Could earthquakes in Switzerland throw a geothermal energy project in Central Oregon’s Newberry Crater area off the rails?
About a month ago AltaRock Energy got a $25 million grant (on top of an earlier $36 million) from the US Department of Energy toward development of a plant that will produce power by tapping natural heat deep beneath the Earth’s surface.
AltaRock’s process, called “enhanced geothermal,” involves drilling wells up to 10,000 feet deep, pumping cold water down them to create small cracks in the bedrock, then withdrawing heated water from these fissures to turn turbines. The Newberry plant is supposed to produce 30 megawatts of power initially and up to 120 megawatts eventually.
“Unlike conventional geothermal, which relies on subterranean pockets of hot water, proponents of enhanced geothermal systems say the technology is essentially location-neutral, meaning these wells could be sunk almost anywhere in the world,” the New York Times explained.
But enhanced geothermal technology is running into problems elsewhere in the world. AltaRock said yesterday that it was abandoning a similar project, the Geysers, in California, ostensibly because of drilling problems. That announcement came one day after the Swiss government announced it was shutting down a similar project by a different company because it had triggered small earthquakes.
“The [Swiss] project, led by Markus O. Häring, a former oilman, was suspended in late 2006 after it generated earthquakes that did no bodily harm but caused about $9 million in mostly minor damage to homes and other structures,” the Times reported. “Mr. Häring is to go to trial next week on criminal charges stemming from the project.”
Before AltaRock abandoned it, the DOE had started an investigation into the Geysers project in response to a Times story that said the Seattle-based startup company had failed to mention the Swiss earthquake problem in its seismic safety report.
The setbacks in Switzerland and California “are a serious blow to the hopes of environmentalists, entrepreneurs and investors who believe that advanced geothermal energy could substantially cut the world’s use of emissions-causing fossil fuels,” the Times wrote.
Plans to develop geothermal power at Newberry go back to at least 1997, when Davenport Resources of Greenwich, CT and Vulcan Power Co. of Bend formed a partnership to drill exploratory wells there, but have all fizzled because of either financial or technological problems.
There have been no known seismic impacts from AltaRock’s Newberry project yet, but before it sinks more millions into it the DOE might want to take a closer look.
This article appears in Dec 10-16, 2009.
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$$61 MILLION?? give me a freakin break!
that’s just goin into somebody that’s connected pocket, ala Halliburton, Bechtel, etc…
why not try using some of the biomass (forest fire fuel) for energy?
The fact is that geothermal as a alternate energy source is very expensive. The materials used to sink deep drilling devices into extremely hot areas near magma are expensive to make. You’re talking about titanium and other exotic metals to withstand the corrosive nature of brine from the hot anomolies. Then it matters as to what type of energy production facility is used to create electricity, e.g., direct flash, flash through low-temperature conversion matter, and binary cycle (closed loop) devices. It’s just not economically feasible. The better long term energy production is water (water forced through turbines) and nuclear power generation (screw the environmentalists).
AltaRock received a $6,000,000 award from the DOE for the project in the Geysers. We have not “abandoned” that project. We have released the drill rig and are pursuing other sources of funding for it. Our company has raised ~$30 million from private investors. The project at Newberry will use existing wells that were already drilled to the appropriate depths with no problems. EGS and conventional geothermal use ordinary drilling equipment typically used for oil and gas drilling with special well designs and materials now standard for geothermal wells to deal with the high temperatures. At a very few geothermal sites, the fluids are corrosive, but this would not be the case with EGS since the fluids come from the surface are either treated sewage effluent or clean water. Since this water cycles through the hot rock with very little loss, there is not much need for make up water in the system and this can come from waste water. There are now more than 3000 MW of geothermal power on line in the US. Conventional geothermal is now cheaper than new coal. EGS could extend the geothermal resource over a much larger area. It provides power 24/7 and uses widely available power generation technology that does not need titanium or other exotic materials.