Los Alamos National Lab nominated for awards related to geothermal research
Los Alamos National Laboratory (source: flickr/ Los Alamos National Laboratory, creative commons)
Alexander Richter
1 Sep 2017
The Los Alamos National Laboratory has been nominated for eight awards of R&D Magazine in the U.S., of which two are for research related to geothermal work.
Eight Los Alamos National Laboratory innovations were selected as finalists for the 2017 R&D 100 Awards, which honor the top 100 proven technological advances of the past year as determined by a panel selected by R&D Magazine. The finalists, with projects covering energy, modeling and simulation, health, materials and engineering, demonstrate the continued success of Laboratory researchers in technical innovation for national security science.
“The R&D 100 finalists represent the broad scope of science and engineering capabilities that support the Laboratory’s national security mission,” said Carol Burns, Los Alamos’ deputy principal associate director of science, technology and engineering. “This year’s finalists reflect the Lab’s scientific creativity and technical achievement. Many of the innovations also demonstrate productive external partnerships with universities, private industry and other government laboratories to develop of technical solutions that serve the country.”
For two research projects related to geothermal, Los Alamons National Lab has been nominated.
dfnWorks: Discrete Fracture Network Modeling Suite is a computational suite that simulates and predicts the flow and transport of fluids through underground fractured rock. It covers length scales that range from millimeters to kilometers, can run on computers as small as a laptop and as large as a supercomputer and requires minimal effort to create representative models. Applications for dfnWorks include helping catch rogue nations performing underground nuclear tests and maximizing the extraction of natural gas, oil and geothermal wells while minimizing environmental impacts.
High-Temperature Electric Submersible Pump Motor (HT-ESP) is rugged and reliable, offering improved thermal performance compared to conventional submersible pumps used in deep underground and extremely hot environments. Whether electric submersible pump motors are used in drilling deeper for oil and gas reservoirs or tapping into geothermal resources of energy, they must operate in harsh, extremely hot environments. Current pump motors overheat and must be replaced often. To solve this, the Los Alamos/Chevron Energy Technology Company research team developed two technologies for HT-ESP to lower the internal operating temperature of the motor.
Los Alamos submitted the HT-ESP as a joint entry with Chevron. Todd Jankowski led a Los Alamos team of Dallas Hill, Britton Lambson, James Stewart, Robert Bourque and Coyne Prenger. Chevron collaborators include Jose Gamboa, Daniel Hunt, Max Bough and Yamila Orrego.
Source: Daily Post Los Alamos
