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Page added on July 24, 2014
Geothermal Industry Grows, With Help From Oil and Gas Drilling
Geothermal energy — tapping into heat deep underground and using it to produce power — is sometimes described as a forgotten renewable. It languishes in the shadows of better-known sources like wind and the sun, and in 2011 it accounted for less than 1 percent of electric power worldwide, according to last year’s World Energy Outlook.
Yet the geothermal industry is growing, if slowly, and proponents hope that new technologies — including tie-ins with drilling for oil and natural gas — will bring further gains. Last year, the amount of electric power capacity available from geothermal resources grew about 4 percent to 5 percent globally, according to a report released in April by the Geothermal Energy Association, which is based in Washington. The United States remains the world’s leader in the use of geothermal energy for electric power, followed by the Philippines, Indonesia and Mexico, according to the report.
Large projects are planned for Indonesia and East Africa, and some Central and South American countries, such as Chile, are also showing interest. These fast-growing regions are hungry for new electricity sources, and international development banks are helping to finance the projects. (The lower-population New Zealand and Iceland are ranked sixth and seventh in total geothermal use.)
“If you’re wildcatting for geothermal, Africa really is one of those parts of the world where we seem to be going to,” said Maria Richards, coordinator of the geothermal laboratory at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
At its most basic, geothermal power involves harnessing water heated to steam temperatures in the depths of the earth and using it to spin turbines that produce electricity. The Ring of Fire around the Pacific Ocean, where volcanoes and earthquakes are common, is an optimal source of energy, with high temperatures found relatively close to the surface. In addition to producing electric power, geothermal can also heat and cool homes, an application that can use lower temperatures than electric power production.
As an electricity source, geothermal energy has certain advantages over its main renewable competitors, the sun and wind. It works 24 hours a day, while solar and wind power are intermittent. Geothermal energy generates few planet-warming emissions, and it provides an alternative to hydroelectric power for countries like Kenya and El Salvador that might want to reduce their dependence on dams, said Eckehard Büscher, director of the International Geothermal Office in Germany.
But geothermal has been slow to develop for several reasons. It carries substantial upfront costs. For instance, construction recently began on a huge geothermal plant in Indonesia, with the cost projected to reach $1.6 billion, according to Reuters.
It is also hard to predict exactly where hot water will pool in the earth’s crust, which creates uncertainties about where to drill.
“You can put out a meter and measure easily how much wind and solar is at a site,” Ms. Richards said. “You can get real data.” But it is “much harder to understand” how much geothermal hot water is available in a certain area.
Drilling wells is expensive, taking 50 percent to 60 percent of a project’s total costs, according to Kewen Li, a senior research engineer at the Stanford University School of Earth Sciences.
The wells go hundreds or thousands of feet down, and 10 percent to 30 percent of the test wells are unsuccessful, Dr. Büscher said. Also, corrosion and scaling may occur in deep wells, and drilling rigs — also used by oil and gas companies — may not always be available, he said.
Yet more experience, emerging technology that can derive energy from lower temperatures and a new wave of interest in oil and gas drilling stand to aid geothermal. The spread of hydraulic fracturing, the water-intensive technique of extracting oil or gas from hard rock, has reduced energy prices, making renewable sources less attractive but at the same time shortening the learning curve for the geothermal industry.
“There’s a lot more data accessible because of oil and gas,” said Ms. Richards, of Southern Methodist University. That includes information on temperatures and water availability in individual wells, as well as three-dimensional seismic data that is useful because, for example, hot fluid can travel along fault lines. This spring, the United States completed the National Geothermal Data System, with information partly contributed by the oil and gas industry. Some researchers, like Ms. Richards and Dr. Li, dream of using abandoned oil and gas wells — which have already been drilled, saving money — to produce small-scale geothermal power. A pilot project in the Huabei oil field not far from Beijing is doing just that, said Dr. Li, the research engineer at Stanford.
