Michael Nole

Senior Reservoir Simulation Engineer

[email protected]

Michael Nole is a Senior 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

Automatic Report Generation in ResFracPro

This month’s release has a feature that I am particularly excited about – automatic report generation. The reports are generated automatically when a simulation finishes. Also, reports can be generated on-demand for simulations that have already been completed. The reports are highly customizable, allowing the user to generate different line plots, 3D visualizations, preview plots, and tabular data. The user can provide a template PPT, so that the report is made with their preferred PPT style.

Introducing ResFrac’s New Multisector Capability

This month’s ResFrac release has a ton of new capabilities. The most important is called ‘multisector’ – the ability to split different sections of the well across different computers. This capability provides a computationally efficient and practical way to run larger models and handle complex scenarios. Hats off to Danial Zeinabady and Michael Nole, who have been the main developers on this project. Beyond them, it’s been a big team effort, pulling in folks from cloud, simulator, and user-success. First, let’s review – what is sector modeling? Why do we need a ‘multi’ version of it?

Abstract illustration with multiple outlined maps over a green-to-yellow gradient and light beams.

The influence of well configuration on water loss in Enhanced Geothermal Systems

Recently, ‘water loss’ has been a hot topic of discussion for EGS. Fervo reported that they have been producing only 70% of the fluid volumes that they have been injecting at their Project Red. The FORGE project reported a roughly 10% water loss rate. Because projects will have finite water rights, these results have led to concern that growth of EGS will be limited by excessive water consumption. This is a valid concern, and water availability is a legitimate factor in site-selection and project engineering. However, I believe that the problem has been overstated.