"Hot" New Drill Prototype Is the Holy Grail of the Geothermal World

June 19th, 2009 by Ruedigar Matthes

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There is enough energy stored beneath the earth’s surface to power all of our energy demands thousands of times over. The problem is, it’s thousands of feet beneath us. Out of sight. Out of mind. But what if we could get to it? What if we could harvest that power?

That’s the task at hand for Jared Potter. Jared Potter, CEO of Potter Drilling, is developing technology that his father, Robert Potter, initiated over 30 years ago while working at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Robert Potter worked on developing Hot Dry Rock (HDR) heat mining, which, simply put, is a method of harvesting geothermal energy by pumping water into hot, crystalline rock via an injection well. The water is superheated as it flows through open joints in the hot rock reservoir, and is returned through production wells. At the surface, the useful heat is extracted by conventional processes, and the same water is recirculated to mine more heat.

Jared Potter is taking that process to the next level. Using new drilling technologies, Potter is working toward solving the increasing global demand for energy while addressing climate-change issues for a price that is competitive with coal. The solution is geothermal.

Geothermal power — harnessing the earth’s heat to produce electricity — produces essentially no greenhouse gas emissions and, unlike solar and wind power, is available 24 hours a day. With enough heat trapped deep in the earth to meet the nation’s electricity demand thousands of times over it’s no wonder that Potter wants to find a more effective way of harnessing that heat. Getting to it at costs that can compete with coal-fired energy is the challenge.

That’s where the new drilling technology comes into play. Potter and his company are currently developing a drill that they say will make drilling faster, deeper and cheaper. Using hydrothermal spallation – a process of shooting hot water at rock in order to exploit flaws in the rock’s construction (to put it simply) – Potter Drilling can drill to depths required for universal Engineered Geothermal Systems (EGS) (12,000 to 30,000 feet).

It is essential to drill that deep because Potter intends on hitting magma. Like in HDR, water would run down wells, passing through the reservoirs down near the magma. The water would heat up incredibly fast, evaporate and shoot back up where the steam and turbines would produce electricity. The water would cool and precipitate, and the cycle would begin anew.

And Potter thinks that he can do it. Because the drills use hydrothermic spallation, there is no contact between drill bit and rock. Thus, the drill bits last a lot longer than bits used in current methods. The bits are heated to extreme temperatures of 3200 and 7200 degrees Fahrenheit. The drill bits are still in the testing stages, but hopes of their commercialization ride high. With inexpensive, fast, efficient drills capable of taking us to the the vast energy fields beneath the earth’s surface, we can harvest a source of energy that is not only clean but inexhaustible.

Source: Gizmodo

Photo Credit: Dusty Wall via flickr under Creative Commons License

Image Credit: Los Alamos National Laboratory

Chart Credit: Potter Drilling

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Tags: drilling, drills, EGS, Engineered Geothermal Systems, geothermal electricity, geothermal power, hydrothermal spallation

About the Author

Ruedigar Matthes I'm a 22 year old student of English and Environmental Studies at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah. Born and raised in Salt Lake City, I've grown up loving the red rock of southern Utah as well as the pristine mountains of the northern fronts. Besides saving the planet one blog post at a time, I enjoy soccer, the natural world, reading and writing.

http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/ M. Simon

Google is not free of the evil power of coal companies. It powers their computers. And probably yours.
http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/ M. Simon

Google is not free of the evil power of coal companies. It powers their computers. And probably yours.
http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/ M. Simon

Google is not free of the evil power of coal companies. It powers their computers. And probably yours.
http://dotcommodity.blogspot.com Susan Kraemer

Some interesting related info in my email this AM DOE-Funded Research at Stanford Sees Results in Reservoir Characterization

June 22, 2009

The Stanford Geothermal Program had a noteworthy result this week, having achieved a proof of concept in the use of tiny particles called nanoparticles as tracers to characterize fractured rocks. The result comes from research funded by DOE in 2008 to accelerate technology development for Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS). This research will help developers learn more about the fracture systems in geothermal reservoirs, so that they may better predict the results of reservoir stimulation. Positive results from DOE-funded research will lead to further development of EGS, a clean energy technology capable of producing baseload electricity across the United States.
http://dotcommodity.blogspot.com Susan Kraemer

Some interesting related info in my email this AM DOE-Funded Research at Stanford Sees Results in Reservoir Characterization

June 22, 2009

The Stanford Geothermal Program had a noteworthy result this week, having achieved a proof of concept in the use of tiny particles called nanoparticles as tracers to characterize fractured rocks. The result comes from research funded by DOE in 2008 to accelerate technology development for Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS). This research will help developers learn more about the fracture systems in geothermal reservoirs, so that they may better predict the results of reservoir stimulation. Positive results from DOE-funded research will lead to further development of EGS, a clean energy technology capable of producing baseload electricity across the United States.
http://dotcommodity.blogspot.com Susan Kraemer

