The workshop continues January 26-28
Roland Horne welcomed the attendees from around the world and gave an overview on the history of the event: "The first Stanford Geothermal Workshop was held in December 1975, as the brainchild of Prof. Paul Kruger one of the three founders of the Stanford Geothermal Program, the other two being Prof. Henry J. Ramey, Jr., and Prof. Lou London. In 1975, geothermal energy development was in its infancy in the US, but expanding rapidly as a response to the 1973 Energy Crisis. The Department of Energy was just being formed, out of the ashes of ERDA, the Energy Research and Development Agency."Jay Nathwani, Acting Director of the Geothermal Technologies Office (GTO) part of the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) then gave an update on the activities of the DOE Geothermal Program.
Some research results to be presented:
- First progress report on AltaRock Energy Inc.'s Newberry volcano project in Oregon, which is the first U.S., commercial-sized enhanced geothermal system (EGS).
- Some physical mechanisms of injection-triggered seismicity near a fault--like fluid pressurization and stress due to cooling of reservoir rock--have the potential to control earthquakes during injection, a new Stanford study finds.
- Researchers at the Raft River EGS in Utah have experimented with water temperature, injection rate and wellhead pressure in low-rate thermal fracturing as an alternative to hydraulic fracturing. Greater permeability and water conductivity have improved injectivity rates ten-fold.
Preliminary workshop program
