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Monday, 4 October 2010

A major global challenge is to satisfy the growing energy demand – in the face of peak oil - while simultaneously balancing the needs of environment and economy.

In a public lecture at UWA this week, Derek Elsworth, Professor of Energy and Geo-Environmental Engineering at Penn State University, will explore the significant role subsurface science may play in brokering such a technological and societal transition.

One path involves the significant but exciting challenges related to the increased utilisation of low-carbon and no- carbon fuels with which Australia is amply endowed.

These include the development of methods for the safe sequestration of CO2, the effective development of non-hydrothermal resources and in the recovery of low-carbon fuels such as natural gas from challenging subsurface environments.

Professor Elsworth will discuss these methods further in his free lecture on Wednesday 6 October at 6pm in UWA's Webb Lecture Theatre.

Professor Elsworth has 25 years of teaching, research and consulting experience in computational mechanics, flow and transport in fractured media and rock mechanics. This research has contributed to understanding in the deep geological sequestration of radioactive wastes and of CO2, in mining, petroleum and geothermal engineering and of volcanic hazards.

He is currently visiting UWA as a 2010 Institute of Advanced Studies Professor-at-Large.

TITLE: Subsurface Geo-Engineering - Band-aid or enduring solutions to the looming prospects of peak oil and climate change

WHEN:           6pm, Wednesday 6 October

WHERE:         Webb Lecture Theatre, Ground Floor, Geography Building, UWA

The lecture is free and open to the public, no RSVP required. Hosted by the Institute of Advanced Studies (+61 8) 6488 1340

Media references

Audrey Barton (UWA Institute of Advanced Studies)  (+61 8)  6488 4797

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