Comparison of Two Hot Dry Rock Geothermal Reservoirs

Conference · Tue Dec 16 04:00:00 EST 1980

OSTI ID:889200

Murphy, H D; Tester, J W; Potter, R M

Two hot dry rock (HDR) geothermal energy reservoirs were created by hydraulic fracturing of granite at 2.7 t o 3.0 km (5000 to 10000 ft ) at the Fenton Hill site, near the Valles Caldera in northern New Mexico. Both reservoirs are research reservoirs, in the sense that both are fairly small, generally yielding 5 MWt or less, and are intended to serve as the basic building blocks of commercial-sized reservoirs, consisting of 10 t o 15 similar fractures that would yield approximately 35 MWt over a 10 to 20 yr period. Both research reservoirs were created in the same well-pair, with energy extraction well number 1 (EE-1) serving as the injection well, and geothermal test well number 2 (GT-2) serving as the extraction, or production, well. Evaluation of the second reservoir was accomplished in two steps: (1) with a 23-day heat extraction experiment that began October 23, 1979, the results of which are described by Murphy (1980), and (2) a-second, longer-term heat extraction experiment still in progress, which as of November 25, 1980 has been in effect for 260 days. The results of this current experiment are compared with earlier experiments.

• Research Organization: University of California, LANL (Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: AT03-80SF11459
• OSTI ID: 889200
• Report Number(s): SGP-TR-50-37
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

Geothermal Legacy