400C acquires geothermal rights in Utah for 100-MWe EGS project
The 400C Energy Salt Cove geothermal site, adjacent to the Blundell power plant. (source: 400C Energy)
Carlo Cariaga
13 Jan 2025
Geothermal developer 400C Energy has acquired the rights for a site in Salt Cove, Utah to develop a 100-MWe geothermal project using EGS technology.
400C Energy (400C), a tech-enabled next-generation geothermal developer, is pleased to announce the acquisition of 1960 acres of exploration rights in the State of Utah.
400C will develop this hot, dry resource offset of the Department of Energy FORGE project and Blundell Geothermal Power Plant to produce carbon-free, 24/7 dispatchable electricity at an LCOE comparable to solar. This outlier LCOE is achievable with a proprietary hydraulic stimulation technology that provides a step-change increase in downhole surface area and deployable temperatures while increasing powerplant life by using flow conformance inherent in the tech.
400C, with industry partners, will also deploy a variety of commercial technologies from the oil and gas industry including extended reach drilling, mud-cooling, high temperature directional drilling equipment, high performance casing connections, dissolvable metals as well as electric high-spec drilling rigs and frac pumpers ran on grid connected power.
“Tech-enabled enhanced geothermal power is vital to achieving grid resilience and affordable energy abundance. We will develop this 275oC resource to demonstrate our technologies’ capabilities while breaking power output records for an EGS well pair,” said Blake Wood, President at 400C Energy.
“We will also allow our wells to be used as a sandbox for emerging technology providers including high temperature surveying and novel insulated drill pipe as a means to increase technology readiness for longer horizontals in harder and hotter rocks”.
Sandbox Program
400C is announcing its inaugural Sandbox Program where emerging well construction technology providers will be provided an opportunity to increase their TRL levels in high temperature well on the Salt Cove project. All interested parties should indicate their interest at sandbox@400cenergy.com. The target technologies include:
- High temperature wellbore surveying and directional drilling equipment
- Mud cooling and insulated drill pipe
- Novel drill pipe protection
- High temperature open-hole packers and cement
- High temperature liner hangers and casing floatation
- High temperature toe activation valves and shoe track equipment
- Rate of penetration enhancements and bit longevity
- Electric cementing and pressure pumping services
- Electric service and drilling rig providers
Salt Cove
“We are excited about the incredible resource at Salt Cove next to the FORGE site. We are targeting 275oC temperatures at this site to produce 100 MWe on a FOAK enhanced geothermal system at LCOE rates competitive to solar. Our FOAK well design will have over three hundred stimulation treatments and represents a step-change increase in downhole surface area over the leading next-gen EGS developments. Inherent in our technology are autonomous flow control devices that will limit the flow of brine that can be pumped through each interval of the well. This flow control technology will enhance the resource longevity and drastically lower our LCOE.”, said Blake Wood of 400C.
Source: Email correspondence
