USA, California:

Lecture: Geothermal Energy: How Hard Can it Be? (CSULB CNSM Fellows)

Wednesday, March 18, 2015 from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM (PDT), The Chartroom at California State University, Long Beach, CA

Speaker: Matthew Becker

Speaker: Matthew Becker, Professor of Geological Sciences and the Bert Conrey Endowed Chair in Hydrogeology at California State University, Long Beach

We live on a trillion cubic kilometers of molten rock. Geothermal energy seems like a no-brainer: sink some deep wells, circulate hot water, and drive turbines. How hard can it be? Really hard, as it turns out. Now that most of the natural geothermal flow systems have been tapped, we need to make new systems using “enhanced geothermal methods”. This will take an unprecedented collaboration of engineers and geologists, but the potential is enormous. By some estimates, enhanced geothermal energy could meet the world’s current energy needs for millennia.

We will discuss some of the technology advances that will be needed to get there and what we are doing at CSULB. Our efforts are aimed at understanding the “geologic plumbing” of geothermal flow systems and the development of characterization tools to predict help good systems and fix poor ones.

Register.........