Tomas Zapata, Ph.D. ’95, connects dots for CUBO success

Meeting a goal as ambitious as Cornell’s aspiration to achieve carbon neutrality by 2035 requires broad collaboration. For example, this summer’s drilling of the Cornell University Borehole Observatory (CUBO), which opened up new opportunities for exploring geothermal energy, succeeded due to involvement from Cornell faculty, students, staff, and alumni like Tomás Zapata, Ph.D. ’95, who works for the multi-energy company Repsol.

Nearly 10,000 feet deep, CUBO is an exploratory borehole designed to allow scientists to assess deep subsurface rock conditions and heat output. Their findings will inform if and how the university proceeds with implementing Earth Source Heat (ESH), Cornell’s version of a deep geothermal system that would use the Earth's internal heat to warm the Ithaca campus without the use of fossil fuels.

Throughout the project, the CUBO team needed advice from experts — on topics such as how to safely drill nearly two miles down and how to extract the necessary data from deep within the Earth — who were not financially connected to the contractors hired for CUBO’s construction. Repeatedly, the team turned to Zapata and his colleagues at Repsol, a global multi-energy company with extensive technical expertise.

“Repsol is committed to a sustainable world, and we believe in a future founded on innovation” said Zapata, Repsol’s Director of Exploration Americas Assets. “So, it is natural for us to develop collaborations with forward-thinking academic institutions like Cornell, which I happen to know well, as they execute renewable energy projects.”

Along with Laszlo Benkovics, the company’s New Green Ventures Senior Manager, Zapata helped establish a cooperation agreement between Repsol and Cornell that provided the CUBO team with access to Repsol’s technical expertise throughout the drilling project. As a company committed to developing low-emissions energy alternatives, Repsol will be able to assess ESH as it moves forward and determine if it provides a scalable solution for renewable heating in cold-climate regions around the globe.

Zapata, Benkovics and several of their colleagues met with the faculty and staff involved in the CUBO before drilling began. They also sponsored technical training in their Houston corporate offices for three Cornell graduate students, who are now analyzing CUBO data. Benkovics’s team remained in touch with the project leads throughout the summer, providing guidance and technical support.

“Being able to access Repsol’s expertise throughout this CUBO process proved to be critical for our success,” said Bert Bland, Cornell’s Associate Vice President, Energy & Sustainability. “And of course, it has been great to have Tomas involved. It always helps to have more Cornellians in the mix.”

Having received his Ph.D. from Cornell University in structural geology and tectonics, Zapata was particularly well-positioned to help connect the dots between what the university was trying to do with CUBO and the expertise of Benkovics and his team at Repsol.

Since 1996, Zapata has conducted exploration activities working at Repsol, occupying different technical and managerial positions, throughout Latin America basins. He worked as a structural geology specialist for exploration study teams and published more than 40 papers on structural geology and tectonics of the Andes. He has occupied various managerial and executive positions at the company. In his current role, he manages Repsol’s Exploration Business for Bolivia, Perú, Colombia, Guyana, Brazil, México and the U.S.

Zapata, who also has an undergraduate geology degree from Buenos Aires University, Argentina, where he worked as Assistant Professor from 2001 to 2011, was particularly glad to be involved in a project that has provided graduate students with meaningful experiential learning opportunities relating to renewable energy.

“The future career paths of engineers and geoscientists need to adapt as we make this major energy transition, which is what Cornell’s ESH project is all about,” Zapata said. “I am glad to see my alma mater leading the way in both innovating these technologies and creating learning opportunities to develop our future innovators.”