Some interesting related info in my email this AM DOE-Funded Research at Stanford Sees Results in Reservoir Characterization

June 22, 2009

The Stanford Geothermal Program had a noteworthy result this week, having achieved a proof of concept in the use of tiny particles called nanoparticles as tracers to characterize fractured rocks. The result comes from research funded by DOE in 2008 to accelerate technology development for Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS). This research will help developers learn more about the fracture systems in geothermal reservoirs, so that they may better predict the results of reservoir stimulation. Positive results from DOE-funded research will lead to further development of EGS, a clean energy technology capable of producing baseload electricity across the United States.
terry

by bringing heat from the center of the earth to the atmosphere.it is all ready hot up here and thy say it is getting hotter.I think lets suck up the heat that is up here already.and leave the heat trapped in the earth as long as we can.How will this change ground temp and plants.just a thought
terry

by bringing heat from the center of the earth to the atmosphere.it is all ready hot up here and thy say it is getting hotter.I think lets suck up the heat that is up here already.and leave the heat trapped in the earth as long as we can.How will this change ground temp and plants.just a thought
terry

by bringing heat from the center of the earth to the atmosphere.it is all ready hot up here and thy say it is getting hotter.I think lets suck up the heat that is up here already.and leave the heat trapped in the earth as long as we can.How will this change ground temp and plants.just a thought
terry

by bringing heat from the center of the earth to the atmosphere.it is all ready hot up here and thy say it is getting hotter.I think lets suck up the heat that is up here already.and leave the heat trapped in the earth as long as we can.How will this change ground temp and plants.just a thought
terry

by bringing heat from the center of the earth to the atmosphere.it is all ready hot up here and thy say it is getting hotter.I think lets suck up the heat that is up here already.and leave the heat trapped in the earth as long as we can.How will this change ground temp and plants.just a thought
Ivan Montoya

One reason Mars got its present climate is the fact the planet cooled off completely. It’s past internal heat left the evidence of the biggest volcano formation we know off in the solar system.

Should earth loose it’s liquid magma, it will loose it’s magnetic field, and ultimately it’s shield against the solar wind, and ultimately life as we know it on this planet.

I don’t think we’re drilling geo thermal wells on a scale that we’re cooling the planet, yet, but it’s something we should keep in mind.
Ivan Montoya

One reason Mars got its present climate is the fact the planet cooled off completely. It’s past internal heat left the evidence of the biggest volcano formation we know off in the solar system.

Should earth loose it’s liquid magma, it will loose it’s magnetic field, and ultimately it’s shield against the solar wind, and ultimately life as we know it on this planet.

I don’t think we’re drilling geo thermal wells on a scale that we’re cooling the planet, yet, but it’s something we should keep in mind.
nix

With this great invention, soon we will be able to drill to the core of Vulcan, drop in the red matter, and get out revenge!
nix

With this great invention, soon we will be able to drill to the core of Vulcan, drop in the red matter, and get out revenge!
http://www.clrlight.org Tom Blakeslee

Great work! Too bad we didn’t do this when it was invented, 30 years ago. We might have a very different world today. The DOE really dropped the ball and still are. Thank god we have Google, who is free of the evil power of the coal industry. Good luck to all.
http://www.clrlight.org Tom Blakeslee

Great work! Too bad we didn’t do this when it was invented, 30 years ago. We might have a very different world today. The DOE really dropped the ball and still are. Thank god we have Google, who is free of the evil power of the coal industry. Good luck to all.
http://www.myenergyfriends.com/ Solar Power

Agreed… there doesn’t seem to be any one solution to our energy problems. It appears that it will take a balance of several… What could be exciting are forms of alternative energy that haven’t been discovered yet…
http://www.myenergyfriends.com/ Solar Power

Agreed… there doesn’t seem to be any one solution to our energy problems. It appears that it will take a balance of several… What could be exciting are forms of alternative energy that haven’t been discovered yet…
http://www.myenergyfriends.com/ Solar Power

Agreed… there doesn’t seem to be any one solution to our energy problems. It appears that it will take a balance of several… What could be exciting are forms of alternative energy that haven’t been discovered yet…
http://blog.mapawatt.com Chris Kaiser

This is great stuff. I am reading the book I wrote about in this post:

http://blog.mapawatt.com/2009/06/15/sustainable-energy-without-the-hot-air/

And the author does a great job of giving a realistic assessment of the natural limits to renewable energy. Basically, we are going to need all the forms we can get because Solar and Wind are going to have a hard time doing it by themselves. Geothermal is probably the “greenest” renewable energy of them all.
http://blog.mapawatt.com Chris Kaiser

This is great stuff. I am reading the book I wrote about in this post:

http://blog.mapawatt.com/2009/06/15/sustainable-energy-without-the-hot-air/

And the author does a great job of giving a realistic assessment of the natural limits to renewable energy. Basically, we are going to need all the forms we can get because Solar and Wind are going to have a hard time doing it by themselves. Geothermal is probably the “greenest” renewable energy of them all.