Energy Storage
Renewable energy sources are crucial for avoiding dangerous levels of climate change. Many renewable energy sources however, suffer from supply and demand imbalances. Electricity is only generated under certain conditions which do not necessarily match with periods of high electricity demand. To address this imbalance we need to supplement renewable electricity sources with grid scale energy storage options which use excess electricity to enable energy to be stored and used in periods of high demand.
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Carbon Capture and Storage
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a technology that removes carbon dioxide, CO2, from the atmosphere and stores it deep underground in rock formations. Implementing CCS rapidly and widely will help to reduce our increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations and help to mitigate dangerous levels of climate change. Geoscientists are needed to develop and implement CCS technology, and will therefore be crucial in meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
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Materials for the energy transition
It is estimated that by 2050 up to 85% of all electricity could be generated by renewable sources, but in order to achieve this, we need to implement green technologies on a global scale. Green technologies like wind turbines, solar panels, and rechargeable batteries rely on raw materials sourced from the Earth. Just recycling the materials in current circulation cannot match the increasing global demand, so we need geoscientists, passionate about the environment, to find and extract more of these critical raw materials in a responsible and sustainable way.
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Geothermal energy
As over 99% of our planet is hotter than 100°C, geothermal energy represents huge resource of continuous, reliable, carbon-free energy. This internal heat comes from the steady decay of radioactive isotopes in the Earth's core as well as left over heat from the Earth's formation 4.5 billion years ago. Geothermal energy can be harnessed directly for heating and cooling purposes or it can be used to generate clean electricity using steam and turbines.
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