Who ya gonna call? Resource Busters.

Dave Waters, Director & Geoscience Consultant, Paetoro Consulting UK Ltd

All change, this train is now terminating…(or is it?)

The number of “Geoscience” or “Geology” or “Earth Science” departments in existence around the world, is diminishing. This in part reflects a waning in the scale of the fossil fuel industry – coal, oil, and gas, that has driven so much of the investment in the sector over the past two centuries. Not necessarily in funding the departments directly, but in fuelling demand for the graduates. 

There are in these departments many other fields covered – hazard, minerals, groundwater, engineering geology, pure theoretical geoscience - but it is hard to overstate the importance of the fossil fuel dollar in historically sustaining their output. 

There is then a real sense in which remaining departments are struggling and looking to rebalance - just as the fossil fuel industries are doing themselves. A feature of this is a natural tendency to reaffirm the importance of geoscience. This has a firm basis. The world’s new and ongoing needs, to name just a few, include:

• Minerals – especially related to renewable energy and electronics.
• Applications related to nuclear – both fuel resource and waste repositories.
• Subterranean gas storage and sequestration, including CO2 and hydrogen.
• Geothermal energy and thermal energy storage.
• Groundwater resource.
• Engineering geology and especially energy efficient building-ground interactions.
• Paleoclimate studies.

The big picture just got even bigger

Yet there is something fundamental – a change yet to be fully grasped. The sheer dominance of fossil fuels over the past two centuries has meant that finding geological resource was almost enough. Find it and the rest would sort itself out. Simpler times. 

The world is no longer so Boolean, so black and white. The difference? There is competition for energy. The near monopoly that fossil fuels have held for so long, whether you have applauded that or despised it – is on the wane. It’s not about to disappear by any means, but it is no longer the only show in town. 

That is a transition that we are all struggling with, and amidst all the impassioned controversies out there, we should also take a pause to chill a bit and acknowledge that well, it’s hard. There is a lot to rethink. Not finding the solutions overnight is forgivable. That’s not an excuse to procrastinate, but it is an acknowledgement that it would be slightly surprising if everyone agreed on what to do next.

One of the consistent themes I have in conversations with experts involved in various elements of an “energy transition” (or as I sometimes like to call it, just to be different from the same old same old – the “resource tide”), is the complexity and diversity of the issues to be grasped in order to do it well. The days when the huge profit margins supplied by finding a big accumulation of hydrocarbon underground were all we had to worry about as geoscientists, have gone.   Or of copper for that matter, or any other big money-spinning subsurface commodity.

The need today is not only to be aware of what we know, but of what we don’t know. Very aware of what we don’t know.

An instinct for preservation and reading the room - not the same

I worry a bit that the impulse to shout the importance of geoscience – without saying anything else to supplement it - will fall on deaf ears. Not that this assertion of importance is incorrect, but it can – rightly or wrongly - seem to a public that largely associates geology with the fossil fuel industry - as an old dog bewailing its inability to learn new tricks. Any sympathy may be lacking. A bit of the “frankly, nobody cares” response. 

For my own part these days, having been predominantly an oil and gas exploration geologist for many years, over the past six I have migrated steadily more into the critical mineral, geonuclear, and geothermal aspects of geological resource.  Becoming aware of the presence of competing alternatives that have far less direct need for subsurface studies and associated risks - has been an over-riding impression of that time. The decisions that people face today, particularly in energy, are not “where is the subsurface resource” – i.e. coal, oil, or gas as it used to be – but rather a far different question – “what is the best energy and resource option?”. Where there are offerings from both the surface and subsurface, the question becomes “how do the subsurface resource options compete with surface resource-based alternatives?”.

The geoscientist today who knows everything about geothermal resource but does not understand at some level how it fares comparatively with wind or solar energy alternatives, I’m sorry, is of little practical use.  The geologist who knows everything about rare earth elements but does not know anything about the surface-based industries driving their demand, is, once more, of little use. You get my point. 

