Michael Nole

Reservoir Simulation Engineer

[email protected]

Michael Nole is a Reservoir Simulation Engineer at ResFrac.

Prior to joining ResFrac, Michael was a staff scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory where he developed reservoir simulation software to study coupled multiphase flow and reactive transport processes in the subsurface. Here he worked on developing capabilities to model carbon storage and mineralization, critical mineral recovery, and geothermal energy.

Prior to this, he was a staff scientist at Sandia National Laboratories developing simulation software to model fluid flow and reactive transport processes associated with deep geologic disposal of radioactive waste, led a formal QA of software for use as a safety assessment code for an operating geologic repository, and developed software capabilities for modeling methane accumulation in marine and Arctic permafrost environments.

Michael obtained a B.S. in Civil & Environmental Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley, and an M.S. and Ph.D in Petroleum & Geosystems Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.

In his free time, Michael loves to bike, swim, hike, ski, and tolerates running so that he can train to race triathlons.

Michael's posts

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.

What ‘company culture’ means to us

We recently held our annual company retreat. This is an important event because we are a fully remote company, and it gives us the chance to get together in-person and spend quality time. This year, we did the retreat in Houston, following URTeC and our annual symposium. We visited Space Center Houston, went to an Astros game, and ate BBQ and Tex-Mex. As a Houston native, I picked some of my favorite things to do in town! We also held a meeting on ‘company culture.’ I asked the group – how do you perceive our company culture? What do we do well, and what could we do better? Here are the highlights.