Temperatures at depth in the Black Rock Desert, Utah, extrapolated from the
new gradient wells.The red squares were measured in 1981 when an oil
exploration well at Pavant Butte was abandoned.
|
It is a new type of resource, they say, much deeper than the geothermal industry now uses. But it still should be exploitable.
Over the past two years, crews drilled nine wells in Utah’s Black Rock Desert basin south of Delta to test out a theory that high temperatures might exist deep beneath the surface that would be hot enough to turn water into steam that could then be used to generate electricity.
They hit pay dirt. "There is definitely something there, and it is big," said Rick Allis, director of the Utah Geological Survey.
Read More.....