U.S. Department of EnergyOffice of Scientific and Technical Information
Geothermal Case Studies
Abstract
The US Geological Survey (USGS) resource assessment (Williams et al., 2009) outlined a mean 30GWe of undiscovered hydrothermal resource in the western US. One goal of the Geothermal Technologies Office (GTO) is to accelerate the development of this undiscovered resource. The Geothermal Technologies Program (GTP) Blue Ribbon Panel (GTO, 2011) recommended that DOE focus efforts on helping industry identify hidden geothermal resources to increase geothermal capacity in the near term. Increased exploration activity will produce more prospects, more discoveries, and more readily developable resources. Detailed exploration case studies akin to those found in oil and gas (e.g. Beaumont, et al, 1990) will give operators a single point of information to gather clean, unbiased information on which to build geothermal drilling prospects. To support this effort, the National Renewable Energy laboratory (NREL) has been working with the Department of Energy (DOE) to develop a template for geothermal case studies on the Geothermal Gateway on OpenEI. In fiscal year 2013, the template was developed and tested with two case studies: Raft River Geothermal Area (http://en.openei.org/wiki/Raft_River_Geothermal_Area) and Coso Geothermal Area (http://en.openei.org/wiki/Coso_Geothermal_Area). In fiscal year 2014, ten additional case studies were completed, and additional features were added to the template to allow for moremore »
- Authors:
- Publication Date:
- Other Number(s):
- 447
- DOE Contract Number:
- FY13 AOP 2.3
- Research Org.:
- USDOE Geothermal Data Repository (United States); National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Geothermal Technologies Office
- Collaborations:
- National Renewable Energy Laboratory
- Subject:
- 15 Geothermal Energy
- Keywords:
- geothermal; case study; case history; exploration; technical issues; environmental issues; timeline; Blue Mountain; geothermal area; Chena; Hot Springs; Dixie Valley; Lilauea; Summit; Kilauea; East Rift; Southwest Rift; South Flank; Lightning Dock; Long Valley Caldera; Caldera; Mt Princeton; Neal; North Brawley; Roosevelt; Rye Patch; Salt Wells; Valles Caldera; Redondo; Sulpher Springs; Waunita; geothermal areas; geothermal resource areas; online list; list of areas; map; geothermal activities; exploration techniques; overview; export; case studies
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1163620
- DOI:
- https://doi.org/10.15121/1163620
Citation Formats
Young, Katherine. Geothermal Case Studies. United States: N. p., 2014.
Web. doi:10.15121/1163620.
Young, Katherine. Geothermal Case Studies. United States. doi:https://doi.org/10.15121/1163620
Young, Katherine. 2014.
"Geothermal Case Studies". United States. doi:https://doi.org/10.15121/1163620. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1163620. Pub date:Tue Sep 30 00:00:00 EDT 2014
@article{osti_1163620,
title = {Geothermal Case Studies},
author = {Young, Katherine},
abstractNote = {The US Geological Survey (USGS) resource assessment (Williams et al., 2009) outlined a mean 30GWe of undiscovered hydrothermal resource in the western US. One goal of the Geothermal Technologies Office (GTO) is to accelerate the development of this undiscovered resource. The Geothermal Technologies Program (GTP) Blue Ribbon Panel (GTO, 2011) recommended that DOE focus efforts on helping industry identify hidden geothermal resources to increase geothermal capacity in the near term. Increased exploration activity will produce more prospects, more discoveries, and more readily developable resources. Detailed exploration case studies akin to those found in oil and gas (e.g. Beaumont, et al, 1990) will give operators a single point of information to gather clean, unbiased information on which to build geothermal drilling prospects. To support this effort, the National Renewable Energy laboratory (NREL) has been working with the Department of Energy (DOE) to develop a template for geothermal case studies on the Geothermal Gateway on OpenEI. In fiscal year 2013, the template was developed and tested with two case studies: Raft River Geothermal Area (http://en.openei.org/wiki/Raft_River_Geothermal_Area) and Coso Geothermal Area (http://en.openei.org/wiki/Coso_Geothermal_Area). In fiscal year 2014, ten additional case studies were completed, and additional features were added to the template to allow for more data and the direct citations of data. The template allows for: Data - a variety of data can be collected for each area, including power production information, well field information, geologic information, reservoir information, and geochemistry information. Narratives ? general (e.g. area overview, history and infrastructure), technical (e.g. exploration history, well field description, R&D activities) and geologic narratives (e.g. area geology, hydrothermal system, heat source, geochemistry.) Exploration Activity Catalog - catalog of exploration activities conducted in the area (with dates and references.) NEPA Analysis ? a query of NEPA analyses conducted in the area (that have been catalogued in the OpenEI NEPA database.) In fiscal year 2015, NREL is working with universities to populate additional case studies on OpenEI. The goal is to provide a large enough dataset to start conducting analyses of exploration programs to identify correlations between successful exploration plans for areas with similar geologic occurrence models.},
doi = {10.15121/1163620},
journal = {},
number = ,
volume = ,
place = {United States},
year = {Tue Sep 30 00:00:00 EDT 2014},
month = {Tue Sep 30 00:00:00 EDT 2014}
}