TC Chair: Sheng Dai

TC Chair: Sheng C. Dai, Georgia Institute of Technology

Host Member Society: United States

 

Short name: Energy Geotechnics (TC308)

Website: https://TC308-energy-geotechnics.org

(formerly https://sites.google.com/site/energygeotechnics/home)

GeoWorld Group:http://www.mygeoworld.com/groups/energy-geotechnics-tc308

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/issmge-tc308-energy-geotechnics/



SPECIALTY CONFERENCES TO DATE:

•  1st Symposium on “Energy Geotechnics”, SEG-2015. Barcelona, Spain, 1st to 3rd Jun. 2015. http://canal.camins.upc.edu/index.php/noticia/show/54c0c7e3cbf0c3.25907592


•  1st International Conference on Energy Geotechnics. (ICEGT-2016) Kiel, Germany, from 29th to 31st Aug. 2016. http://www.iceg-2016.de/


• 2nd Symposium on “Energy Geotechnics”, SEG-2018. Lausanne, Switzerland, 25th to 28th September. 2018. https://seg2018.epfl.ch/


• 2nd International Conference on Energy Geotechnics. (ICEGT-2020), La Jolla, CA 20-23 September, 2020 (postponed to ~early 2022). http://icegt-2020.org


• 3rd Symposium on Energy Geotechnics, SEG-2023. Delft, The Netherlands, 3rd to 5th October. 2023. https://seg23.dryfta.com/


• 3rd International Conference on Energy Geotechnics. (ICEGT-2025), Paris, France 17-20 June, 2025. https://icegt25.sciencesconf.org/


• 4th Symposium on "Energy Geotechnics", SEG-2028. Hong Kong, China, 12-15 Dec. , 2028 .

TASK FORCES

Two different types of Task Forces are assisting the TC308 activities: i) technical task forces; and ii) professional task forces.  

Technical Task Forces

This task force category focuses on the technical activities related to the fundamentals, energy production, energy storage, waste from energy sectors, and emerging topics in the area of Energy Geotechnics. A brief description of each task force is introduced as follows.

T-1) Fundamentals of Geo-Energy (Task leader: TBD; Deputy: TBD)

Fundamental behaviors of soils and rocks during energy recovery, energy storage, and waste disposal, especially the thermal, hydraulic, mechanical, chemical, and biological (THMCB) coupled processes. The interest of this task centers on advancing current knowledge on the THMCB, cyclic, and longevity behavior of soils and rocks integrating fundamental, experimental, and numerical studies.

T-2) Unconventional Hydrocarbon (Task leader: TBD)

Unconventional extraction methods and techniques are needed to extract oil and gas resources trapped in unusual geological formations, including shale, coal, oil sands, and gas hydrates. Unlock these resources can reshape global hydrocarbon market, shift power balances for countries with large unconventional reserves, advance drilling techniques, and meanwhile address environmental and climatic concerns including for instance high water usage, groundwater contamination, methane leakage, and induced seismicity. 

T-3) Energy Geo-Structures (Task leader: Alice di Donna; Deputy Dietmar Adam)

Energy geo-structures such as thermal piles, diaphragm walls and tunnels can utilize the ground for heating and cooling of structures. These thermo-active elements in contact with the ground can be used as pathways to extract heat in the winter and inject heat in the summer. Therefore ground-source heat exchange can help in balancing the heat energy demand over seasons and also help in maintaining a better energy management between structures with different energy demand profiles. The use of deep foundation elements as heat exchangers presents unique challenges for the broader geotechnical engineering profession. The processes that govern the heat exchange behavior can affect the load transfer mechanisms of these deep foundation elements. There is need to synthesize various thermal pile design guidelines available in different countries. There are also opportunities for using heat in these applications to improve the behavior of some types of soils.

T-4) Energy Geo-storage (Task leader: Wenbin Fei; Deputy: Frank Wuttke)

The inherent fluctuating nature of renewable energy resources creates an unprecedented demand for large-capacity energy geo-storage systems, such as compressed air energy storage, underground hydrogen/methane storage, underground thermal energy storage, and pumped hydro storage. Energy geo-storage will involve deep large-scale systems (i.e., multi-scale, from building scale to city scale), a large number of cycles (daily fluctuations and long-duration infrastructure), and multi-physics (hydro-thermo-chemo-mechanical processes). The research in geo-energy storage systems is urgently needed and has to be enforced in the geotechnical society to prospect the basics, to overcome the limits and problems and to consolidate the opportunities from the geotechnical point of view. The general and in particular the scientific knowledge is still low in that research field, but with the huge economical need the research will significantly increase in future.

T-5) Geological Radioactive Waste Disposal (Task leader: Angelica Tuttolomondo; Deputy: TBD).

Deep geological disposal is one of most favored solutions for the isolation of high level nuclear waste. It is also the one that requires major geotechnical input. The natural (host rock) and engineered barriers (generally made up of swelling clays) will be subjected to simultaneous thermal, hydraulic and mechanical (THM) phenomena triggered by the heat-emitting nature of the nuclear waste, the swelling character of the unsaturated clay barrier, and the highly confined conditions of the isolation system. The THM processes described above and their mutual interactions will control the evolution and long term response of the whole isolation system; therefore a good understanding of the main THM phenomena are required for a safe design of HLW repositories. The introduction of new types of heterogeneous pellet-based engineered barriers and the migration of designs towards higher temperatures provide fresh challenges to geotechnical engineering in a multi-physics context.

