For his work on the environmental monitoring of underground storage facilities using drones and satellites, Dr. Benjamin Haske is being awarded the prestigious Georg Hunaeus Award.
The transport of energy carriers has its pitfalls. When gas flows through pipelines, for example, the pipes should be resistant and leak-tight. Escaping gas can pose a danger to the environment and to people. The use of drones and satellites can provide valuable monitoring services here, as a scientific study has examined.
Dr. Benjamin Haske’s dissertation not only impressed at the Technische Hochschule Georg Agricola in Bochum. There, his work on “Drone and Satellite Remote Sensing as a Contribution to Integrated Safety and Environmental Monitoring of Underground Storage Facilities” received the highest possible distinction in 2025 with the rating summa cum laude.
The Deutsche Wissenschaftliche Gesellschaft für nachhaltige Energieträger, Mobilität und Kohlenstoffkreisläufe (DGMK) also agrees with this assessment. It honored Benjamin Haske with the prestigious Georg Hunaeus Award. It is the DGMK sponsorship award for young scientists; its namesake was a surveying engineer and university lecturer from the 19th century. In what is now the district of Celle, he initiated the first deep borehole for oil in Germany.
The award is endowed with 5,000 euros. In his laudatory speech, Jens Müller-Belau, chairman of the DGMK executive board, emphasized the relevance of the work. He said that it is not concerned solely with the technical aspect of investigating underground storage facilities and pipeline systems for leakages. It places environmental protection and risk management in connection with critical infrastructure at the center. Industry can now handle energy carriers such as natural gas or hydrogen even more responsibly.
Benjamin Haske now oversees several national and international research projects. Through his dissertation, teaching, and practical research, he impressively demonstrates how modern geoscience can provide concrete benefits for energy supply and climate policy, Jens Müller-Belau said. This will become even more important in the future.
The award recipient presented his work at the joint spring conference of the DGMK and the Österreichische Gesellschaft für Energiewissenschaften (ÖGEW) on May 7 in the session “Monitoring & Emission Management.” More than 600 people from science and professional practice traveled to Münster, Westphalia, for the two-day conference.
