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| Sheng Dai, Assistant Professor |
The Georgia Institute of Technology School of Civil and Environmental Engineering’s Sheng Dai is working with the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy on one of the renewable sources that could help us make up ground: geothermal energy.
“I suspect that deep geothermal energy is going to make a big impact on the state of clean energy,” said Dai, an assistant professor and geotechnical engineer in the School. “Long term, it’s more environmentally friendly and efficient, plus it doesn’t rely on other environmental factors. For instance, with solar energy, you’ll have low energy output if it’s overcast or dusty.”
Dai’s research takes a two-pronged approach to geothermal energy. On one hand is shallow geothermal to efficiently heat and cool buildings. Deep geothermal energy — starting about 3 kilometers below the earth’s surface — would generate clean, renewable energy on a larger scale.