Training carbon management engineers: why new educational capacity is the single biggest hurdle for geologic CO2 storage

Abstract

Abstract Implementing geologic storage of carbon dioxide at a scale large enough to make a difference will require an industry of magnitude comparable to the current oil and gas industry (Bryant [1]; Orr [2]). Such an enterprise will require substantial human capital, but recognition of this need has been largely missing from discussions of GHG mitigation. To design, build, implement, optimize, troubleshoot, monitor and regulate large-scale carbon dioxide storage projects will require subsurface engineers. The same technologies that apply to hydrocarbon production apply to the subsurface storage of carbon dioxide. Thus one might naturally expect to hire petroleum engineering (PE) graduates to staff a carbon storage industry. We argue that it is unrealistic to depend on PE graduates to staff the carbon storage industry, for three reasons: (i) continued large demand for hydrocarbons is unlikely to abate; (ii) a demographic gap in the oil and gas industry will continue to place an extraordinary premium on new graduates; and (iii) existing PE departments in the US and abroad are already operating at or above capacity. In short, there are neither classrooms nor faculty sufficient to educate enough petroleum engineers for the petroleum industry. Even if there were, it would be difficult for an emerging carbon storage industry to compete for graduates with oil and gas companies. We advocate that the solution to this manpower problem is building new educational infrastructure. We propose a prototype program based on an existing accredited multidisciplinary degree program at The University of Texas at Austin, known as Geosystems Engineering and Hydrogeology. Offered jointly by the Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering Department and the Department of Geological Sciences, this program combines the fundamentals of petroleum engineering with the subsurface architecture emphasis of geology and the environmental perspective of hydrogeology. The latter is salient given the priority of protecting groundwater resources during geologic storage. With modest redesign of the curriculum but with substantial expansion of classrooms, laboratories and faculty, we argue that the program would be able to graduate significant numbers of “carbon management engineers” within six years. The problem of timing is particularly difficult. The lead time to develop such a program is long, even when starting from an existing degree program. A geologic storage industry will not begin until a regulatory framework and some form of carbon market or price are established. Ensuring that the carbon management industry is not starved of talent will thus require a rare combination of shared vision amongst university administrators, government agencies and industry.