Università Roma Tre

The recently acquired knowledge of the impact of human activity on the environment constrains a number of initiatives aimed to the reduction of the deriving risks. On the one hand we need to recover and manage the natural resources necessary for our energy supply. On the other hand, this requires the subtraction from the environment of the waste residuals that derive from this activity. In the subsurface there exist geological structures, sufficiently isolated from the biosphere, that could accumulate either the energy resources and the waste stocking. The study (exploration and development) of such structures represents a major task to reduce the human civilization impact on the environment. During this course there will be introduced both the information connected to the formation and accumulation of fossil fuels (hydrocarbons) and the exploration and evaluation of geological structures potentially capable to stock, in a sufficiently isolated way, waste products, including those deriving from other energy resources (nuclear power plants). These two subjects are joined by similar geological structuring and will be presented with their different strategies and risk analysis. The purpose of this course is to provide the students the information required to his knowledge on the subject and his professional insertion in the subject.