Aberdeen 16th to 18th May 2023: Energy Geoscience Conference – EGC1

Geoscience underpins many aspects of the energy mix that fuels our planet and offers a range of solutions for reducing global greenhouse gas emissions as the world progresses towards net zero. The aim of this new Energy Geoscience Conference series is to explore and develop the contribution of geology and geophysics to the low-carbon energy transition. The meeting will be a key forum for sharing geoscientific aspects of energy supply as earth scientists grapple with the subsurface challenges of remaking the world’s energy system, balancing competing demands in achieving a low carbon future.

Aberdeen has a world-leading role in the energy sector and vision to position itself as a climate positive city helping to lead the world towards net zero. It is the standout UK location to launch the first conference in this exciting new series: the Energy Geoscience Conference, EGC1 in 2023.

EGC – a new subsurface-focussed conference series for a low carbon future

Building upon and superceding their highly successful Petroleum Geology Conference series, the Petroleum Exploration Society of Great Britain (PESGB) and the Geological Society with its specialist Energy Group are now launching a brand new conference series: ‘EGC’ – the Energy Geoscience Conference. The conference series will disseminate high-quality, energy-related geoscience to a UK and global audience via a hybrid physical and virtual conference approximately every 6 years. The conference will be documented though peer-reviewed Proceedings to be published by the Geological Society’s respected Publishing House.

The ethos of this conference is based on the premise and belief that the petroleum industry can play a role in delivering the energy transition by bringing together academic and industrial geoscientists concerned with energy supply, energy storage and subsurface waste sequestration in order to share science and scientific developments. The conference series aims to address technical challenges and support geoscientists in industry and academia who are researching, exploring and developing lower carbon oil and gas, energy storage, renewable energy sources and waste product storage/sequestration both in the UK and internationally. Whilst many of the contributions will be from the UK and Northwest Europe, the virtual participation option is designed to facilitate and encourage worldwide contributions to the topics being addressed.

EGC – a dedicated geoscience conference for 21st Century energy challenges

The high energy density of oil and gas means hydrocarbons are currently the major source of global energy supply and will be consumed for many decades yet to come for energy and as raw materials. The associated greenhouse gas emissions mean that petroleum consumption must be reduced and residual demand met in a much more sustainable fashion; extracted more efficiently and delivered to consumers with a far lower emissions intensity whilst replacement, lower carbon energy sources scale-up. Negative emissions technology will also play a key part in meeting the climate commitments outlined in the Paris Accord. The safe storage of carbon dixide (CO2) and hydrogen (H2) in the pore space of depleted hydrocarbon fields and saline aquifers will be underpinned by the deep understanding and expertise of geoscientists in industry and academia, and the rich datasets gathered by the upstream petroleum industry. Deep subsurface understanding is similarly integral to the long term sequestration of radioactive waste.  Major growth in the geothermal industry will be essential to deliver renewable, low carbon energy, as will energy storage, be it gas, hydrogen or compressed air. Other renewable energies bring their own geological insights and challenges, for example the shallow offshore geology revealed by wind farm site investigations.

Geoscience is the common thread behind these overlapping, energy-related subsurface applications and this conference is intended to be of high relevance to energy geoscientists working all aspects of these subsurface themes. The EGC series seeks to track the evolving energy transition, encouraging the cross-disciplinary sharing of scientific insights, techniques, best practice and case histories with a NW Europe and global audience, drawing on the outstanding tradition of scientific sharing associated with the UK Continental Shelf and the conference organising bodies.

EGC – inspired by a long-running and highly successful conference series

“The EGC series is inspired by the highly successful Petroleum Geology Conference (‘PGC’ or ‘Barbican’) conference series, run by the PESGB, Geological Society and others on eight occasions from 1974 to the final conference in 2015. With unprecedented continuity and regularity, this unique conference series and its accompanying Proceedings volumes (https://pgc.lyellcollection.org) documented industry and academia’s developing understanding of the geology and prospectivity of one the world’s great extensional basin provinces. It initiated a long-standing process of scientific sharing through lectures, conferences and publications in which the Geological Society and PESGB have been instrumental over many decades.

The EGC conference series intends to build upon the philosophy of scientific learning, sharing and collaboration that has led the UK Continental Shelf to be surely the most comprehensively published offshore petroleum province anywhere on the planet. We invite you to contribute scientific talks and posters, and to attend this exciting new energy transition conference!”

Graham Goffey – Conference Board Chair on behalf of the Board and Conference Convenors

PESGB Conferences Ltd and the Geological Society of London are organising the Energy Geoscience Conference 2023. To contact us please email: events@pesgb.org.uk

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