Continuously rising oil and gas prizes, potential shortage of fossil fuels and environmental issues like emissions of the greenhouse gas CO2 prove the need for alternative and sustainable energy resources to meet the world's future energy demand. One such energy resource is the heat that is stored in the earth, which is inexhaustible and could be used almost anywhere in the world.

Several strategies have been developed to explore the heat from shallow (< 400 m) and deep (> 400 m) geothermal systems. Shallow geothermal systems extract the heat using borehole heat exchangers (BHE) and/or store the heat in shallow aquifer systems. Efficient and sustainable exploitation of energy from deep geothermal systems strongly depends on the individual geological and physico-chemical conditions encountered at depth. In contrast to conventional deep geothermal systems where sufficient energy output is provided after drilling without further improvements, most reservoirs require technical measures to increase productivity (Enhanced or Engineered Geothermal Systems, EGS).

This session aims at providing a platform for contributions on both shallow and deep geothermal energy in porous and fractured rock systems including but not limited to: (1) current international and national geothermal projects, (2) reservoir characterization (e.g. thermal response tests, hydraulic well tests, rock physics, borehole logging, monitoring of microseismicity, etc.), (3) new drilling techniques, (4) reservoir stimulation techniques (hydraulic and chemical), (5) heat exploration techniques including chemical and materials scientific issues (e.g. corrosion and scaling), (6) environmental and economical risk assessments, and (7) numerical models simulating the hydraulic, thermal, mechanical, and chemical evolution of geothermal systems.
In summary, the session should provide an integrated overview of the current state of research on shallow and deep geothermal energy and contributions are invited on all aspects of this subject.