(Video 4:23 Minutes)
Current conventional geothermal production is limited to permeable rock, but only 2% of geothermal resources in the US are within permeable formations, Joseph Scherer, President and CEO of GreenFire Energy, said at the IADC DEC Technology Forum in Houston on 15 November. The rest of the resources lie in impermeable rock, called hot dry rock.
To access these resources, GreenFire Energy is preparing to demonstrate ECO2G, a geothermal power generation technology, on an inactive well in Coso, California. The system circulates supercritical CO2 and other refrigerants in a closed-loop system to access geothermal resources that cannot be developed with existing geothermal technology. It can be also retrofitted into existing unproductive or marginal wells to produce 1 to 3 megawatts of power, and when developed to full scale, could be used in new wells to create competitively priced utility-scale power. Watch DC’s video with Mr Scherer to learn more about the system.