Energy Resources Engineering at Stanford focuses on the design of processes for energy production and energy transformations, and the long-term storage of energy byproducts such as carbon dioxide. The design of subsurface processes includes characterization of the spatial distribution of formation properties, experimental investigations of flow behavior, computational and analytical modeling of flow, selection and implementation of methods for enhancing fluid recovery or long-term storage, understanding the environmental aspects of resource production, and optimization of process performance. Other areas of focus include clean energy conversions (e.g., clean coal), geothermal engineering, energy systems modeling and optimization, and marine energy systems, large-scale solar and other renewable energy resources.

Faculty and graduate students conduct research in areas including: subsurface characterization, uncertainty modeling and geostatistics; computational modeling of subsurface flow (reservoir simulation); enhanced oil recovery by thermal means, gas injection, and the use of chemicals; well test analysis; advanced well modeling; clean energy conversions; carbon capture and sequestration; geothermal engineering; marine energy systems; process optimization and inverse modeling; and modeling and optimization of large-scale energy systems.

The Department is housed in the Green Earth Sciences Building and it operates experimental facilities for research on CO2 capture and storage, clean energy conversions, enhanced oil recovery processes, and geothermal reservoir engineering. Each graduate student is provided with a state-of-the-art personal computer, and all ERE students have access to high performance computational resources within the Center for Computational Earth & Environmental Science in the School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences.