Fossil Energy

Solving the nation’s energy-related engineering challenges: subsurface energy production, storage, and waste disposal

Research in fossil energy subsurface and surface infrastructure systems is essential to national energy security, sustainability, and stabilized carbon emissions. Sandia’s integrated geosciences and engineering capabilities contribute solutions to areas of national importance, including energy security and safety, defense, intelligence, nuclear weapons, nonproliferation, disaster response, and climate security.

In the increasingly complex geological, political, and environmental systems of today, more efficient fossil energy recovery, transport, and storage is needed. To retain energy security, resilience, and safety, Sandia addresses a wide range of challenges in unconventional coal and carbon management, shale science, wellbore integrity, drilling technology for difficult subsurface environments, and safe oil and gas transport.