T-6) Geological Carbon Storage (Task leader: TBD; Deputy: TBD)

Geological carbon storage is considered as one of the most promising technologies to sequestrate CO2 in geological formations for long-term and secure storage. CO2 can be stored underground through structural trapping, residual trapping, solubility trapping, and mineral trapping. The scientific issues to be tackled involve fluids flow problem and reactive transport issues associated with the chemical activity of CO2 in contact with complex fluids and minerals, but the mechanical aspects (e.g. fault reactivation, chemical degradation of the rocks, pressure changes, including drying of rocks, cap rock behavior) cannot be disregarded. This is where the expertise of geotechnical engineers working on geomechanical issues related to chemo-thermo-hydro-mechanical couplings would make a real difference. Our society thus can (and has to) significantly contribute to this field.

T-7) Low-carbon Geotechnical Engineering (Task leader: Alessandro Tarantino)

The construction sector is one of the main sectors responsible for carbon emissions and accounts for 10% of the carbon footprint globally. Energy and environmental issues are increasingly becoming key factors in market competition. As a result, technological innovation aimed at reducing carbon emissions can be viewed as a major strategy to boost competitiveness of the construction industry. The geotechnical construction industry is a major component of the overall construction sector and is strategically important in infrastructure development (transportation, flood and landslide protection, building foundations, waste disposal). Industry and Research in the construction sector have been investing significantly in recent years to produce innovative low-carbon technologies. However, little innovation has been created in the geo-infrastructure industry, which is lagging behind other construction industry sectors. This Task Force will promote novel low-carbon design concepts, which may include eco-reinforced geomaterials, binders ‘recycled’ from waste, suction-reinforced geo-structures, ‘engineered’ vegetated and bare ground-atmosphere interfaces, shallow geothermal energy, and shallow soil carbon sequestration.

T-8) Emerging Topics (Task leader: TBD)

This task force addresses emerging energy geotechnics topics, including but not limited to enhanced geothermal systems, superhot, geological hydrogen production, offshore foundations, critical mineral extraction, and reservoir repurposing. Once we grow critical mass in any of these topics within our society, a new task force can be formed. 

Professional Task Forces

This category groups other task forces that are instrumental to achieve the TC308 objectives and to accomplish its mission.   

P-1) Public Outreach (Task leader: John McCartney; Deputy: Gonzalo Zambrano Narvaez)

Many of the technologies within the area of energy geotechnics are relatively new so their advantages, risks, and technical details are not well known by the general public, investors, or policy makers. This may affect the wider implementation of these technologies into practice, even when they may be economically and technically feasible. A challenge for this task force is to communicate the activities of the technical committee to target audiences with various levels of technical understanding, such as academic or government researchers, students, geotechnical engineering practitioners, policy makers, and the general public. The goal of this task force is to use social media, web databases, popular press magazine articles, press statements, and annual bulletins to share technical details, scientific information, and success stories relevant to the technical committee. Another goal will be to develop educational material that can be used in university courses to convey different energy geotechnics topics to undergraduate and graduate students. A final goal will be to serve as a repository of information needed to host international conferences held under the auspices of the technical committee.

P-2) Young Member (Task leader: Merita Tafili; Deputy: Aditya Deshmukh)

Young Member Task Force (YMTF) is formed within the TC308 Energy Geotechnics targeting to encourage the involvement of young members as well as students and actively engage them with the committee activities. Although Energy Geotechnics is relatively young in our profession, increasing awareness and significant work that has been done to provide solutions on sustainable energy resources and their management attract especially young members of the community. Because the new generation of geotechnical engineers are the future problem solvers and critical thinkers, developing motivation among young member population is crucial and the task force holds a key role in securing the long-term vision and future of TC308. Therefore, the YMTF strategically identified goals and objectives are to: (1) increase new and young membership within TC 308, (2) actively manage YM participation at all levels within the TC308 activities and events in all regions, (3) facilitate the creation of new activities, (4) connect young members with trendsetters and leaders in the community, (5) increase the awareness of the numerous opportunities to YM, and (6) enhance the participation of YMs within TC 308 through leadership, practice development, and networking opportunities. The YMTF aims to facilitate the development and growth of TC308.

P-3) Awards (Task leader: Melis Sutman; Deputy: Zhen-Yu)

This task force cut across all others in the TC308 Energy Geotechnics and in particular complements and supports the activities of the “Public Outreach” and “Young Member” Task Forces.  This new task force will have as a first goal to establish awards and mechanisms to recognize those ISSMGE members who have made important contributions to Energy Geotechnics. A second goal include the promotion of such awards within the TC’s sponsored events to not only raise the profile of awardees but of Energy Geotechnics within the ISSMGE and society at large. This includes coordinating “Outstanding Technical Committee” submissions to ISSMGE and supporting TC308’s members in nominating for ISSMGE awards. A third and final goal, perhaps more challenging and longer term, is to establish endowments to assist i) young members ii) female colleagues, and iii) colleague from developing countries with awards to attend and present at selected international events.

P-4) Academia-Industry Partnership for Innovation in Energy Geotechnics (Task leader: Alessandro F. Rotta Loria; Deputy: TBD)

In recent decades, a substantial amount of scientific research has been developed to increase the knowledge about geosystems that involve the harvesting and/or storage of energy through the ground. Increasing technical advances and applications have also been developed to foster the diffusion of the previous systems and to serve human activity needs. The previous activities, which inherently characterize the science and engineering of Energy Geotechnics, are under continuous progress and can revolutionize the fields of civil engineering, energy engineering, mechanical engineering, architecture, urban planning, and beyond. However, they are often restrained by a mutual limited access of results, discoveries and needs between academia and industry. The mission of this Task Force is to establish a prominent partnership between academia and industry to bridge the gap between the considered fields and to foster scientific discovery, engineering innovation, technology transfer, advanced professional training, financial support, and the exchange of common visions and needs in the scope of Energy Geotechnics.