University of Waterloo
Maurice is a Professional Engineer and Professor of Geological Engineering at the University of Waterloo, where he has taught and carried our geomechanics research since 1982. He carries out research in deep subsurface engineering issues including oil production, hydraulic fracturing, energy storage, geothermal energy, carbon sequestration, and deep injection disposal of granular solids and liquid wastes (including biosolids, oilfield wastes, and civil wastes). He holds over 90 international patents and has about 600 full-text papers published in journals and conferences. Maurice is a well-known educator and consultant, an advisor to companies and governments on matters relating to energy development, hydraulic fracturing, energy geostorage, wellbore integrity, technology and innovation. Maurice is deeply interested in energy technologies that can be scaled to community levels to provide robust and reliable heat and power. These include integrating natural gas, hydrogen, compressed air energy storage, and heat geo-storage. These issues have particular interest to the issues of energy availability and security in the cold Canadian climate. Another strong component of his research is environmental geomechanics, focusing on deep disposal of carbon (CO2, petcoke, biosolids…), particulate solid slurries, and waste fluids deep into sedimentary strata.
CCUS stands for Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage. Too often, it is interpreted to mean “Carbon dioxide” Capture, Utilization and Storage; this may lead to a constraint on the imagination, leading to a reluctance to assess other potential pathways to achieve the goals of atmospheric emissions reductions. Several “unconventional” CCUS pathways are discussed here, perhaps helping to trigger ideas that may lie outside of the conventional pathway of “CO2 capture, compression and injection”, whether for EOR or direct sequestration. Furthermore, only direct sequestration will be addressed here.
University of Waterloo