News Archive

News Archive



© Geoverbund ABC/J- Kurt Steinhausen

First Prize Geoverbund ABC/J Young Academics Award 2022 – Dr. Paromita Deb

16.06.2022

Paromita Deb has been awarded 1st prize by the Geoverbund ABC/J Young Academics Award 2022 for her doctoral dissertation.

Read more – Geoverbund ABC/J Webpage



© Energi Simulation

Research program of Dr. Maren Brehme supported by Energi Simulation organization

31.05.2022

We are pleased to announce the formation of a new group, to conduct research into the safe, effective and efficient exploration and operation of geothermal energy systems.

Read more – Energi Simulation Webpage
Read more – ETH Foundation


Doctoral Examination Hoda Javanmard

02.05.2022

On Friday, April 29th, Hoda Javanmard has successfully defended her PhD thesis, titled: “Hydromechanical processes in natural and 3D printed fractures”



Dario Schwendener

SASEG Student Grant

11.04.2022

For his ongoing Master Thesis Project, “Velocity Quantification of Two Phase Drainage and Imbibition Processes in Rough Wall Fractures”, Dario Schwendener was awarded with the SASEG student grant of 1’000 CHF provided by the Swiss Association of Energy Geoscientists.
The thesis is currently in the experimental stage and supervised by Dr. Xiang-Zhao Kong, PhD student Isamu Naets and Dr. Jérõme André Roland Noir.


2nd place in SPE GeoHackathon 2021

30.03.2022

3 GEG PhD students together with PhD students from RWTH Aachen achieved 2nd Place in the 2021 SPE GeoHackathon. As part of the Hackathon, they were tasked with creating a field development plan for a site in the Netherlands to provide heat to local demand points at a minimum levelised cost of heat over a 20 year period.


New GEG XRCT Website published

22.07.2021

The GEG XRCT system of ETH Zurich provides resources and services in Xray-CT imaging as well as direct access to state-​of-the-art CT scanner, dedicated software, and in-situ imaging equipment.


ETH Medal: Distinction of Doctoral Thesis – Edoardo Rossi

20.05.2021

Dr. Edoardo Rossi received the ETH Medal (Auszeichnung von Doktorarbeit) for his doctoral thesis: “Combined Thermo-​​Mechanical Drilling Technology to Enhance Access to Deep Geo-​​Resources”.
Edoardo Rossi is currently a research associate at the Geothermal Energy and Geofluids (GEG) group and former doctoral student at GEG and the Laboratory for Transport Processes and Reactions (LTR) at D-MAVT.


EASYGO Project granted

20.05.2021

We want to congratulate Dr. Maren Brehme (TU Delft) with the granted ITN EASYGO ‘Efficiency & Safety in Geothermal Operations’ which creates 13 PhD positions within our network. A prestigious 3.4M€ fund has been awarded by the European Commission to her project entitled ‘EASYGO: Efficiency and Safety in Geothermal Operations’.

3 out of 13 EASYGO PhD students will do their research at the GEG Group: Nicolas Rangel Jurado, Anna Kotsova and Tristan Leonar Merbecks.
Read more – ITN EASYGO Webpage


Earth Sciences at ETH Zurich 7th time in a row Nr. 1 worldwide

15.01.2021
Read more – link to QS Top Universities Webpage


2020 MIT A+B Best Paper Award

19.12.2020
Dr. Edoardo Rossi, research associate at the Geothermal Energy and Geofluids (GEG) group and former doctoral student at GEG and the Laboratory for Transport Processes and Reactions (LTR), and his Co-Authors received the Best Paper Award at the MIT A+B Applied Energy Symposium, held virtually at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – MIT, with the paper:

Rossi, E., B. Adams, D. Vogler, Ph. Rudolf von Rohr, B. Kammermann, and M.O. Saar, Advanced drilling technologies to improve the economics of deep geo-resource utilization, Proceedings of Applied Energy Symposium: MIT A+B, United States, 2020 , 8, pp. 1-6, 2020. https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000445213 [Download] [View Abstract]Access to deep energy resources (geothermal energy, hydrocarbons) from deep reservoirs will play a fundamental role over the next decades. However, drilling of deep wells to extract deep geo-resources is extremely expensive. As a fact, drilling deep wells into hard, crystalline rocks represents a major challenge for conventional rotary drilling systems, featuring high rates of drill bit wear and requiring frequent drill bit replacements, low penetration rates and poor process efficiency. Therefore, with the aim of improving the overall economics to access deep geo-resources in hard rocks, in this work, we focus on two novel drilling methods, namely: the Combined Thermo-Mechanical Drilling (CTMD) and the Plasma-Pulse Geo-Drilling (PPGD) technologies. The goal of this research and development project is the effective reduction of the costs of drilling in general and particularly regarding accessing and using deep geothermal energy, oil or gas resources. In this work, we present these two novel drilling technologies and focus on evaluating the process efficiency and the drilling performance of these methods, compared to conventional rotary drilling.

