A federally backed effort to advance enhanced geothermal system (EGS) technologies in Utah marked a significant milestone with successful completion of its first large-scale 10-day stimulation in a deep-deviated well.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Utah Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy (FORGE), which is sited near the town of Milford on the western flank of the Mineral Mountains, on June 17 confirmed the successful completion of the three-stage hydraulic stimulation of its first highly deviated injection. “This is a key milestone in learning how to create fully human-made geothermal reservoirs that can be used to generate electricity anywhere,” said the DOE’s Geothermal Technologies Office (GTO).
The $220 million Utah FORGE—GTO’s largest funding initiative—is a 2015-opened dedicated underground field laboratory. The lab is designed for the development, testing, and acceleration of breakthroughs in EGS technologies.
EGS is an advanced geothermal process that involves drilling deep wells underground in hot dry rock, creating fractures to develop reservoirs, and then circulating water through the wells and reservoirs to heat the water using that underground heat. Unlike classic hydro-geothermal systems, EGS technologies enable the extraction of energy from dry rocks that do not contain water or contain water in small amounts.
https://www.powermag.com/large-scale-enhanced-geothermal-sys…
Read the article to understand how it works.
Jaak
P.S. -
The DOE estimates that conventional U.S. geothermal power resource potential is approximately 530 GW, while the estimated potential for direct use could be 231 GW by 2050. Current geothermal contribution to U.S. energy capacity is less than 1%; however, the potential is more than 8% by 2050.
The Earth is a huge thermal battery with vast geothermal resources and heat that is continuously generated by decay of radioactive elements. The hottest geothermal resources—120C to 330C—are typically used to generate power from the production of hot water and/or steam from deep production wells.