Technology cross-over from traditional to renewable energy technologies
Alexander Richter
1 Apr 2009
Interesting article on technology cross-over from traditional energy companies to renewable energy technologies, there was a part on geothermal that I thought was very interesting. Basically the article claims that a lot of the development in renewables comes from the old and "dirty" energy companies.
In an interesting article on technology cross-over from traditional energy companies to renewable energy technologies, there was a part on geothermal that I thought was very interesting. Basically the article claims that a lot of the development in renewables comes from the old and “dirty” energy companies. So it talks about that “crossovers exist is in geothermal energy. Drilling geothermal wells in both high and low-temperature, water-dominated reservoirs also uses the same drilling equipment for oil and water wells.
Nonetheless, the high costs associated with drilling have made it difficult for geothermal projects to get off the ground, making the use of abandoned or declining oil and gas wells particularly attractive. Estimates say there are more than one million abandoned oil and gas wells around the world, and Emcor’s Harrison notes that the number of out-of-service gas wells is on the rise.
Historically, however, the water in those wells, at between 170-250 degrees, has not been hot enough for conventional geothermal applications, says Doug Tennyson, director of technical services at the Department of Energy’s Rocky Mountain Oil Test Center (RMOTC) in Casper, WY. But since last summer. RMOTC has been running a pilot low-temperature geothermal installation from Ormat Technologies Inc. that provides enough electricity to run 2 or 3 oil well pumps.
“We have a lot of oil fields producing not much oil, but a lot of water,” says Tennyson. “Companies like Ormat, ElectraTherm and UTC, are taking existing technology to convert the low-quality geothermal source into electricity. Since water is being produced as a byproduct, we can use the electricity to offset the cost to produce the oil. But the cost to produce the electricity can’t be more than cost of buying electricity. That’s what we’re trying to validate now.”
Should the costs pencil out, Tennyson says President Obama’s Reinvestment Act contains money for low-temperature geothermal projects, and RMOTC would likely expand the project, potentially producing enough electricity to put back on the grid. It has been estimated that oil fields in the U.S. could provide an additional 5,000 MW of electricity with low-temperature geothermal technology.
Source: RenewableEnergyWorld
