Friday, August 3, 2012

USA, Oregon:

 Fracking boom lifts hopes for geothermal project at Oregon volcano (E & E Publishing)

Susan Petty, founder and
president of five-year-old
Altarock Energy LLC.
(Courtesy of Altarock Energy)
No matter what it may sound like, Susan Petty insists she's not trying to frack a volcano.

Petty, the founder and president of the Seattle startup AltaRock Energy Inc., says she is just trying to do for geothermal energy what hydraulic fracturing has done for oil and gas.

About two months from now, the company will pump millions of gallons of water into the ground near the base of an Oregon volcano using Petty's version of a technique that Halliburton Co. first used on a geothermal well in the 1970s.

Its given name? Hydraulic fracturing. Fracking being as controversial as it is, Petty prefers to call it "hydro-shearing."

Read More.....