PNNL

Jeff Burghardt, Earth scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) was elected to serve a 2 year term on the Sanford Underground Research Facility’s (SURF’s) User Association Executive Committee. Burghardt is the first PNNL staff member to serve on the committee.

“SURF is a world-class facility for underground research, and it’s been a pleasure to work there over the years,” said Burghardt. “I’m excited to begin this role and bring my experience as a user of this facility to provide meaningful feedback to improve user engagement and help science at SURF continue to be successful—both the research that we are currently engaged in and other experiments down the road.”

The SURF User Association was launched in 2020 and recently completed their fourth round of Executive Committee elections.

“SURF is very pleased that Jeff Burghardt has joined the User Association Executive Committee—not only does he bring a lot of onsite underground experience to the Committee, but he also provides a geoscience perspective, representing a very important component to the overall SURF multi-disciplinary science program,” said SURF Science Director Jaret Heise.

Burghardt, who has a PhD in mechanical engineering, is the field site leader for the Center for Understanding Subsurface Signals and Permeability (CUSSP), an Energy Earthshot Research Center led by PNNL for the Department of Energy (DOE). Research for the center takes place at SURF in South Dakota, where laboratory spaces are uniquely located thousands of feet underground.

CUSSP is advancing a basic understanding of the complex chemical and physical processes that occur as fluids flow through deep underground fracture networks in enhanced geothermal systems (EGS). The center is also developing methods to remotely sense and accurately simulate these processes across scales. CUSSP is part of a DOE-wide initiative to reduce the cost of EGS by 90 percent by 2035. It is estimated that EGS could supply more than 60 GW of dispatchable carbon-free energy to the grid by 2050.

Burghardt is also the principal investigator for an ongoing project at SURF called Demonstration of Fracture Thermal Energy Storage which is seeking to demonstrate use of fractured rock to store thermal energy seasonally. If successful, this technology could dramatically decrease the energy demands to heat and cool buildings and also capture waste heat that is currently lost to the environment.

Burghardt’s experience and leadership conducting underground research at the facility led to the nomination and election.

“I'm excited to have Jeff join the executive committee,” said Mark Hanhardt, SURF physicist and technical secretary of the SURF User Association Executive Committee. “Given his experience and understanding of how science is done at SURF, I think he's the ideal candidate to provide a voice for the geophysics and earth science researcher community at SURF, as the Executive Committee aims to work with SURF on behalf of all researchers to make the lab an even better place to do unique science.”

As a member of the executive committee, Burghardt will attend quarterly meetings, help create ideas for the User Association general meetings, and engage in conversations meant to facilitate growth in user engagement. 

“A strong SURF User Association Executive Committee is key to establishing a strong sense of community amongst SURF experiments and researchers, as well as articulating and promoting the scientific case for underground research and its significance to society. We look forward to working with Jeff and the rest of the SURF User Association Executive Committee to advance these goals,” said Heise.