Sustainable Geoenergy (Taught)

MSc Sustainable Geoenergy equips you with the knowledge and skills to manage geoenergy resources in a holistic, safe, and cost-effective manner. It will appeal to science and engineering graduates or those of you from a different numerate academic background who are interested in the management of subsurface reservoirs used to switch from a fossil fuel-driven economy to a decarbonised one.

You’ll address key concepts in subsurface energy and CO2 storage, geothermal energy or transitional gas while integrating geoscience, engineering, and political and societal aspects into your learning. You’ll consider geoenergy resources, the application of technologies to geoenergy management, and ethics relevant to professional engineering practice. You’ll integrate theory and practice, and learn relevant statistical, scientific, and economical skills.

This career-focused master’s programme will develop your technical, scientific, and managerial abilities, relevant for a career in academia, industry, government and non-governmental organisations.

• Your learning environment*

The Subsurface Energy Systems programme is taught though a combination of lectures, tutorials, and project work allowing you to get to know and build relationships with your teaching staff, academics, and peers. You will be assessed by coursework, exams, written reports and oral presentation, including group presentations. You’ll be supported and receive feedback throughout the programme.

During your studies, you’ll benefit from and have access to our specialist equipment, state-of-the-art computer technology and industry standard software. You will have the opportunity to work on real-world problems individually and collaboratively to deliver practical solutions with global impact.

Outside of the classroom, you can get involved with the Heriot-Watt Student Union, based at the Edinburgh campus, and there are lots of ways to do so including participating in student groups, becoming an Academic Rep, and joining societies. Societies provide a great opportunity to meet likeminded people, get involved in regular social and networking events, and gain insights into career prospects.  You may be particularly interested in joining some academically related societies including:

• Eco Society

• Geography Society

• Net Zero Society

Customise your learning

You’ll take eight mandatory courses encompassing a wide range of subsurface geoscience and engineering fundamentals, relevant to the current petroleum, subsurface storage or geothermal industry.

In semester three, you’ll strengthen your collaborative and communication skills through the group project where you will assess real data from a field such as carbon dioxide, energy storage or geothermal energy, or natural gas production. The data will be like that which would be available to an operator prior to making a development decision. Your collective analysis of the data will lead to the design of an appropriate production or storage strategy. Through this exercise, you’ll gain valuable insight into the use of imperfect and incomplete data, integrate knowledge from prior learning from the taught courses, and increase your collaborative problem-solving skills. The project also provides the basis for in-depth discussion of the regulatory, economic, and societal challenges related to these technologies.

You can customise your learning in semester three to match your specific interests or desired career pathway by choosing the topic of subsurface geoscience or engineering in which you’ll complete your detailed individual project. Projects are offered by the Institute of GeoEnergy Engineering and by industry, and normally include a wide choice of experimental research, computer modelling, and real-world problems.

You programme is studied full time for 12 months at our Edinburgh campus commencing in September.

Mandatory September

-Transitional Gas
-Fluid Mechanics, Reactive Transport and Heat Flow
-Reservoir Characterisation
-Reservoir Geophysics and Monitoring

Mandatory January

-Geomechanics
-Geothermal Energy
-Subsurface Gas Storage
-Environmental Risk, Policy and Economics of Geoenergy Applications

Mandatory May

-Individual Project
-Integrated Group Project

You will be assessed by coursework, exams, written reports and oral presentation, including group presentations. You’ll be supported and receive feedback throughout the programme.