China, eager to reduce its reliance on fuels that contribute to smog, is the largest global market for geothermal energy used to heat and cool buildings, according to Dr. Büscher of the International Geothermal Office. Other countries are using this technology as well: In Germany, the city of Munich, for example, aims to obtain all its heating from renewables by 2025, and this will mostly be geothermal, Dr. Büscher said. For many places not blessed (or cursed) with heat from the Ring of Fire, this application of geothermal — requiring lower temperatures than what are needed for electric power — is likely to develop more quickly.
30 Comments on "Geothermal Industry Grows, With Help From Oil and Gas Drilling"
rockman on Thu, 24th Jul 2014 8:12 am
Back in the late 70’s/early 80’s the feds offered some big incentives to the oil patch drilling deep (and very hot) wells in S La to convert dry holes and depleted holes to geothermal. Long ago I worked for the company that operated the big geothermal project in CA at that time…The Geysers Geothermal Field. Made a field trip out there and visited with the geologist in charge.
http://www.geysers.com/numbers.aspx
A fantastic set up for sure. But very unique. Unique to the point that there’s virtually no other spot in the country with similar potential. I won’t go into the details…a lot on the web. But a viable geothermal project requires a lot more than just hot rocks that can be reached with a drill bit.
I still feel low temp geothermal (ground sourced heat just several hundred feet down) has the biggest cumulative potential in the country given that there’s a potential for applications into the hundreds of thousands it not millions. Just as site specific as deep geothermal but thousands of times more potential sites.
rockman on Thu, 24th Jul 2014 8:14 am
I forgot to add the S La projects never came close to being commercially viable even when they actually recovered some significant NG production with the hot water flow.
Makati1 on Thu, 24th Jul 2014 9:31 am
Seems that the Ps with their position on the Ring of Fire has an advantage.
“…ÍSOR (Iceland Geosurvey) has signed a contract with the firm Emerging Power for geothermal exploration in the Montelago geothermal area on the island of Mindoro in the Philippines (2014)…The geothermal area is called Montelago and its area extent is probably of the order 3-5 square kilometers. It lies 170 km south of Manila, the capital of the Philippines. The construction of a 44 MW power plant for domestic power production is planned there…”
http://www.geothermal.is/news/geothermal-project-philippines
Movin’ on up…
Davy on Thu, 24th Jul 2014 9:46 am
Mak, I love how you talk up your home and bash the US. Typical smuk, yea, you have a population moving on up so quick that power plant will be an ass pimple. I see you as just another rich carpetbagger moving to a third world country living in the posh part of town with the other exploiters of the poor around you. Mak, you live high on the hog while children rummage through the landfills. Mak, are you not ashamed of yourself by bashing the west as you exploit the poor of a third world country.
MSN Fanboy on Thu, 24th Jul 2014 10:43 am
LOL Makati, Im starting to think this collapse you predict will happen everywhere but the Ps.
Why cant you admit youre FUCKED? or is this blatant self-deceit.
You do realise the first states to fail wont be the first worlders?
Northwest Resident on Thu, 24th Jul 2014 11:11 am
Ladies and Gentlement — In this corner we have the legendary Mak Attack, weighing in at a heavy-weight count of nearly one thousand USA-bashing words per day. And in this corner, we have the challenger MoDavyMoPain, weighing in at a super heavyweight word count of nearly ten thousand Mak-slamming words per day!!! (the crowd roars).
And there’s the bell! Ladies and gentlemen, hold onto your seats, this is going to be a vicious fight to the death!
And here we have the MakAttack coming out swinging, throwing uppercuts and jabs, dancing nimbly around the facts as if they were mere bugs meant to be stepped on. Ohhhhh!! He throws a lightening uppercut and connects with MoDavyMoPain’s jaw. And then another one, and another one. Oh my God, it is brutal to behold. MoDavyMoPain is going down, noooo, wait! He’s back on his feet and coming hard at MakAttack, pumping out the verbiage, a veritable whirlwind of points and counterpoints, lighting jabs into MakAttack’s mug, into his gut, swift hard knee to the groin!!! (the crowd roars) But MakAttack is bouncing back, squashing facts like bugs with every step he takes, once again on the attack beating MoDavyMoPain up the side of the head with China’s greatness and Asia’s future superiority. Oh my god! MakAttack pulls out his ultimate weapon — the DollarDropSuperRoundhouseKnockerOuteer — he wallops MoDavyMoPain in the nose!! It is horrible to observe, yet so beautiful in its cruelty and bullshittedness. MoDavyMoPain is going down, down, down — but NO — he’s back, swinging again, points and counterpoints landing viciously. MakAttack is staggering, looks to be going down, but NOOOOOOO, he’s back with more non-facts and China’s greatness, swinging again…
We now cut to a commercial break. Ladies and Gentlemen, this fight looks like it is going to be one long drag out duel. (the crowd moans)
Davy on Thu, 24th Jul 2014 11:25 am
Yea, NR, wonderful. You are right live by the sword and die by it. Also criticize and you better be ready for criticism. It is funny because Mak and I are on the same page 90% of the overall doomer profile and prepper profile. I can take 99% of the rest of the postings here that are anti-American because most are done with moderation, fairness, balance, and decency. It is war with Mak. It would be so nice if Mak, would move on to an anti-American site instead of trying to convert this one to an anti-American site.
P.S. NR you can give me a run for my money sometimes with Noo and Plant!
Plantagenet on Thu, 24th Jul 2014 11:29 am
@ROCK: The Geysers isn’t unique. The system there is heated by a cooling magma body at shallow depths. A similar shallow magma system exists at Yellowstone. New geophysical techniques can now map magma systems at greater depth—a paper in NATURE just last week delineated the size of the magma system under Mt. Rainier. More magma bodies, with associated geothermal systems, exist under other Cascade Range Volcanoes, as well as volcanoes like Mono Lake Domes, Bishop Caldera, Valleys Caldera, etc.
Northwest Resident on Thu, 24th Jul 2014 11:30 am
Davy — It was all intended as pure humor. Sorry, I had a few minutes before a meeting and thought I’d try to shed a little humor on the situation. You and Mak are at war. I was just joking around, nothing intended against either of you. I agree with you nearly one hundred percent that Mak is too anti-American and too pro-Asia/China in his posts. But I still like Mak. Just joking around. Sorry.
Davy on Thu, 24th Jul 2014 11:36 am
No, NR, great fun and jokes are a great way of getting good points across. I wish I could show more maturity with the Mak attacks. I am trying but some days he gets under my skin and I can’t. You are consistently fair and fun to deal with so no problem
JuanP on Thu, 24th Jul 2014 11:57 am
NWR, I liked the joke. I thought it was very creative writing. Did you study creative writing at some point in your life?
Davy, As I read the joke, NWR meant no harm or disrespect to you or Mak.
Northwest Resident on Thu, 24th Jul 2014 12:07 pm
JuanP — As a matter of fact, writing has always been one of my really strong points. I tended to make mostly A’s on written assignments in grade school through high school. I started out on a journalism major in college but switched to public relations (still journalism in many ways, just more specialized and manipulative). I took many creative writing classes. I have written volumes, and to this day one of the complaints that I sometimes get from my co-workers is that my emails are too damn long. Hey, they just can’t handle all the information that I can pump out — they need to see just the bullet points. Whatever. I type very fast and my brain can cough out a chunk of writing like the one above in a mere few seconds — my fingers translate into writing nearly as fast as I can think it up. Good skill sometimes, other times, I end up screwing myself — not everybody appreciates my sense of humor, and in case you haven’t already noticed, I tend to be very blunt and to the point, more than a lot of people can handle. But hey, thanks for noticing!!
JuanP on Thu, 24th Jul 2014 12:17 pm
NWR, I figured as much, I have been a compulsive reader all my life and I thought I could see the training behind your writing in that joke. I know very few people can write like that without formal training and years of practice. Keep up the good work.
Northwest Resident on Thu, 24th Jul 2014 12:39 pm
JuanP — Thanks for the compliments.
Back in my college days, several people and a couple of my professors thought I was going to end up becoming a novelist. I ended up writing a couple of novels and plotting out in detail several more.
One of those plots that I never ended up writing envisioned a future post-apocalyptic America where there remained a highly advanced civilization composed of a very limited number of survivors of the apocalypse. The rest of the world was populated by humanoid creatures called Thurds. The title of the novel was going to be “Rebellion of the Thurds”. As the story progresses, we find that the advanced humans are using the Thurds as slave labor. The Thurds are seen as stupid, dumb animals and are treated as such. But there is a problem — some of the Thurds are killing people and escaping to unknown locations. So here enters our main protagonist. He is assigned to investigate what is going on with the Thurds. This leads him on a big adventure outside of the well protected and perfectly plastic existence he has lived within the “shining city”, and out into the wilds, tracking down an escaped Thurd. He takes a trip down a big river, and along the banks of the river now grown back to pure nature, he is amazed to see groups of Thurds living in shanties and roughly constructed communities. They appear to be happy, healthy, and he ponders his own life within the shining city where nature is barely to be experienced and everybody and everything is plastic. He begins to get a feeling that he has never experienced before. Anyway, he eventually pulls up along the side of the bank and disembarks, along with his two Thurd helpers. As they crawl through the jungle, following clues and traces, they come upon a huge Thurd settlement. The protagonist is dumbfounded to discover that the Thurds are not only capable of speech, but they are organizing, they have structure within their society, and they are really really pissed off at the advanced humans. Long story from here — but the protagonist joins with the Thurds and learns from their history that the Thurds are descended from the humans that survived the apocalypse but were not allowed inside the shining city — they were excluded and left for dead. Big battle at the end. Thurds win. Everybody except the advanced humans live happily ever after.
That plot was thought up long before I had any idea about peak oil or related issues. Kind of weird, isn’t it?
JuanP on Thu, 24th Jul 2014 12:47 pm
NWR, The book for you to write would be “Prepping for Collapse for Suburban Dummies”. Keep it short, simple, optimistic, focussed on adaptations and solutions, and divided in 10 or 12 chapters. Books like that will have a big market at some point in the short term future.
Northwest Resident on Thu, 24th Jul 2014 12:52 pm
JuanP – Non fiction, could end up making a few bucks off it, right up my alley and one of my favorite topics anyway, certainly a topic I feel is vitally important.
Great suggestion!
I can just plagiarize a bunch of doomer advice off the internet, rewrite it into my words, add a little colorful insight and a special section on growing your own food which I am getting a lot of experience at. Maybe I’ll do it!
JuanP on Thu, 24th Jul 2014 1:04 pm
NWR, You have no need to plagiarize anything, just use your research and writing skills, no plagiarism in that as long as you give credit where it is due.
This would be a fun and interesting project for someone with your knowledge, interests, experience, contacts here, life, and skill set.
Non fiction sounds like a challenge for you and this type of books could end up saving real lives in the real world. It would be a job with real purpose.
JuanP on Thu, 24th Jul 2014 1:06 pm
NWR, and then, of course, the follow ups:
Prepping for urban dummies
Prepping for country folk
Davy on Thu, 24th Jul 2014 1:07 pm
NR, as a doomer and prepper, I find your qualifications top notch. I am not a writer but I have organized manuals and have files, notes, books, and art to reflect my life’s purpose of prepping and relating doomerism to the GP. If I were a writer like you I would write something. So do it big boy!
Northwest Resident on Thu, 24th Jul 2014 1:21 pm
Thanks for the encouragement guys! Now you’ve got me thinking… I can squeeze a little time in between the 60 or so hours of regular daytime job, 20 or so hours actually doing the prepping and hard damn digging, 5 or so hours doing whatever my girlfriend tells me to do, sleep and eating. What does that leave? Not much — but I do type fast. All joking aside, it sounds like a fun idea. Now you really do seriously have me thinking. And I feel a new challenge coming on.
Davy on Thu, 24th Jul 2014 1:30 pm
Glad to know I am not the only one burning a two sided candle! When you are a doomer/prepper there is no room for complacency but we run the real risk of over work and failing to enjoy life now while we are PO kings.
