AP/ Business Wire
A new study examined the potential of geothermal energy in Texas.
Geothermal, which is when warmth is drawn from under the bottom, requires drilling miles down into the earth. The warmth comes largely from the core of the earth, which consultants say is similar temperature because the floor of the solar.
Researchers from 5 Texas universities, in conjunction with the International Energy Agency and the University Lands workplace printed the study. Ken Wisian is one of the authors of the study and researcher in the School of Geo-sciences on the University of Texas Austin. He spoke to Craig Cohen on Houston Matters on Thursday about their findings.
“Humans have been tapping geothermal energy for thousands of years if you think of hot springs, and using it to produce electricity for about a hundred years,” Wisian stated. “But up until the present day it’s been very restricted geographically. You have to go where nature concentrates the heat, like volcanoes.”
Wisian stated the expertise has come alongside to the place now scientists assume they’ll do geothermal energy anyplace. Currently the U.S. is the most important producer of geothermal energy at about 3 gigawatts, however the grid is so giant, it makes up lower than half of a % of the overall grid.
“The technology that is emerging now, and we’re in the prototype stage on, would allow us to drill, for instance, five kilometers – about three miles deep – under Houston, and extract the heat and generate power,” he stated.
Wisian stated there are three advances that make geothermal energy extra viable: velocity and financial system of drilling, conversion of warmth into electrical energy, and the necessity of decarbonization.
“There are various methods that are being explored right now to extract the heat,” he stated. “Some use a greatly limited version of fracking, some drill essentially a radiator pattern in the ground to extract the heat. So there’s a variety of methods that are at the prototype test drilling stage now.”
There are few downsides to geothermal energy, he stated.
“The risk of induced seismicity is pretty low,” he stated.
Induced seismicity, earthquakes attributable to human exercise, may very well be a priority, just like fracking. But Wisian stated final May a begin up firm that leads expertise in geothermal.
“We had a seismic network arrayed round that site, and in their engineering of their simulation we saw no measurable seismicity,” he stated. “So that was a good first test case, but we will need to continue to be open and transparent.”
So how far would now we have to drill in Texas to have the ability to extract the identical type of geothermal energy in areas close to volcanoes?
“Minimum temperature is around 300 degrees Fahrenheit, under Houston you hit that at about 4.5 to 5.5 kilometers down, about 3 miles,” he stated. “But it does vary across the state.”
In east Texas, the coastal zone and much west Texas the areas are hotter. In Austin, it might require about 3.5 to 4 miles down.
This sort energy may very well be liable for a couple of quarter of the state’s energy grid if Texas ever dedicated to it.
“For a good geothermal well, you could get about 3 megawatts of energy out of it,” he stated. But Texas had about 15,000 wells a 12 months in the course of the top of the shale growth. “The ability to scale up geothermal energy is tremendous.”
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