Abstract
The Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy (FORGE) site is a multi-year initiative funded by the U.S. Department of Energy for enhanced geothermal system research and development. The site is located on the margin of the Great Basin near the town of Milford, Utah. Work has so far resulted in the compilation of a large amount of subsurface data which have been used to improve the geologic understanding of the site. Based on the compiled data, a three-dimensional geologic model describing the structure, composition, permeability, and temperature at the Utah FORGE site was developed. A deep exploratory well (Well 58-32) and numerous tests conducted therein provide information on reservoir rock type, temperature, stress, permeability, etc. Modeling and simulation will play a critical role at the site and need to be considered as a general scientific discovery tool to elucidate the behavior of enhanced geothermal systems and as a deterministic (or stochastic) tool to plan and predict specific activities. This paper will present the development of a reference native state model and the calibration of the model to the reservoir pressure, temperature, and stress measured in Well 58-32.
Highlights
The discrete fracture network (DFN) incorporates data collected from surface fracture surveys and geophysical well logs to create planar fractures that can act as a single hydrologic and mechanical system
The model calibration process consisted of first initializing the model with initial and boundary condition values for pressure, temperature, and stress obtained from the earth model and comparing the simulated values with those obtained from measurements and logging in Well 58-32
A reference earth model was constructed based on the geologic conceptual model that will be used to assess all future changes in geologic understanding at the site
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Extracting heat from hot crystalline basement rocks through an artificially engineered reservoir is a concept that dates back many decades [1,2], first being described as a hot dry rock (HDR) system and originating from the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in the 1970s [3] In these early experiments, the permeability of existing natural fractures was enhanced by hydraulic stimulation, rather than increasing the bulk rock permeability by creating new fractures [4,5,6]. Based on the compiled data, a three-dimensional (3D) geologic model describing the structure, composition, permeability, and temperature at the Utah FORGE site was developed [11,12]
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