Digging Deep: How Berkeley Lab Advances Subsurface Research for Energy, Water, and More

Energy Generation and Storage

Building on their expertise in fluid behavior in underground rock from geothermal energy research, Berkeley Lab scientists are exploring ways to ensure year-round energy access through geologic hydrogen and underground water-storage systems. With support from DOE’s ARPA-E program, they conduct research essential to stimulating the production of geologic hydrogen through chemical reactions between certain rocks and water in the subsurface, and to extracting geologic hydrogen safely. Applying knowledge gained over several decades of observing how fluids behave in Earth’s subsurface, one team is studying how to inject fluids at varying pressures, temperatures, and pH levels to control the extraction of hydrogen without inducing harmful seismicity.

Geologic hydrogen generation occurs fastest in deep and hot environments that would be costly and commercially risky to access. Berkeley Lab researchers are using quantum chemistry simulations and experiments as they investigate how to speed up hydrogen-generating reactions in cooler, shallower environments safely and affordably.

In parallel, scientists are advancing aquifer thermal energy storage (ATES), which uses naturally occurring underground water to store energy for later use to heat and cool buildings — helping reduce power grid strain during extreme temperatures. These systems use deeper aquifers that don’t impact drinking water supplies and often rely on heat pumps to deliver energy at usable temperatures.

Water Management and Reuse

Approximately 40% of the U.S. water supply comes from underground reserves, but their location, volume, and availability are often uncertain. To better understand and manage these resources, Berkeley Lab geophysicists track water movement using a mix of traditional methods, new sensors, and modeling tools. Their work helps answer key questions about groundwater recharge — such as where water goes, whether it reaches the aquifer, and how subsurface geology affects recharge. They’ve developed a way to estimate aquifer volume changes by analyzing ground deformation with satellite images and advanced modeling, creating region-specific 3D groundwater maps.

A suite of software codes developed at Berkeley Lab, called TOUGH for Transport of Unsaturated Groundwater and Heat, helps solve complex problems requiring advanced simulation of the movement of fluids and heat in Earth’s subsurface. Originally developed to trace groundwater contamination, the TOUGH codes are now widely used in research and industry for applications like geothermal energy and oil and gas production.

Berkeley Lab also leads efforts through the National Alliance for Water Innovation (NAWI) to improve desalination technologies for treating groundwater and other salty waters. Supported by the DOE and several California agencies, NAWI aims to lower the cost and energy demands of using nontraditional water sources.

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Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) is committed to groundbreaking research focused on discovery science and solutions for abundant and reliable energy supplies. The lab’s expertise spans materials, chemistry, physics, biology, earth and environmental science, mathematics, and computing. Researchers from around the world rely on the lab’s world-class scientific facilities for their own pioneering research. Founded in 1931 on the belief that the biggest problems are best addressed by teams, Berkeley Lab and its scientists have been recognized with 16 Nobel Prizes. Berkeley Lab is a multiprogram national laboratory managed by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.

DOE’s Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science.