Susan Petty on AltaRock Energy stimulation technology
AltaRock team discussing measurements at Newberry, Oregon (source: AltaRock)
Alexander Richter
22 Jan 2013
In an interview with ThinkGeoEnergy, Susan Petty, president and founder of AltaRock Energy, highlights the opportunities of the company's new technology for EGS development and beyond.
In a release today, and reported here on ThinkGeoEnergy, AltaRock Energy has reported that “it has created multiple stimulated zones from a single wellbore at its Newberry Enhanced Geothermal System (EGS) Demonstration site.” The company has been creating multiple stimulated zones from a single well and will thereby dramatically increase the flow and energy output per well for the completed system, which will include soon-to-be drilled production wells.
ThinkGeoEnergy was able to ask Susan Petty, president and founder of AltaRock Energy a few question regarding her company’s technology and the implications.
Susan, how do you see your company’s achievement and technology being applicable to other EGS projects worldwide?
“The ability to stimulate multiple zones can increase the output per well anywhere, so this should improve the economics for EGS across the board. Being able to get more from each well brings geothermal energy to places where it couldn’t be developed at all before. In areas where hot springs, fumeroles or geysers indicate a natural geothermal system with heat close to the earth’s surface, but the risk of damaging these natural features is unacceptable, the ability to use multiple zone stimulation to develop an EGS system makes it possible to use this heat economically.”
How could this be applied to unsuccessful wells and see if one can stimulate this?
“We have already successfully applied this technology to wells that have moderate to low production or injection capacity in producing geothermal areas. Multizone stimulation can improve the production from desirable zones while blocking stimulation of cooler zones or zones interfering with other production. This can significantly reduce the exploration risk of developing a natural geothermal system and thus improve project economics.”
How large do you see the market for your technology?
“We hope to market this technology to geothermal developers to improve production and injection in operating geothermal areas and to reduce risk associated with geothermal exploration in developing areas. We also hope to use multizone stimulation to develop EGS projects, particularly when there are value adders, such as using waste water as the circulating fluid in the geothermal project. We also see the potential for using this technology to improve production and produced water management from unconventional, high temperature petroleum reservoirs.”