I exaggerate a bit and there is actually a need, just as there always will be, for those dedicated specialists who are deeply in love with their own little academic rabbit hole. Bless those who are so. But at a department survival scale, and for most of us at a personal career scale, the proposition has changed. There is a need to address real world questions that have fundamentally changed in nature. From being 95% subsurface focussed, to being 50/50 at best.

Counting the cash and constructing the kit 

The engineering and the economics are two critical aspects of it. Geology has changed units. Where it used to be mmboe driven, now it is kWh. Where it used to be bopd, now it is l/s. If you don’t know what those things mean, don’t worry, basically what I’m saying is that we’ve shifted some fundamental emphases in what we look at. Everyone is struggling to keep up with all the new things happening. It is impossible for any one individual to keep up in detail with everything, but there is a very great need for us all to have a greater awareness of other things – and to know when we need to call in other experts. The subsurface, geology, in isolation, is not really enough anymore. 

Holistic is perhaps an old-fashioned word conjuring up naïve expectations of energy bliss dancing off merrily amongst the flower strewn fields into the sunset. However, I don’t recoil from it, as it is the right word to describe what needs to be done. A holistic look at resource and how best to access and use it. An examination that is not restricted to the subsurface.

There also needs to be a common economic language. A lingua franca of comparative economics, that enables a geoscientist to get a vague idea of when something that is subsurface based - is or isn’t competitive against alternative options. Now I’m not suggesting everyone has to be an economist here, but again, at a department training level, something in the syllabus is needed. If we can’t produce people that have some idea how to compare the resource needs and profit margins of nuclear against geothermal against wind against solar, then what are we doing? 

That’s not something that a purely geoscience themed department can do.

Geoheroes sing on…

Now please don’t get me wrong, this is not a criticism of all those magnificent advocates out there who boldly proclaim the ongoing importance of geoscience to the world. They are needed and welcomed and admired. What I am suggesting is that there is a growing need for another variant of the message to be nurtured and promulgated. Not just the “hey world, this is why you need geoscience”, but more of the “let’s look at Earth resource for you and figure out what works - and hey - if some of that resource is above ground and some of it is below, don’t worry, we can do both for you and figure out which is best.”

Am I alone in thinking that is a message far more likely to find fertile ground? 

The truth is, this is happening already – but sadly by a process of natural selection. Many departments in the UK are already managing to make these connections, and they seem to be the ones still thriving. Unsurprisingly, it tends to be those ones centred in locations with a strong history of both engineering and subsurface activity (either minerals, coal, or oil and gas), and where renewables are particularly active. I hesitate to name names, because it would probably be unfair to a whole lot of other departments that also have excellent programmes I am less aware of. Suffice to say that the extremities of the British Isles are punching above their weight. Perhaps that good old Atlantic breeze is blowing a breath of fresh air and energising in more ways than one. 

Where geoscience departments are struggling, it is important that we don’t be too callous in allowing decline. While yes, the reality of it is that there will be less geoscience jobs out there in the slow decline of a vast global oil and gas industry – there remains a hugely important range of industries that depend on geoscience understanding. 

The urge to merge however, or at least interact intimately, is something to encourage. Not with other geoscience departments, but with engineering and economics and environmental departments. Just as the geoscientist of today needs to be trained to be savvy with fundamentals of engineering and comparative economics, so too the engineers and the economists “proper” - need to have a better understanding of what the subsurface can offer, and when it might be competitive or pivotal.

The birds and the bees and interdisciplinary babies 

The need for engineering-economic-geoscience cross pollination has never been greater. For those of us who are or who were historically motivated by a pure interest in theoretical geoscience – and hands up guilty m’lud – there will always be a place for the so impassioned. Yet the realities of what the world needs right now, and what the taxpayer is looking to fund – are people that can bridge all the complexities of the energy transition both above and below ground. People that can help engineer options that are economically viable. The departments that can tailor themselves best to this need would seem the ones most likely to survive, to visit the fulgurites of Arran another day. 

If wandering the deserts of academic funding inspiration, think big, think beyond just the subsurface. Take a peek up top, grab a partner, and dance. 

KeyFacts Energy Industry Directory: Paetoro Consulting