168: Axel Jeconiah and Christian Dominguez
In this episode of the People Behind Energy (PBE) podcast, host Troy Tittlemier travels to UT Austin to sit down with PhD students Axel Jeconiah and Christian Dominguez from Dr. Carlos Verdin's formation evaluation program. The conversation dives deep into the future of the energy industry, focusing heavily on new-generation geothermal technologies, the integration of machine learning, and advanced fracture detection methods. Axel and Christian share their unique journeys into the energy sector—from growing up in Qatar and Houston to pursuing cutting-edge DOE-funded research. The episode explores how modern physics and engineering are being applied to create more efficient and sustainable energy solutions, including the economic challenges of mapping geothermal fractures and the vision for distributed geothermal micro-wells.
Episode Highlights
00:00:00 - Introduction at UT Austin and meeting the PhD students in the formation evaluation program.
00:01:46 - Axel and Christian share their backgrounds, from Houston and Qatar, and what inspired them to pursue petroleum engineering.
00:04:33 - Breaking down the basics of geothermal energy and how water heat is converted to turbine power.
00:06:11 - Exploring "new generation" geothermal technology and the process of hydraulically fracturing hot dry rock.
00:09:41 - The experimental research surrounding the extraction of lithium from underground geothermal brines.
00:11:03 - Discussing Texas geothermal anomalies and the impact of tight gas on thermal conductivity in the McAllen area.
00:13:17 - Defining the difference between Machine Learning and AI, and their growing necessity in the energy sector.
00:15:41 - Axel details his DOE-funded PhD research on using electromagnetics and conductive proppant to map fractures through casing.
00:23:48 - Vision for the future: Why distributed networks of 20-megawatt micro-wells are more effective than giant, single-source geothermal wells.
Episode Sponsors
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