Technology:

Just Drill a Little Deeper to Unlock Earth's Heat, Geothermal Expert Says (Decomworld)

 North Sea Oil Platform
(Courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

Now here's an interesting idea. Instead of decommissioning hundreds of North Sea oil and gas wells, why not “recommission” them as sources of lucrative, carbon-free geothermal energy?

This entirely new industry could support thousands of jobs and deliver a clean, affordable alternative to nuclear, whose future in the UK is in doubt anyway.

That was the suggestion of George E. Lockett, promoter of geothermal energy development in the North Sea, at DecomWorld's 9th Annual North Sea Decommissioning Conference, held in November in Aberdeen.

Most of the technology is already available, Lockett said, and the UK continental shelf has a relatively thin crust, about 10km thick compared with 40km to 70km on land, giving the wells there high bottom-hole temperatures. He appealed to oil and gas operators to log depths and temperatures so that hotspots could be mapped, and said geothermal technology could supply more than 100,000 MW of electricity within 50 years.

Read More.....