Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Stratabound geothermal resources in North Dakota and South Dakota

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/6176983· OSTI ID:6176983

Analysis of all geothermal aquifers in North Dakota and South Dakota indicates an accessible resource base of approximately 21.25 exajoules (10{sup 18} J = 1 exajoule, 10{sup 18} J{approximately}10{sup 15} Btu=1 quad) in North Dakota and approximately 12.25 exajoules in South Dakota. Resource temperatures range from 40{degree}C at depths of about 700 m to 150{degree}C at 4500 m. This resource assessment increases the identified accessible resource base by 31% over the previous assessments. These results imply that the total stratabound geothermal resource in conduction-dominated systems in the United States is two-to-three times greater than some current estimates. The large increase in the identified accessible resource base is primarily due to inclusion of all potential geothermal aquifers in the resource assessment and secondarily due to the expanded data base compiled in this study. These factors were interdependent in that the extensive data base provided the means for inclusion of all potential geothermal aquifers in the analysis. Previous assessments included only well-known aquifer systems and were limited by the amount of available data. 40 refs., 16 figs., 8 tabs.

Research Organization:
North Dakota Univ., Grand Forks, ND (United States). Energy and Environmental Research Center
Sponsoring Organization:
DOE; USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
DOE Contract Number:
FG07-88ID12736
OSTI ID:
6176983
Report Number(s):
DOE/ID/12736-1; ON: DE92003401
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English