering departments (for instance, at the University of Minnesota), standard civil engineering programs typically do not require the extent of geologic characterization nor of well construction topics that are necessary for GCS. Civil engineering students could cover some of the required topics via electives, but including all the necessary topics and still meeting the general requirements for civil engineering would be difficult in a 4-year program. An alternative is to establish a degree plan where the core topics are required. We propose a curriculum modeled after an existing, interdisciplinary degree plan at The University of Texas at Austin called ‘‘Geosystems Engineering and Hydrogeology’’ (GEH), offered jointly by the Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering Department and the Department of Geological Sciences. We discuss the GEH program here to demonstrate that it is possible to establish an interdisciplinary engineering program and gain ABET accreditation. The GEH degree is ABET accredited under the Geological Engineering category, and includes 23 semester credit hours of geological sciences, 10 h of hydrology and hydrogeology, and 22 h of petroleum engineering, plus the other requisite science, engineering science and liberal arts requirements. The petroleum engineering degree at The University of Texas at Austin, in contrast, requires only nine semester credit hours of geological sciences but 39 h of petroleum engineering. The interdisciplinary GEH program was designed to produce an undergraduate level engineer who is expert in all aspects of subsurface fluid flow, from petroleum reservoirs to aquifers, and we anticipated those engineers to pursue a career in the petroleum or hydrology/environmental fields. That has largely been the case after 10 years and 41 graduates (UT-Austin OIMA, 2009). The approach of a carbon-constrained economy presents an opportunity to redesign the GEH degree program to be better suited for the GCS industry. The main difficulty is fitting the desired components of the curriculum into a program that can be completed in 4 years. The alternative of a 5-year undergraduate degree is unlikely to be well received by the college-bound US student population. Students interested in that level of education tend to complete a 4-year undergraduate degree, then pursue a 2 year master’s degree program. While a graduate program in carbon management is also useful – several universities around the world have already implemented them – much of the work in GCS will be done by BS graduates, just as in the oil and gas industry. We have divided the curriculum into six parts, I – University Core Curriculum, II – Basic Math and Science, III – Engineering Science, IV – Geological Sciences, V – Petroleum Engineering, and VI – Other Requirements. Table 3 enumerates the semester credit hours for three existing UT-Austin degree plans (UT-Austin, 2008– 2010 Undergraduate Catalog) – the Hydrogeology Option within the Geological Sciences degree (GEO/Hydro), the interdisciplinary GEH degree, and the PE degree – plus the proposed CME curriculum. Although the proposal is based on the UT catalog of courses, any university offering both geological sciences and petroleum engineering degrees should be able to adapt readily the proposed curriculum. First, it is apparent that there is a substantial difference in the basic requirements between engineering and science. The existing GEH and PE degrees require between 18 and 21 h of engineering science topics, but the GEO/Hydro degree does not have comparable requirements. These engineering fundamentals are prerequisites to much of the upper division engineering curriculum, so they are an essential part of our proposed CME curriculum. The geology requirements in the CME curriculum are lesser than in GEH and comparable to those in petroleum engineering. However, we have expanded beyond the petroleum engineering requirements by
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439
Table 3 Curriculum modeled after institutional requirements at UT-Austin. Curriculum content
Geo/Hydroa
GEHa
PEa
CME
I. University core curriculum (rhetoric, literature, social science, history, etc.) Subtotal 28
24
24
24
II. Basic math and science Calculus and differential equations Chemistry Calculus-based physics Biology
12 8 8 3
12 6 8 0
12 6 8 0
12 6 8 0
31
26
26
26
0 0 0 0 0 0
3 6 3 3 0 3
3 6 3 3 3 3
3 6 3 3 3 3
0
18
21
21
19 (a,b,c,d,e)
10 (a,b,f)
10 (a,b,f)
Subtotal III. Engineering science Programming and numerical methods Engineering mechanics (statics and solid mechanics) Thermodynamics Transport phenomena and fluid mechanics Geostatistics Economic evaluation Subtotal IV. Geological sciences Geology, selected from (a) physical geology, (b) sedimentary rocks (+lab), (c) mineralogy (+lab), (d) geologic field methods (+lab), (e) structural geology (+lab), and (f) petroleum geology Geophysics (+lab) Hydrology and hydrogeology (+lab) Hydrogeology field course Climate science Geology electives (upper division) Subtotal V. Petroleum Engineering Introduction to engineering and problem solving Oilfield chemistry and fluid phase behavior Petrophysics (+lab) and well logging Drilling (+lab) and Production Reservoir engineering theory and practice Numerical fluid flow simulation Oilfield physical chemistry (+lab) Subsurface (reservoir) Geomechanics Capstone design Subtotal VI. Other requirements Physical geochemistry (+lab) Geotechnical engineering Technical electives Technical writing Foreign Language Subtotal Total curriculum
19 (a,b,c,d,e)
0 7 6 0 15
4 7 3 0 0
0 0 0 0 0
4 4 3 3 0
47
33
10
24
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 3 7 0 6 3 0 0 3
3 3 7 7 6 3 4 3 3
3 0 7 7 6 3 0 3 3
0
22
39
32
4 0 7 0 10
0 3 0 3 0
0 0 6 3 0
4 0 0 3 0
20
6
9
7
122
129
129
134
a
Source: The University of Texas at Austin, Undergraduate Catalog, 2008–2010, http://registrar.utexas.edu/docs/catalogs/ug/ut.cat.ug0810.pdf, downloaded 24 October, 2009.
