Koenraad Beckers

Geothermal Engineering Lead

[email protected]

Koenraad is the geothermal engineering lead at ResFrac focusing on performing subsurface analyses, conducting geothermal simulation studies, creating training and support material, and teaching training courses.

Prior to Joining ResFrac, Koenraad was a research engineer at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado, where he investigated various geothermal and solar thermal technologies including shallow and deep geothermal for electricity and direct-use applications.

Koenraad holds a Bachelor and Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Leuven, Belgium, and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Cornell University.

In his free time, Koenraad enjoys running, cycling, snowshoeing and hiking.

Koenraad's posts

$Horizontal fracture initiated along weak bedding plane or frictional interface in ResFrac$

Horizontal hydraulic fractures in ResFrac

Horizontal hydraulic fracture propagation is believed to be widespread in shale plays where the frac gradient approaches the overburden – such as the Vaca Muerta, Utica, and Montney. However, horizontal propagation is nearly always ignored in hydraulic fracture modeling. In ResFrac, we are obsessed with ‘getting the physics right’, and so naturally, we extended our simulator to handle horizontal fracturing. The first version of this new capability was released earlier this year. We are eager to start collecting feedback from users, which will help us to fine tune the algorithm and workflow.

Advanced ‘proppant transport in the well’ capabilities are now implemented in ResFrac!

Proppant transport in the well is an intriguing topic that has attracted a lot of interest in recent years [1-8]. Proppant transport processes determine the uniformity of proppant placement, which has a direct impact on productivity. Cipolla et al. estimate that the difference between poor and excellent proppant uniformity is about $2.5M in net present value per well.

Digesting the Bonkers, Incredible, Off-the-Charts, Spectacular Results from the Fervo and FORGE Enhanced Geothermal Projects

I’m out of superlatives – I used them all up in the title. But seriously – Enhanced Geothermal System (EGS) projects have had a really, really good summer. In this article, I summarize the results that have been recently presented by Fervo and FORGE. At their annual Tech Day and in a white paper posted this week (Norbeck et al., 2024), Fervo Energy provided their first update on Project Cape, a Utah project where they are developing 400 MWe of new production over the next two years. So far, fourteen wells have been drilled, and three of them have been stimulated.