AltaRock Energy successfully achieves hydroshearing at Newberry
Project site at Newberry, Oregon on October 20, 2012 (source: AltaRock)
Alexander Richter
31 Oct 2012
AltaRock Energy reports that its team has successfully started hydroshearing at its EGS project at Newberry, Oregon in a milestone for EGS technology development and the company's new and groundbreaking technology.
In an exciting blog post, AltaRock Energy staff reports, that it has successfully achieved hydroshearing at the EGS project site at Newberry, Oregon.
Hydroshearing initiates small slips in existing cracks in the rock. Surface pressures of around 1,600 psi will initiate hydroshearing, or slip on existing fractures — far less than needed to fracture the rock, as in fracking activities of the gas industry.
Yesterday, the team 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! AltaRock now continues to slowly increase the rpm’s of the pumps, and anticipates many more microseismic events over the next week.
We will be following this exciting project, which is a milestone for the development and application of EGS for further geothermal energy development.
Source: Blog of Newberry Geothermal