 


2019 WRR Editors’ Choice Award

10.12.2020

Dec. 2020: GEG paper receives a 2019 Water Resources Research Journal Editor’s Choice Award, given to 1% of papers in a given year (here 2019). The paper is:

Kittilä, A., M.R. Jalali, K.F. Evans, M. Willmann, M.O. Saar, and X.-Z. Kong, Field Comparison of DNA-Labeled Nanoparticle and Solute Tracer Transport in a Fractured Crystalline Rock, Water Resources Research, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1029/2019WR025021 [Download]

 


Doctoral Examination Mehrdad Ahkami

02.11.2020

On October 30th, 2020, Mehrdad Ahkami has successfully defended his PhD thesis, entitled: “Experimental and numerical study of fluid flow, solute transport, and mineral precipitation in fractured porous media”.


Doctoral Examination Marina Lima

09.09.2020

On Tuesday, September 8th, Marina Grimm Lima has successfully defended her PhD thesis, entitled: “Evolution of permeability of natural fractures due to THMC processes in the context of CO2-based reservoir applications”.


Airborne geomagnetic survey over the lavafields near Þorbjörn volcano in Iceland

20.08.2020

Franco Aubert and Friedemann Samrock just completed 137km of airborne geomagnetic survey over the lavafields near Þorbjörn volcano in Iceland. The study is part of project MAGIC – Multidisciplinary imaging and characterization of the magma/fluid reservoir beneath Svartsengi – in collaboration with GFZ Potsdam, ISOR and the University of Iceland. The photo shows our drone during a mission and the 74.4MWe Svartsengi power plant in the background. (click on picture to enlarge)

Read more – link to project website


Tenure for Dr. Xiang-Zhao Kong

09.08.2020

Dr. Xiang-Zhao Kong has achieved permanency status (tenure) in the Geothermal Energy and Geofluids (GEG) group of the Department of Earth Sciences at ETH Zurich. He has done an outstanding job, which includes research and publications, student supervision, raising grants, and setting up the GREAT Visualization lab of the GEG Group.


New project: studying geothermal resources in Ethiopia

01.08.2020

New project MIRIGE in Ethiopia to study magmatic rifting and the formation of geothermal resources funded by ETH grant.

Read more – link to project website


Doctoral Examination Justin Ezekiel

28.07.2020

On Monday, July 27th, Justin Ezekiel has successfully defended his PhD thesis, entitled: “Assessment and optimization of geological carbon storage and energy production from deep natural gas reservoirs”.



© Image ETH Zurich

Top Ranking for ETH Zurich in the QS World University Ranking

17.06.2020

ETH Zurich has demonstrated continuous improvement in the QS World University Ranking, from 12th place in 2015 to 6th place in last year’s 2020 ranking.

Read more – link to QS TopUniversities Webpage

Read more – link to ETH News webpage

Top 1 Ranking for ETH Zurich’s Earth Sciences in QS World University Rankings

17.06.2020

Earth and marine sciences at ETH Zurich was ranked the best in the world for the 5th time in a row.
Read more – link to QS TopUniversities Webpage

Read more – link to ETH News webpage


Doctoral Examination Jin Ma

29.03.2020

On Thursday, May 28th, Jin Ma has successfully defended her PhD thesis, entitled: “Investigation of mineral reactivity in CO2-bearing solutions: An application to CCUS in geothermal reservoirs”.


Doctoral Examination Mahmoud Hefny

27.03.2020

On Thursday, March 26th, Mahmoud Hefny has successfully defended his PhD thesis, entitled: “Rock physics and heterogeneities characterization controlling fluid flow in reservoir rocks”.


Doctoral Examination Philipp Schädle

25.03.2020

On Tuesday, March 24th, Philipp Schädle has successfully defended his PhD thesis, entitled: “Flow and transport through fractured rock – numerical approaches to account for fracture heterogeneity”.


