Industrial applications of hot dry rock geothermal energy

Conference · Wed Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1992

OSTI ID:7112395

Duchane, D V

Geothermal resources in the form of naturally occurring hot water or steam have been utilized for many years. While these hydrothermal resources are found in many places, the general case is that the rock at depth is hot, but does not contain significant amounts of mobile fluid. An extremely large amount of geothermal energy is found around the world in this hot dry rock (HDR). Technology has been under development for more than twenty years at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the United States and elsewhere to develop the technology to extract the geothermal energy from HDR in a form useful for electricity generation, space heating, or industrial processing. HDR technology is especially attractive for industrial applications because of the ubiquitous distribution of the HDR resource and the unique aspects of the process developed to recover it. In the HDR process, as developed at Los Alamos, water is pumped down a well under high pressure to open up natural joints in hot rock and create an artificial geothermal reservoir. Energy is extracted by circulating water through the reservoir. Pressurized hot water is returned to the surface through the production well, and its thermal energy is extracted for practical use. The same water is then recirculated through the system to mine more geothermal heat. Construction of a pilot HDR facility at Fenton Hill, NM, USA, has recently been completed by the Los Alamos National Laboratory. It consists of a large underground reservoir, a surface plant, and the connecting wellbores. This paper describes HDR technology and the current status of the development program. Novel industrial applications of geothermal energy based on the unique characteristics of the HDR energy extraction process are discussed.

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Lab., NM (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: DOE; USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-36
• OSTI ID: 7112395
• Report Number(s): LA-UR-92-2380; CONF-9209147--1; ON: DE92018903
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY
150500* -- Geothermal Energy-- Economics
Industrial
& Business Aspects
150800 -- Geothermal Power Plants
FRACTURING
GEOTHERMAL POWER PLANTS
GEOTHERMAL RESOURCES
HYDRAULIC FRACTURING
HYDROGEN COMPOUNDS
INDUSTRY
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
POWER PLANTS
RESOURCES
ROCKS
TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT
THERMAL POWER PLANTS
USES
WATER