Mailing Address
Yuezhou Kang
Geothermal Energy & Geofluids
Institute of Geophysics
NO F 51.1
Sonneggstrasse 5
CH-8092 Zurich Switzerland
Contact
| yukang@ethz.ch |
Administration
| Prisca Maurantonio | |
| +41 44 632 3465 | |
| prisca.maurantonio@eaps.ethz.ch | |
Research Interests
With a professional background in the energy sector, particularly in oil and gas reservoir engineering, I bring practical experience in subsurface resource development to my current research. My work aims to advance technologies that address the global climate crisis, with a particular focus on CO2 Plume Geothermal (CPG) systems and Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS). To support this goal, I apply numerical simulations to explore subsurface behavior during CO2 circulation and to evaluate the potential of these technologies.
Publications
[Go to Proceedings Refereed] [Go to Proceedings Non-Refereed] [Go to Theses]
Underlined names are links to current or past GEG members
REFEREED PUBLICATIONS IN JOURNALS
1.
Okoroafor, E.R., Y. Kang, T. Elsayed, and A. Indro, Enabling CO2 plume geothermal: key geological, reservoir, and operational considerations, In ARMA US Rock Mechanics/Geomechanics Symposium, ARMA–2023, 2023. https://doi.org/10.56952/arma-2023-0816 [Download]
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PROCEEDINGS REFEREED
1.
Kang, Y., A. Merzoug, A.P. Indro, E.R. Okoroafor, and T. Elsayed, Advancing CO2 Plume Geothermal: A Preliminary Investigation of Key Success Factors, In Proceedings of the 48th Workshop on Geothermal Reservoir Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California, February 2023, 2023.
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THESES
1.
Kang, Y, Techno-Economic Optimization of CPG through WRFM: Recompletion Strategy and Rate Optimization in Focus, MSc Thesis, pp., 2025. https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-c-000787147 [Download] [View Abstract]CO2 plume geothermal (CPG) offers the dual benefit of renewable power generation and permanent geological sequestration within the broader carbon-capture-utilization- and-storage (CCUS) portfolio, yet its commercial outlook remains constrained by multiple interacting uncertainties. To address these challenges, we introduce—for the first time in a CPG context—the well-reservoir-facility-management (WRFM) framework and apply it at two distinct deployment scales to optimize reservoir-development strategies.
For a doublet-well system, we first characterize the baseline productivity of stacked reservoirs and quantify the influence of interlayer contrast. The subsequent optimization phase centers on the mid- and late-life comparison of sidetracking versus zonal isolation recompletion strategies, evaluating their respective technical merits and economic returns.
For a multi-well system, we implement a Gaussian-process-surrogate Bayesian optimization to refine injection strategies across multiple injectors. This approach markedly reduces the computational burden, enabling cost-efficient resolution of field-scale injection-rate allocation—a persistent reservoir management challenge. Post-processing of the optimization results provides quantitative guidance and theoretical support for the large-scale deployment of CPG through comparative analysis of alternative injection schemes.