including geophysics (the basis for seismic reservoir monitoring and detection of fault activation), hydrogeology (equivalent to groundwater hydrology), and a hydrogeology field course. The hydrogeology content reflects the importance of aquifers to GCS operations. A climate science course is also added to give students a motivational and global perspective on energy usage and climate impact. Several courses closely related to petroleum engineering practice but not required in GEH are included in the CME program. The drilling course is added, in acknowledgment of the key role of well construction theory and practice for effective injection isolation and injectivity control. Well production is included because of the need for surface and wellbore equipment for fluid injection, as well as the need to understand the controls on longterm well injectivity and the available stimulation methods to
safely enhance injection rates while still maintaining zonal isolation. A reservoir geomechanics class is included (in lieu of geotechnical engineering and structural geology) because it directly treats the in situ stress state and its variation with injection (and reservoir fluid pressure), and it quantifies how these variations may affect reservoir compaction/dilation, the stability of existing faults and long-term wellbore integrity. The inclusion of petroleum-specific reservoir engineering courses, notably the enhanced oil recovery (EOR) topics, recognizes that a significant fraction of CO2 storage may occur in the oilfield, creating economic value through incremental production. This kind of engineering work requires knowledge of petroleum fluid chemistry as well, which is another topic for the CME curriculum borrowed from PE. Finally, as a topic to round out the CO2-specific content of the curriculum, a comprehensive geochemistry class is included,
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treating the reactions between injected fluids, in situ fluids and formation minerals. Unintended near wellbore reactions will have well injectivity consequences, and long-term reservoir reactions may help to lock carbon in to the formation. At 134 semester credit hours, the proposed CME curriculum could be reasonably finished in 4 years. It is only slightly higher in hours than UT’s existing PE and GEH programs, but the course selection makes for a superior preparation for anticipated GCS needs. We remark that this CME curriculum contains sufficient petroleum engineering and hydrogeology content for graduates to work in the petroleum or water resources fields. This is an important consideration for any program that wants to increase enrollment to staff a carbon management industry, given the uncertainty of the timing and early demand for that industry. Suppose a university implements the proposed curriculum to add a CME program and hires the faculty needed to accommodate the increased number of students. (This would be easier at universities that already have substantial geoscience and petroleum engineering faculty.) Will prospective students choose CME over more traditional options, such as petroleum engineering, geoscience or geological engineering? Will students inclined toward engineering of the earth’s subsurface position themselves to work in the oil and gas industry, drawn by the larger salaries? Table 2 indicates that salary is not the only motivating factor for career choice. Two of the largest engineering professions, civil (260,000 employed) and mechanical (230,000 employed), promise salaries that are below the mean of $85,000 for all engineering disciplines (US Department of Labor, BLS, 2009). Environmental engineers are still lower on the pay scale, but compared to petroleum engineers more than twice as many of them (about 50,000) are employed. Evidently significant numbers of engineering students are selecting majors for reasons other than expected salary. The opportunity to work in a field like GCS with widespread societal impact will draw such students. A CME program that is distinct from existing degree programs, including petroleum engineering, is thus likely to provide the additional graduates needed to staff the GCS industry, even as petroleum engineering departments expand to provide graduates for the oil and gas industry. 6. Conclusions Using experience, technology and know-how accumulated in oil, natural gas and groundwater, geologic CO2 storage (GCS) can substantially mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. Achieving the needed rate of storage (several billion tons of CO2 per year) will require a large workforce. This workforce must include a large contingent of technically trained people to ensure that GCS is carried out safely and effectively. Because so many of the activities in GCS (site selection, well construction, permitting and monitoring, multiphase fluid transport, reservoir management, risk assessment, surface facilities design, etc.) are similar to activities in the oil and gas industry, graduates in petroleum engineering (PE) will be good candidates
