Enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) with CO2 as heat transmission fluid--A scheme for combining recovery of renewable energy with geologic storage of CO2
It has been suggested that enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) may be operated with supercritical CO{sub 2} instead of water as heat transmission fluid (D.W. Brown, 2000). Such a scheme could combine recovery of geothermal energy with simultaneous geologic storage of CO{sub 2}, a greenhouse gas. At geothermal temperature and pressure conditions of interest, the flow and heat transfer behavior of CO{sub 2} would be considerably different from water, and chemical interactions between CO{sub 2} and reservoir rocks would also be quite different from aqueous fluids. This paper summarizes our research to date into fluid flow and heat transfer aspects of operating EGS with CO{sub 2}. (Chemical aspects of EGS with CO{sub 2} are discussed in a companion paper; Xu and Pruess, 2010.) Our modeling studies indicate that CO{sub 2} would achieve heat extraction at larger rates than aqueous fluids. The development of an EGS-CO{sub 2} reservoir would require replacement of the pore water by CO{sub 2} through persistent injection. We find that in a fractured reservoir, CO{sub 2} breakthrough at production wells would occur rapidly, within a few weeks of starting CO{sub 2} injection. Subsequently a two-phase water-CO{sub 2} mixture would be produced for a few years,followed by production of a single phase of supercritical CO{sub 2}. Even after single-phase production conditions are reached,significant dissolved water concentrations will persist in the CO{sub 2} stream for many years. The presence of dissolved water in the production stream has negligible impact on mass flow and heat transfer rates.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- Earth Sciences Division
- DOE Contract Number:
- DE-AC02-05CH11231
- OSTI ID:
- 981336
- Report Number(s):
- LBNL-1949E; TRN: US201012%%1313
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: World Geothermal Congress 2010, Bali, Indonesia, April 25-29, 2010
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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