Volcano Power In USA Underway

Geothermal energy is the heat contained within the earth—a clean, reliable, and renewable energy. It can be used as an energy-efficient heating and cooling alternative and can generate vast electric power across the United States.

Newberry Enhanced Geothermal Systems Demonstration reports they have got both pumps running at full capability and brought the well head pressure up to 1800 psi. Shortly afterwards, two microseismic events with magnitudes close to zero occurred near the bottom of the bore hole.

 In addition, the permeability increased slightly. This means that hydroshearing and creation of an EGS reservoir has begun! As we continue to slowly increase the rpm’s of the pumps, we anticipate many more microseismic events over the next week.

The map shows the locations (red dots) of the events in relation to the geothermal well’s surface location and five of our closest monitoring stations.

 

The Newberry Volcano Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) Demonstration is being conducted in the Deschutes National Forest in central Oregon. EGS technology has the potential to greatly increase geothermal power generation in the U.S. and around the world. Geothermal systems provide a source of renewable, baseload power generation that’s environmentally friendly, and generates tax revenue and family-wage jobs at home that can help ensure our national energy independence. EGS is the future of geothermal energy.

 

The purpose of the Newberry EGS demonstration is to demonstrate AltaRock’s new technology designed to lower the cost of EGS, and thus allow economic extraction of heat from the earth in locations where high temperatures can be reached by conventional drilling techniques but there is no natural circulating geothermal system. Marking a key milestone in Phase II of the EGS Demonstration, an advanced micro-seismic array has been installed, tested, and operations approved by seismologists from two national labs. 

The next step includes the injecting of water into an existing hot well to create multiple reservoirs of connected cracks 6,500-10,000 feet below ground. Groundwater levels and quality will be monitored before, during and after stimulation. Once the EGS reservoirs are created this fall, production wells will be drilled to intersect the stimulated fractures and flow tests will be conducted to evaluate the potential for using the EGS reservoirs as heat exchangers to produce electricity in the future. Phase II microseismicity will be available for viewing on the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory website. Phase II of the project, including drilling of production wells, is expected to be completed by 2014.

“The economic implications of the Newberry EGS Demonstration are quite significant,” said Susan Petty, president and founder of AltaRock Energy. “Creating multiple geothermal reservoirs from a single injection well multiplies the amount of energy that can be extracted from each production well. Not only do multiple reservoirs extend the life of the well and increase the energy recovery from each well, they significantly improve the economics of EGS power generation. This could allow geothermal to translate into a comprehensive source of renewable energy for the future.”

Located in the Deschutes National Forest in central Oregon, the Newberry project will demonstrate that EGS is an economically viable source of broad-scale 24/7 baseload renewable energy. As recently determined by the BLM and the U.S. Department of Energy through a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI), the project has met the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and will not significantly affect the quality of the human or natural environment.

The first phase of the Newberry EGS Project involving planning for the well stimulation, environmental studies and public outreach, reached completion earlier this year. Key participants with Davenport Newberry and AltaRock energy on the project include federal agencies (Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service, and Dept. of Energy), state agencies (Oregon Depts. of Geology and Mineral Industries, Environmental Quality, and Water Resources), government scientific labs (US Geological Survey and Lawrence Berkeley, Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos, and Sandia National Laboratories), universities (Oregon State, Temple, and Texas A&M).

As is typical of many media outlets, the headlines are designed to be provocative and grab your attention. If you read or listen to these stories, you will find that the authors have no evidence to support any claim that our project is unsafe.

The companies make three simple points:

1. AltaRock Energy is not drilling into a volcano. The well on Newberry was drilled in 2008 to a depth of over 10,000 ft about 5 miles from the most recent volcanic flows. We are pumping cold water into this non-producing geothermal well in an attempt to prove new technology for Enhanced Geothermal Systems developed by AltaRock and many others, and eventually generate renewable energy in central Oregon. We did drill five seismic monitoring boreholes to depths of 700-900 feet, but the temperatures at the bottom of those wells is cold (55F) and their purpose is monitoring not geothermal production.

2. Drilling into volcanoes is not dangerous or uncommon. Worldwide geothermal energy production often occurs on volcanoes. The Philippines, Iceland, and El Salvador all produce over 20% of their electricity from the geothermal heat of volcanoes. Geothermal drilling or production has never been responsible for a volcanic eruption. Read more in FAQ#8.

3. We aren’t “fracking.” Hydraulic fracturing is a process used in the oil and gas industry that uses surface water pressures over 5,000 psi to fracture or crack open the rock to extract oil and gas. We are using a different process called hydroshearing to initiate small slips in existing cracks in the rock. We expect surface pressures around 1,600 psi will initiate hydroshearing, or slip on existing fractures — far less than needed to fracture the rock. Further, hydroshearing does not require injection of the chemical additives used in fracking. Lastly, we will not be producing fossil fuels, but hot water and steam heated by the hot rock under Newberry Volcano. Read morehere and in FAQ#1