for the GCS workforce. It is unlikely that sufficient PEs will be available, however, because the demand from the oil and gas industry for these graduates is likely to remain strong, and the existing educational capacity is already straining to meet that demand. Other engineering disciplines that deal with the subsurface can help, but typically their curricula would need to be expanded to treat topics important for GCS. Thus a shortage of technical staff appears likely to limit the scale at which GCS could be implemented. To remove this limit, we have proposed a new curriculum that would educate carbon management engineers. The prototype described in this paper is based on an existing, accredited interdisciplinary program between petroleum engineering and geologic sciences, with elements that distinguish it from both. If faculty with suitable background are available, the prototype program could also be implemented in other departments that deal with the subsurface, such as civil engineering, geological engineering and environmental engineering. References BP, 2009. BP Statistical Review of World Energy, 2009. , Downloaded 20 August 2009 from http://www.bp.com/productlanding.do?categoryId=6929&contentId=7044622. Bryant, S., 2007. Geologic CO2 storage—can the oil and gas industry help save the planet? J. Petrol. Technol. (September), 98–105. EIA, 2008a. Annual Energy Review 2008. Report Number DOE/EIA-0384(2008), Downloaded 20 October 2009 from http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/txt/ stb0604.xls. EIA, 2008b. Annual Energy Review 2008. Report Number DOE/EIA-0384(2008), Downloaded 20 October 2009 from http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/txt/ stb0502.xls. EIA, 2009. US Energy Information Agency. Downloaded 25 October 2009 from http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/tableh1co2.xls. Engineering Accreditation Commission (EAC), 2007. 2008–2009 Criteria for Accrediting Engineering Programs. ABET, Inc., Baltimore, MD http://www.abet.org/ Engineering Accreditation Commission (EAC), 2009. Accredited Petroleum Engineering Programs. ABET, Inc. Downloaded 25 October 2009 from http://www. abet.org/AccredProgramSearch/AccreditationSearch.aspx# National Petroleum Council (NPC), 2007. Global Oil and Gas Study July 18, 2007. Executive Summary Page 21. Orr, Jr., F.M., 2004. Storage of carbon dioxide in geologic formations. J. Pet. Tech. Sept. 90. Pacala, S., Socolow, R., 2004. Stabilization wedges: solving the climate problem for the next 50 years with current technologies. Science (August), 968–972. Swartz, S., 2008. Where oil experts come from. Wall Street J. (April), B5A Downloaded 24 Oct 2009 from http://royaldutchshellplc.com/2008/04/09/where-oilexperts-come-from/ The University of Texas at Austin, Undergraduate Catalog, 2008–2010. http:// registrar.utexas.edu/docs/catalogs/ug/ut.cat.ug0810.pdf. Downloaded 24 October, 2009. The University of Texas at Austin, Office of Information Management and Analysis (OIMA), 2009. 2008-2009 Statistical Handbook. Downloaded 24 October, 2009 from http://www.utexas.edu/academic/ima/stat_handbook. US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), 2009. Occupational Employment Statistics: National Cross-Industry estimates and National 3-digit NAICS Industry-Specific estimates, 1997-2008. Downloaded 24 October, 2009 from http://www.bls.gov/oes/oes_dl.htm. US Department of Labor, 2007. Identifying and Addressing Workforce Challenges in America’s Energy Industry, President’s High Growth Job Training Initiative. U.S. DOL Employment Training Administration. US Petroleum Engineering Department Heads, 2009. Petroleum Engineering Enrollment. Lloyd Heinze, Texas Tech University, personal communication, October 2009.