Welcome to the GeoEnergy Research Centre
Founded in 2015, the GeoEnergy Research Centre (GERC) is a £14 million pioneering joint venture co-established by the University of Nottingham and the British Geological Survey. The centre has strong international partnerships with Virginia Tech (US) and the China University of Mining and Technology.
Our goal is to address the global energy trilemma of affordability, security and sustainability of energy supply. GERC will do this by focusing our combined capabilities to enable the sustainable and cost-effective use of geoenergy resources.
We undertake joint research into subsurface energy processes for a range of geoenergy sectors specifically; areas of fluid-rock interactions, sensor development and demonstration of monitoring technologies.
Our current portfolio includes research into:
- Understanding and monitoring fluid-rock processes in the shallow subsurface for CO2 storage
- Surface and sub-surface sensor development
- Testing and development of fluid-flow simulation software
- Collaboration with international partners tracking the potential for CO2 based enhanced coal bed methane and coal properties
We will explore opportunities to apply our expertise in:
- Underground coal gasification
- Enhanced oil recovery/ Heavy oil recovery
- Groundwater security
- Geothermal
- Gas hydrates
- Underground gas storage
- Radioactive waste storage
- Shale gas
Explore our unique GeoEnergy Test Bed and the benefits it can offer your research
GERC has been instrumental in the development and drilling of the GeoEnergy Test Bed (GTB), an Energy Research Accelerator (ERA) facility at Nottingham’s Sutton Bonington campus. The GTB is designed for the testing and development of borehole sensor technologies, remote sensing technologies and fluid-flow simulation software.
- 11 boreholes with casings of steel and plastic varying in depth between 21m and 285m with slotted sections giving access to the two primary sandstone aquifers
- On-site containerised laboratory and office facilities with chemical handling and vented solvents storage and fume hood areas
- Two data capture PCs with 4Tb storage and 10Mbit/s fibre data link to the main campus network to a backed up and externally accessible 100Tb project data store
- Fully Wi-Fi enabled laboratory, office and field areas
- UAV with CO2 and CH4 gas sensor pods for wide area detection of gas leakage
- Micro Seismic Array
- Full depth 282m core and geo-logging data from boreholes
- Academic Licenses to Schlumberger’s commercial reservoir simulation software
- Injection capability, water, tracers and gases
Check out our fully funded PhD Studentships - most available for an immediate start
- Model reduction and homogenisation for filtration and adsorption
- Multiscale Finite Elements for Reactive Transport in Natural Porous Media: The Impacts of Dissolution, Precipitation, and Clogging at the Pore Scale
- Multiscale Methods for Hysteresis Effects in Geomechanics
- Microwave Assisted Catalytic Upgrading of Heavy Oil
- Fluid permeation through rock spaces
- Mechanical modelling of the stability of Earth’s peatland carbon reservoirs
- Communication through complex media: a novel interdisciplinary paradigm to bridge information theory and multiscale flow and transport theory
- Uncertainty quantification in geoelectrical monitoring
You can find out more information about all of these PhD Studentships, including funding mechanisms, on our PhD Vacancies page
Latest news from GERC
- Description
- GERC Assistant Professor in Earth Observation, Dr Stephen Grebby, along with Dr Andy Sowter from Geomatic Ventures Ltd, who developed groundbreaking technology which was used to create the first country-wide land motion map of Scotland, have scored another first by creating a new UK-wide ground motion map. The new UK-wide map covers a two-year period from 2015 to 2017 and was created using an Intermittent Small Baseline Subset (ISBAS) analysis, a novel satellite remote sensing data processing algorithm.
- Description
- GERC Assistant Professor in Earth Observation, Dr Stephen Grebby, along with Dr Andy Sowter from Geomatic Ventures Ltd, have created the first detailed nationwide map of land motion and subsidence using a novel technique known as Intermittent Small Baseline (ISBAS) analysis. For the first time the map highlights quality responses from rural areas. The technology behind the map could help developers of energy and transport infrastructure.
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GERC is a member of the following organisations by way of our founding members; University of Nottingham and British Geological Survey
