Holger Ott studied physics in Stuttgart and Berlin, and received his PhD in 2004 from the Freie Universität Berlin with a focus on solid state physics. Before moving to industry in 2006, he was a fellow and postdoctoral fellow at the University of Tokyo (Japan, 2002) and the University of Cologne (Germany, 2004-2006).

From 2006 Holger Ott worked as a Senior Scientist and Project Manager at Shell Global Solutions International B.V. in the Netherlands and was among other things scientific lead in the field of geological CO₂ storage. During this time, Holger Ott taught as an honorary reader at Imperial College London, and completed his habilitation in applied geosciences at RWTH Aachen University in Germany in 2015 (Thesis: CO₂-Brine Displacement in Saline Aquifers – Experiments, Simulations and Concepts).

In 2016 Holger Ott was appointed to the University of Leoben. He heads the Chair of Reservoir Engineering and is currently Head of Department Petroleum Engineering. His primary research interests are in the decarbonization of fossil fuels and geological energy storage.

Geological Carbon Storage
CCS Projects and Monitoring

In this part of the course, we will look at geological CO₂ storage from the perspective of a reservoir engineer. The geological storage options, processes in the subsurface (CO₂ migration and trapping), and aspects of storage capacity and storage safety will be discussed. A second part discusses ongoing CCS projects and monitoring options for model calibration and to ensure reservoir integrity.

Since 2022, Keita Yoshioka is the head of the chair of Petroleum and Geothermal Energy Recovery at University of Leoben. He holds a PhD in Petroleum Engineering from Texas A&M University.

From 2007 to 2017 Keita Yoshioka worked at Chevron in the US and Indonesia, as research scientist and geothermal reservoir engineer. Between 2017 and 2022 he was work group leader at Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ in Leipzig, Germany.

In his research Keita Yoshioka focuses on fracture propagation in porous media, THM/C coupled process, well stimulation, computational geomechanics, and supercritical geothermal systems.

Containment III: Geomechanics and Seismicity

The first part of the lecture covers geomechanical related integrity issues in cap rocks. Caused by pressurisation in the reservoir and/or temperature changes around the injection point, cap rock may undergo mechanical failure. The second part of the lecture focuses on induced seismicity by fluid injection. We discuss induced seismicity examples through actual incidents.

Kris Ravi is professor for well integrity at the chair of Drilling and Completion Engineering at the University of Leoben. He holds a PhD in chemical engineering from Oklahoma State University and an MBA from Oklahoma State University/Rotterdam School of Management.

Containment I: Well Bore Integrity

Well integrity is critical to achieve safe and economic carbon capture and storage. Products, procedures, digital technology, and expertise have been developed over the years in the energy industry to deliver well integrity. These aspects will be discussed and presented.

David Misch holds a doctoral degree from University of Leoben, where he also obtained his habilitation in Geology. He worked as an invited postdoctoral fellow at RWTH Aachen University, and was awarded the Walther E. Petraschek and Hans Höfer von Heimhalt prizes of the ÖAW and ÖGG, respectively, for his early career research in sedimentology. He was appointed Professor of Energy Geosciences at University of Leoben in 2023.

Regional Geology

In this part of the course, an overview of suitable formations for CO₂ storage from a geological perspective will be given and the respective opportunities and challenges for the different storage targets will be discussed. Selected CCS options in Austria will be outlined. In addition, the geological evaluation of a hypothetical storage pilot in a coal seam will be explained using exploration data from an ongoing research project.

Jakob Kulich holds a master‘s degree in Applied Geosciences from University of Leoben. Currently, he is working as a university assistant/PhD candidate at the Chair of Reservoir Engineering at University of Leoben, whereby he is focusing on potential subsurface gas storage sites. Besides that, he is employed as geophysicist at the Geological Survey of Austria since 2019.

His research interests include carbon capture utilization and storage, geothermal energy recovery and utilization, as well as underground thermal energy storage.

Regional Geology

This section discusses the options and current knowledge regarding CO₂ storage capacity in Austria.

Since 2010, Markus Lehner is head of the chair of Process Engineering and Industrial Environmental Protection at University of Leoben. Markus Lehner holds a diploma in process engineering from Technical University of Munich, which was followed by a dissertation at TU Munich. Afterwards, he worked as post-doc at TU Munich where he managed major industrial research projects.

Until 2010, Markus Lehner worked as Division Manager Sales, Engineering and Construction, Procuration at RVT Process Equipment GmbH.

His main research are the integration and chemical storage of renewable energy, carbon capture and utilization (CCU), recycling processes for industrial waste (particularly plastic waste), industrial gas cleaning processes, absorption systems, fluid-dynamics of tower packings.

Besides that, Markus Lehner is member of several scientific committees and boards, e.g. of the German ProcessNet working group “gas cleaning” where he acted as chairman from 2003 to 2009.

Carbon Utilization

In this section, an overview about utilization technologies for CO₂ is given. Beside technical aspects, also opportunities and challenges of CCU are briefly discussed, and the future potential for CO₂ removal is assessed.

After studying “Industrial Environmental Protection” with the main electives in process engineering and recycling technology, Markus Ellersdorfer received his PhD at the University Leoben in 2012. In his doctoral thesis entitled “Integrated production and utilization of biogas in cement plants” he dealt with the process and environmental aspects of coupling biogas plants and cement plants.

After working for three years as a post-doc at the Chair of Process Engineering, he founded the “Renewable Materials Processing” research area in 2016, which he also heads as an assistant professor. The focus of the research area is the use of biogenic raw materials and residues as well as the valuable materials obtained from them for industrial processes.

Carbon Capture
CO₂ Transport

Carbon Capture: The section is to give an overview on current technologies of CO₂-capturing from different sources (off-gas, ambient air etc.) and evaluation of the technologies regarding their energy demands, costs and technology readiness level. Topics will cover pre-/post- and oxy-combustion CO₂-capture as well as membrane processes together with CO₂ transport and logistics.

Since 2014, Prof. Kienberger has been head of the new Chair of Energy Network Technology at the University of Leoben. In his research and teaching, he focuses on issues aimed at optimizing the efficiency and flexibility of public energy systems and industrial energy systems by means of interdisciplinary, systemic approaches.

Univ. Prof. Dipl. Ing. Dr. techn. Thomas Kienberger studied "Electrical Energy Engineering" at the Graz University of Technology, which was followed by a dissertation at the Graz University of Technology. Between 2006 and 2007 he worked as a development engineer at Siemens AG in Erlangen/Germany.

From 2007 to 2010 he was employed as a scientific assistant at the Institute of Thermal Engineering at the Graz University of Technology, where he led the working group "substitute natural gas", among others. From 2011 to 2014 he was head of R&D and authorized signatory at the start-up agnion Highterm-Research and at the same time acted as lecturer at TU-Graz.

Since 2014, he has headed the Chair of Energy Composite Technology at the University of Leoben. In addition to his activities in industry, Prof. Kienberger has been able to initiate numerous research projects and publish more than 50 conference and journal papers.