geothermal – Utah FORGE

Press Release: Drilling of the Production Well Begins

26 April 2023April 26, 2023Gosia Skowron

Utah FORGE Drills Geothermal Production Well.

Second deep deviated well in doublet pair.
A highly deviated well drilled in hard, hot crystalline granite – will mirror previously drilled injection well.
Total length of the well will be approximately 10,700 feet.

SALT LAKE CITY, UT., 26 April, 2023 - The Utah Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy (FORGE), funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, is excited to announce that the drilling of its second highly deviated deep well has commenced. This second well will serve as the production well of a two well doublet, and will mirror the existing injection well, which was drilled between October 2020 and February 2021. The new well will be located approximately 300 feet from the injection well.

Like the injection well, the upper part of the well will be drilled vertically through approximately 4,550 feet of sediments at which point it will penetrate into hard crystalline granite. At about 5,600 feet, the well will be gradually steered at a 5-degree angle for each 100 feet until it reaches an inclination of 65 degrees from its vertical point. The total length of the well will be approximately 10,700 feet with the “toe” – or the end of the well – reaching a vertical depth of 8,265 feet. The temperature at this depth will be 440 degrees F.

“This is a crucial next step in the Utah FORGE project’s goal of de-risking the tools and technologies required for making Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) technologies commercially viable” said Dr. Joseph Moore, and Principal Investigator of Utah FORGE. “This new well will serve as the production well. In the future, water will be pumped into the injection well, travel through the reservoir of tiny fractures that we previously opened, absorb the heat from the hard, hot crystalline granite, and then be pumped up through this new production well to the surface. This will help us capture the enormous energy potential beneath our feet and bring low cost, environmentally green, and renewable energy across the United States.”

Once the well is completed, a series of tests will be run to continue facilitating the development of the EGS reservoir and its long-term connectivity. Additional tests will also include determining the stress conditions through short-term injection experiments, during which microseismicity will be carefully monitored.

About Utah FORGE: The Utah FORGE project is managed by the Energy & Geoscience Institute at the University of Utah. Funding for the project is provided by the U.S. Department of Energy. The FORGE site is located near the town of Milford in Beaver County, Utah, on the western flank of the Mineral Mountains. Near term goals are aimed at perfecting drilling, stimulation, injection-production, and subsurface imaging technologies required to establish and sustain continuous fluid flow and energy transfer from an EGS reservoir. For more information, please visit our website at https://utahforge.com.

Media Contact: Christopher Katis ckatis@egi.utah.edu

Media Kit

Did You Know … you could have a swig of geothermal rum in the near future?

31 January 2023February 28, 2023Gosia Skowron

Did you know ... that you could have a swig of geothermal rum in the near future?

In Cornwall, United Kingdom, Matthew Clifford has big dreams to start up a rum distillery powered solely by the natural geothermal resources. Alcohol distillation takes up a lot of energy, so Clifford decided that he would attempt to power his idea with the heat from under the ground.

In the rum production process, energy is expended 24/7 and the need to keep everything temperature controlled can be extremely intensive over the long period of time that’s required to produce alcohol. Therefore, the Celsius Project had the idea to power the process with geothermal energy. Geothermal is available around the clock regardless of outdoor conditions or energy shortages, perfectly fitting the needs for distilling alcohol.

In Cornwall, the rocks under ground are hotter than anywhere else in the United Kingdom, which is why Clifford targeted that area for his project. The Celsius Project plans to use the heat from the “hot rocks” to heat the buildings needed for production and storage. They also have plans to use the “waste heat”, which is the by-product of turning the energy generated from the geothermal power into electricity. Their goal is to produce zero-carbon renewable power once the site is up and running.

Unfortunately, the project ran into a bit of a snag which has forced the owner to look for a different location. The original project site at the United Downs in Cornwall has been in disrepair for many years and has partially been used as a landfill. Although the plan was originally approved, the proposal received resistance when fans of stock car racing stepped in. A portion of United Downs is a raceway beloved by many racing fans in the area. The Cornwall Council stepped in and told Clifford he could not build the distillery there, despite already having received approval a few months prior.

Now, the Celsius Project is without a home. There has not been a new site chosen yet, and the project has moved into a smaller version of itself inside a handful of shipping containers, which are currently housed near Penryn. While a geothermal rum toast for New Year’s 2023 was unavailable, if Clifford is able to find a new location to permanently house the project and get it off the ground, there may be a chance ‘hot’ rum could be available for New Year’s Day, 2024.

We’ll drink to that!

https://www.geothermaldistillery.com/

https://www.thespiritsbusiness.com/2021/05/geothermal-powered-rum-distillery-gets-green-light/

https://www.business-live.co.uk/economic-development/geothermal-rum-distillery-vows-clean-19697511

https://www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/geothermal-rum-distillery-shipping-containers-7063771

https://inews.co.uk/news/business/cornwall-rum-tin-mine-cornish-geothermal-distillery-company-united-downs-850224

Drilling of Well 56-32

25 March 2021March 29, 2021

Well 56-32 will be fully cased (5 ½ inch) and used for deployment of seismic sensors during stimulation experiments. A Silixa DAS fiber optic cable 7500 feet long will be cemented along the outside the casing. During the drilling of 56-32, MSE (Mechanical Specific Energy) calculations and PDC bits will be used to optimize penetration rates as was successfully utilized in the drilling of 16A(78)-32. Below 7500 feet depth, mud hammer bits will be trialed and evaluated for drilling performance.

Drilling first deep well announcement

30 October 2020October 30, 2020

The upper part of the well will be drilled vertically through approximately 4,700 feet of sediments at which point it will penetrate into hard crystalline granite. At about 6,000 feet, the well will be gradually steered at a 5° angle for each 100 feet until it reaches an inclination of 65° from its vertical point. The total length of the well will be approximately 11,000 feet with the “toe” – or the end of the well – reaching a vertical depth of 8,500 feet. The temperature at this depth will be 440°F.

“This is an exciting phase in the Utah FORGE project and is key to proving Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) technologies are commercially viable” said Joseph Moore, PhD, and Principal Investigator of Utah FORGE.

The goal of our research is to test tools and technologies for the creation of a geothermal resource where none exists naturally. Developing cost effective EGS technologies is an important step in capturing the enormous energy potential beneath our feet and bringing low cost, environmentally green, and renewable energy across the United States.

Once the well is completed, a series of tests will be run to facilitate the development of the EGS resource. Some of the tests will include determining the stress conditions through short-term injection experiments, during which microseismicity will be carefully monitored. Other tests will allow for the interpretation of the orientation and distribution of the existing and induced fractures in the granite, which will form the pathways for water to circulate and heat up in the newly created EGS reservoir.

The results of these tests and R&D activities will be used to plan the second deviated well. Drilling of the second well is tentatively scheduled for early 2022.