News

During the 2018-19 school year, almost 300 Stanford University faculty and staff across all seven schools engaged in energy research, producing hundreds of studies representing advances in energy science, technology, business and policy. Beyond the faculty and staff researchers, hundreds of students and postdoctoral scholars perform much of Stanford’s work in energy.

From production to consumption, natural gas leaks claim lives, damage the climate and waste money. Research teams at Stanford are working on better ways to find and fix gas leaks quickly and inexpensively from one end of the system to the other.

A seemingly counterintuitive approach – converting one greenhouse gas into another – holds promise for returning the atmosphere to pre-industrial concentrations of methane, a powerful driver of global warming.

The Honorable Ernest Moniz and distinguished colleagues discuss a new report authored by the Energy Futures Initiative “Optionality, Flexibility, & Innovation: Pathways for a Deep Decarbonization in California" and answer questions about the technologies, policies, investments, and innovation needed for California to meet the state’s aggressive carbon reduction goals.

Watch NGI Director, Professor Mark Zoback's talk What’s New in an Old Industry: Oil & Gas in the Era of Decarbonization, presented at the Stanford Global Energy Forum, November 2018.

Mark Zoback, NGI Co-Director, discusses the impact of the natural gas revolution as electricity providers transition from coal to a renewable-energy future.

Recent doctoral research by Lauren Culver examines decision making at the intersection of energy and foreign policy and evaluates natural gas as a way to balance global development and climate goals. Dr. Culver is currently an energy specialist at the World Bank working to help countries meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals by alleviating energy poverty while limiting climate changing emissions. 

Professor Mark Zoback is once again offering a free online class in Reservoir Geomechanics. This interdisciplinary course encompasses the fields of rock mechanics, structural geology, earthquake seismology, and petroleum engineering to address a wide range of geomechanical problems that arise during the exploitation of oil and gas reservoirs. To date, over 9000 people – principally college students and current industry professionals – have successfully completed the course. 

The number of small-to-moderate sized earthquakes in large areas of the central and eastern U.S. began to increase dramatically in 2005. The occurrence of many of these earthquakes correlates with the increased use of horizontal drilling and multi-stage hydraulic fracturing by the oil and gas industry. In this talk, Dr. Zoback explains how and why these earthquakes occurred and the steps that can be taken to reduce their occurrence, and what this may mean for oil and gas production in New Zealand.

The competition will provide a level and controlled playing field for testing remote technologies to monitor methane leaks from the oil and gas industry.

Symposium convenes 130 thought leaders from 12 countries to discuss solutions to energy poverty in developing economies.

Methane is the major component of natural gas, which recently surpassed coal as the top fuel for generating electricity in the United States, but is also a powerful greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming, and because methane is highly flammable, gas leaks pose a significant safety hazard. Stanford research focuses on evaluating leak detection technologies and using those insights to inform emissions mitigation policy. 

Check out this 2-minute video on Modeling of Gas Hydrates, created by PhD students Laura Dafov and Zachary Burton, from the Stanford Basin and Petroleum System Modeling Program. The video was submitted to the 2017 Global Energy Forum contest. The competition is open to all current Stanford undergraduate and graduate students and postdocs. To participate, individuals or teams of two students submit a short video highlighting their energy-related research.

This call for proposals from the Stanford Natural Gas Initiative is open to Stanford faculty performing new research in any aspect of natural gas development, use, policy, markets or impacts. A letter of intent to submit is due on February 15, 2016, and full proposals are due on March 15, 2016. Expected funding for each proposed project is up to $100,000 per year.

Replacing older natural gas pipelines reduces leaks and improves consumer safety.

Hydraulic fracturing has unleashed massive new supplies of natural gas, as well as anxiety about contaminated drinking water and earthquakes.