JuanP on Thu, 24th Jul 2014 1:31 pm
NWR, Glad to be of service. I believe the process of researching and writing the book would be an amazing learning opportunity for you as a prepper as well. I would miss your contributions here, but if you invested in that project what you invest here, you’d advance fast. And posting here can become like an addiction and going cold turkey every now and then is a good idea, even if only for a few days. I hate few things, having addictions makes the list.
Norm on Thu, 24th Jul 2014 3:14 pm
NW Res iz the champ. Even better, if tuning in by AM Radio.
rockman on Thu, 24th Jul 2014 8:14 pm
P – “The Geysers isn’t unique”. OK. The US is 2.96 MILLION Sq. miles. The Geysers cover 45 Sq. miles. The Geysers kick out 725 Mw. All the other US geothermal plants kick out around 20 to 40 Mw each…and some a good bit less than that. And CA alone has more geothermal capacity the any country on the planet.
Under every sq mile of the entire land mass of the planet are rocks hot enough to flash water to steam. As I said it takes a lot more then hot rocks to make a commercial geothermal plant. Such conditions come together under The Geysers. And that’s a rather unique set of circumstances under those 45 sq miles compared to the 57 MILLION sq mile area of the continents.
Makati1 on Thu, 24th Jul 2014 8:30 pm
NWR, I enjoyed your humor also. I’ll back up my non-facts with references, IF you will agree to check them out when you disagree with me. Davy doesn’t bother. He is so Americentric that he cannot see any other possibility outside the ‘exceptional’ USSA.
I have never said that the Ps is going to avoid what is coming. I just assert that they have less distance to fall when it does and and they have a survival culture, used to doing without and being ruled by outsiders. The US has the most to lose and has no idea of what foreign occupation means. Not to mention the propaganda telling them that they are ‘exceptional’ and ‘destined to rule the world’.
And, yes, I stopped reading Davy’s rebuttals. They were becoming nothing more than rants about me instead of refuting my comments with references proving me wrong. Maybe there are none? After all, it appears I have lived in the US for decades longer than he has and I was never part of the 1% as he claims he was. We live in different worlds and not just countries.
Nony on Thu, 24th Jul 2014 8:35 pm
God bless the USA.
Davy on Thu, 24th Jul 2014 9:05 pm
Oh, Mak, I know you read what I say. You can’t stand when I speak the truth. There is very little to rebut with your comments because they are the same rehashed puk just a new day. I have balanced or disproved most of it already.
Northwest Resident on Thu, 24th Jul 2014 9:07 pm
Makati1 — I’m glad you took it as the lampooning humor that it was meant to be. You and Davy can lampoon me any time and I promise I will also take it with a sense of humor. If you’ve ever seen an episode of Celebrity Death Match, that’s kind of the tack I was attempting with my little 2-minute rendition of attempted humor. But other than that, I am staying the fuck out of it. I’ll continue to disagree with you when you predict China and/or Asia’s future superiority and point out when you seem to be enjoying your visions of America self-destructing too much because, like Davy, I kind of think you way over-do it. But you do have a lot of good points, and wtf, maybe you’re right — I just don’t see it. Take it easy…
Makati1 on Fri, 25th Jul 2014 3:03 am
NWR, maybe I go too far, but, I see it from all of the things I read and the things I see happening when I go back once a year. I am science fiction buff and have read maybe 1,000+ different visions of the future in the last 60 years, so maybe I am more open to possibilities. I don’t see Asia as powerful as much as I see it lasting longer then the West.
As I said before, The 3rd world countries have less far to fall, and most have self reliant cultures to work with. I don’t see that in the West today. Not when the US uses 2 gallons of oil per day, per capita and the Ps uses 1 pint per day, per capita. Who will miss oil the most and who can afford much more expensive oil? And that is just one resource.
Davy on Fri, 25th Jul 2014 6:24 am
Mak, falling is quantitative. This is a finite world. There is something called the end or the bottom or the last drop. If your glass is almost empty then you are closer to the end, bottom, or the last drop. For you and your 99MIL neighbors living in a space no bigger than Arizona that is famine. Now I know why your mentality is fictional and your posts are fantasy. It is the science fiction. I am learning about you every day and I see the mental issues surfacing.