The Laloui Group on show in San Diego

Led by a keynote address from the Laloui Group Director, Professor Lyesse Laloui, the Laloui Group was well represented at the 2^nd International Conference on Energy Geotechnics held in San Diego in April.

Energy Geotechnics has emerged as a potential tool to address ever-increasing global energy demand and its related climate change implications, through the development of sustainable energy systems based on integrated schemes of energy production, transport, transfer, and energy storage. As such, geotechnics is likely to play a key role in the future energy matrix.

Building upon the success of the First International Conference on Energy Geotechnics held in Kiel, Germany, the conference provided a platform for interaction, communication and technology transfer for academic and non-academic parties, including researchers and practitioners, in the broad areas within Energy Geotechnics.

The three-day event was opened by Professor Laloui with his keynote presentation on “Numerical analysis of multiphysical processes in the vicinity of nuclear waste repositories” which was warmly received and set the tone for the rest of the conference. Dr Alessio Ferrari then led a mini-symposium on Shale and Clay Behavior for Energy Production and Nuclear Waste Disposal with contributions from fellow group members Dr José Bosch, Dr Angelica Tuttolomondo, Qazim Llabajani and Jinwoo Kim. Dr Ferrari followed with a second mini-symposium on Low Carbon Geotechnical Engineering. Other inputs came from Dr Elena Ravera and her presentation on Advances in Energy Geostructures Research and Dr Eleni Stavropoulou who presented the Issues Related to CO2 Sequestration.

The conference also provided an important opportunity for the team to meet fellow researchers and practitioners in energy geotechnics which has not been possible for the last two years due to COVID restrictions.