Remember the Newberry geothermal project? It’s back with new tech in bid to achieve ‘economic extraction’ of earth’s heat
SEATTLE (KTVZ) -- Mazama Energy Inc., a company founded by Alta Rock Energy and Blade Energy Partners, has announced the start of work on a new demonstration project at AltaRock Energy’s Newberry Geothermal site in Central Oregon, operated by Davenport Newberry Holdings, and ARE.
NewsChannel 21 has reported on previous work at or plans for the site in 2021, 2015 , 2014 and 2012.
Here's the rest of the backers' latest news release:
The current exploration is designed to test the feasibility of creating a “Super-Hot Rock” Enhanced Geothermal System (EGS). Super-Hot Rock refers to rock that has a temperature of 400C or greater and that can potentially produce up to 10x greater power density per well than lower temperature EGS.
Initial work at Newberry will center on the 55-29 well, which was the site of the ARE’s previous EGS demonstration project in 2013-2018. The upcoming exploration will test the feasibility of using variable pressures to create the optimal fracture network in the rock.
“Geothermal energy has the smallest environmental footprint of any renewable power source we now have and provides 24/7 baseload power,” said Alaine Bonneville, Chief Geoscientist for Mazama Energy.
“The purpose of the Newberry EGS project is to demonstrate Mazama’s new technology designed to create EGS systems enabling the economic extraction of heat from the earth in locations where high temperatures can be reached by conventional drilling techniques,” said Bonneville.
About EGS
Enhanced Geothermal Systems are geothermal reservoirs created in hot, low permeability rock by injecting cold water at moderate to high pressure to create permeability in solid rock. This means an EGS can be sited in areas without naturally occurring hydrothermal resources with surface manifestations such as hot springs and fumaroles. As such, an EGS could theoretically be sited anywhere there is geothermal heat near enough to the surface to be economically recoverable.
Studies by MIT, the Department of Energy, the US Geological Survey and Google have concluded that EGS technology would unleash hundreds of Gigawatts of recoverable geothermal energy in the Western U.S. alone —and potentially over 3,000 Gigawatts across the US. EGS has the potential to provide a very significant portion of the country’s electric power supply, which is currently about 1000 GW.
Until now, a major challenge facing EGS projects has been the cost. Since geothermal wells can cost several million dollars to drill and complete, increasing the power density of each well is critically important for making it more competitive on the open market for electricity. Sy
stems with single stimulated zones simply don't yield enough power per well to make the electricity produced cost competitive. Having the ability to create multiple stimulation zones from a single well increases the amount of power produced by the well, and thus decreases the overall cost of the power produced.
Further information and updates about the Demonstration can be found at: WWW.Mazamaenergy.com.
