Abstract
Abstract. Scientists, engineers, and policy makers gathered at a workshop in the San Bernardino Mountains of southern California in October 2013 to discuss the science and technology involved in developing high-enthalpy geothermal fields. A typical high-enthalpy geothermal well between 2000 and 3000 m deep produces a mixture of hot water and steam at 200–300 °C that can be used to generate about 5–10 MWe of electric power. The theme of the workshop was to explore the feasibility and economic potential of increasing the power output of geothermal wells by an order of magnitude by drilling deeper to reach much higher pressures and temperatures. Development of higher enthalpy geothermal systems for power production has obvious advantages; specifically higher temperatures yield higher power outputs per well so that fewer wells are needed, leading to smaller environmental footprints for a given size of power plant. Plans for resource assessment and drilling in such higher enthalpy areas are already underway in Iceland, New Zealand, and Japan. There is considerable potential for similar developments in other countries that already have a large production of electricity from geothermal steam, such as Mexico, the Philippines, Indonesia, Italy, and the USA. However drilling deeper involves technical and economic challenges. One approach to mitigating the cost issue is to form a consortium of industry, government and academia to share the costs and broaden the scope of investigation. An excellent example of such collaboration is the Iceland Deep Drilling Project (IDDP), which is investigating the economic feasibility of producing electricity from supercritical geothermal reservoirs, and this approach could serve as model for future developments elsewhere. A planning committee was formed to explore creating a similar initiative in the USA.
Highlights
A planning committee was formed to explore creating a similar initiative in the USA. This workshop was under the aegis of DOSECC (Drilling, Observation and Sampling of the Earths Continental Crust), a consortium of United States universities with investigators that are interested in research involving subsurface sampling, measurement and observation
The workshop had two objectives: firstly to discuss scientific studies of active very high enthalpy hydrothermal systems and, secondly, to stimulate collaboration between academic scientists, government agencies, and industry. Such collaboration is highly desirable because the scientific study of active hydrothermal systems requires drilling and sampling boreholes whose costs far exceed budgets normally available to academic scientists; it is industry that drills wells to access geothermal resources
Approaches to improving the economics of the geothermal industry development of ultra geothermal resources could reduce the number of wells needed and increase the power output of each well, by producing supercritical fluid and/or highenthalpy dry superheated steam
Summary
This workshop was under the aegis of DOSECC (Drilling, Observation and Sampling of the Earths Continental Crust), a consortium of United States universities with investigators that are interested in research involving subsurface sampling, measurement and observation. Such collaboration is highly desirable because the scientific study of active hydrothermal systems requires drilling and sampling boreholes whose costs far exceed budgets normally available to academic scientists; it is industry that drills wells to access geothermal resources Drilling into these deep unconventional geothermal reservoirs is more. Elders et al.: Investigating ultra high-enthalpy geothermal systems expensive, the higher productivity per well should offset this by reducing the number of wells needed for a given power output (Friðleifsson and Elders, 2005) Developing these resources would make available new large and environmentally benign sources of alternative energy. The main difficulty in implementing such programs is the very high cost in drilling deep into hostile environments
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