Written by Kai Wang
MPGE Ph.D. student Kai Wang, along with diverse team members, Guomin Ji (Electrical Engineering), Yuxuan Chen (Electrical Engineering) and Huiyu Wang (Mechanical Engineering), brought their design to the National Sustainable Design Expo (NSDE) and showcased at the USA Science and Engineering Festival (USASEF) on April 7 and 8 at Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC.
This student group was led and directed by Dr. Xingru Wu. They received U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) P3 Award, which is a national student design competition for sustainability focusing on People, Prosperity, and The Planet. On the event, they exhibited a wellbore prototype and demonstrated the innovative idea to generate power by harvesting the geothermal energy from mature oil wells.
The USA Science and Engineering Festival is a huge success with record-breaking attendance, including approximately 370,000 students, teachers, researchers, military families, government officials and press. On the festival, the team attracted curious crowds of all ages around the country. They were not only impressed the audiences by their innovative idea but also refreshed people’s mind that it is possible to apply petroleum industry’s know-how to geothermal energy development. EPA representatives praised their idea and efforts and encouraged them to continue their work and implement their design in a real-world setting to further benefit the community by clean geothermal energy production. The team is currently working on the proposal to compete for phase II award.