News

New research project to increase acceptance for geothermal in Switzerland

New research project to increase acceptance for geothermal in Switzerland ETH Zurich, Switzerland (source: flickr/ edwaado, creative commons)
Alexander Richter 9 Sep 2016

A Swiss research project by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, is looking at ways how seismic events caused by geothermal energy exploration can be minimized as much as possible.

Are geothermal projects the cause of earthquakes, or is this as a wrong assumption? Geothermal energy has not had an easy time in Switzerland following challenges of earlier development, e.g. in Basel and St. Gallen.

A new research project by scientists at ETH, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, is now looking at ways to minimize side effects of geothermal energy development.

At the core of the project will see the use of 12 wells on a test site in Grimsel. A camera will be put into each hole to identify the structure of the rock and figure out how rock reacts when water is pumped down.

In theory, energy is produced when cold water is pumped down into warm soil layers, heats the water in the warm soil and is then pumped back to the surface . However, previous attempts in Switzerland all failed. For example in Basel in 2006, when drilling for a geothermal project sparked an earthquake of magnitude 3.4 on the Richter scale and caused damage to buildings. The last failed project was located in St. Gallen, which did not produce the hot water that was looked for but produced natural gas.

The federal government of Switzerland is supporting the project with CHF3 million (ca. $3.1 million). With the research it is aimed to explore how those seismic events can be prevented or at least minimized, so they cannot be felt on the surface.

Results of the project are not expected before July 2017, when the project will finish its activities.

Source: SRF Schweiz