New photo gallery of geothermal exploration for green energy in Mongolia.

03.02.2020

The burning of coal for heating is a major cause of harmful air pollution and massive greenhouse gas emissions in Mongolia’s cities. This photo gallery provides authentic insights into the progress of introducing a scientific framework for geothermal exploration.
read more


Doctoral Examination Edoardo Rossi

08.01.2020

On Tuesday, January 7th, Edoardo Rossi has successfully passed the Doctoral Examination. Edoardo’s PhD thesis title: “Combined Thermo-Mechanical Drilling technology to enhance access to deep geo-resources”.


Doctoral Examination Anniina Kittilä

09.09.2019

On Monday, September 9th, Anniina Kittilä has successfully passed the Doctoral Examination. Anniina’s PhD thesis title: “Tracer-based characterization of stimulation enhanced pore volume and application of novel DNA nanotracers in fractured crystalline rock”.



Marthe Faber

Prix d’Excellence by the Enovo Foundation

01.12.2019

Marthe Faber has been awarded the ‘Prix d’Excelence’ by the Enovo Fondation and its partners, the Association da Vinci and l’ANEIL (National Association of Luxembourg Engineering Students). The prize is awarded to students with the best thesis grade in engineering. Marthe conducted the research for her MSc thesis ‘Usage Of Inter-Site Electromagnetic Transfer Functions In Exploration For Geothermal Resources’ at GEG in 2018.
read more – link to the Foundation de Luxembourg



© ETH Zürich / USYS

Top Ranking for ETH Zurich’s Earth Sciences in Nature Index 2018

20.12.2018

ETH is listed number one among the 200 best academic institutions in Earth & Environmental Sciences in the Nature Index 2018. This index is based on publications in the 82 journals selected as the most important journals by two panels of scientists, which are independent of the Nature Publishing Group.
read more


SNF Ambizione Grant

25.10.2018

Dr. Allan Leal has been awarded an SNF Ambizione grant to develop innovative computational methods for ultra-fast simulations of coupled physical and chemical processes using machine learning and GPU parallel computing, starting on January 1, 2019.
Link to personal homepage of Allan Leal


SNF R4D Grant

01.10.2018

Dr. Friedemann Samrock has been awarded an SNF R4D grant to develop a geoscientific framework for geothermal exploration and energy utilization in Mongolia, started on September 1, 2018.
Link to Project’s page of SNF



© ETH Zürich / Marco Carocari

Top Ranking for ETH Zurich’s Earth Sciences in QS World University Rankings

14.03.2018

Earth and marine sciences at the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich was ranked the best in the world for the 4th time in a row. The results were published by the QS World University Rankings.
read more



9th European Geothermal PhD Days

March 14-16, 2018

In 2018, the PhD students from the Geothermal Energy and Geofluids (GEG) Group at ETH Zurich will be hosting the 9th European Geothermal PhD Days. The EGPD 2018 event will take place on March, 14th-16th at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH), Switzerland.



© 3sat nano – TV broadcast from Tuesday 9 May on 3sat nano

Safe geothermal energy

11.05.2017

Scientists are searching for safer drilling methods: geothermal energy can provide sustainable and clean energy right where we need it – however seismicity may be induced. Scientists at ETH Zurich investigate how to prevent these earthquakes.

Link to video



© Daniel Winkler, ETH Globe

The rock crackers

12.03.2017

ETH Zurich researchers working at NAGRA’s Grimsel rock laboratory have retreated deep inside the mountain. By fracturing solid rock, they are hoping to re-examine the feasibility of geothermal power plants based on petrothermal technology. (ETH Globe, 01/2017)
read more



© ETH Zurich / Alessandro Della Bella

New Course Geofluids

14.03.2017

This semester the new course ‘Geofluids’, offered by the GEG Group, within the Earth Science Masters Program counts 32 registered students.
read more



MOOSE workshop at ETH Zurich

March 19-22, 2018

We are pleased to announce a workshop on the Multiphysics Object-Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE, http://mooseframework.org) to be given by the MOOSE development team at ETH Zurich and organized by the GEG Group, from March 19-22, 2018.

read more on MOOSE 2018 webpage



© Felix Wey

Inauguration of commemorative plaque for the Werner Siemens Foundation

12.09.2017

Werner Siemens Foundation visits the Geothermal Energy & Geofluids Group and has a guided tour at the GEG Laboratories.
read more on ETH Foundation webpage

read more on News of GEG webpage