Tag: David Blackwell

SMU conference promotes technology, economics of geothermal production in oil and gas fields

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date May 15, 2015

“Power Plays” workshop, in Dallas May 19-20, is SMU Geothermal Laboratory’s seventh international energy conference and workshop

Southern Methodist University’s renowned SMU Geothermal Laboratory will host its seventh international energy conference and workshop on the SMU campus May 19-20. The conference is designed to promote transition of oil and gas fields to electricity-producing geothermal systems by harnessing waste heat and fluids from both active and abandoned fields.

More than 200 professionals – ranging from members of the oil and gas service industry, reservoir engineers, to geothermal energy entrepreneurs, to lawyers – are expected to attend “SMU Power Plays: Geothermal Energy in Oil and Gas Fields” Topics of discussion will include:

Power generation from flare gas

Power generation from waste-heat and geothermal fluids

Research updates on induced seismicity, as well as onshore and offshore thermal maturation

Play Fairway Analysis – a subsurface mapping technique used to identify prospective geothermal resources

Technology updates

Researchers from SMU’s Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences will present results from their Fall 2014 Eastern North American Margin Community Seismic Experiment (ENAM CSE) research. In addition, equipment such as one-well systems, desalination and other new technologies will be explored. SMU geothermal conference remains open and walk-up attendees will be accommodated.

SMU has been at the forefront of geothermal energy research for more than 45 years, and the Geothermal Laboratory’s mapping of North American geothermal resources is considered the baseline for U.S. geothermal energy exploration. Geothermal Laboratory Coordinator Maria Richards and Emeritus Professor David Blackwell have seen interest in geothermal energy wax and wane with the price of oil and natural gas.

But Richards believes current low oil prices will drive more interest in geothermal development, encouraging oil and gas producers to use geothermal production from existing oil and gas fields as they try to keep them cost-effective for petroleum production at 2015 prices.

The technology that will be examined at the conference is relatively straight-forward: Sedimentary basins drilled for oil and gas production leave behind reservoir pathways that can later be used for heat extraction. Fluids moving through those hot reservoir pathways capture heat, which at the surface can be turned into electricity, or used downhole to replace pumping needs. In addition, the existing surface equipment used in active oil and gas fields generates heat, which also can be tapped to produce electricity and mitigate the cost of production.

“Oil and gas drilling rig counts are down,” Richards said. “The industry has tightened its work force and honed its expertise. The opportunity to produce a new revenue stream during an economically challenging period, through the addition of relatively simple technology at the wellhead, may be the best chance we’ve had in years to gain operators’ attention.”

Featured speakers include Jim Wicklund, managing director for equity research at Credit Suisse, who will speak on “Volatile Economics in the Oil Field,” and Holly Thomas and Tim Reinhardt from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Geothermal Technologies Office. STW Water Process & Technology, a water reclamation and oilfield services company, will have desalination equipment on-site for attendees to understand size and scaling capacity of water purification for oil field operators.

Information and registration is available at www.smu.edu/geothermal. — Kimberly Cobb

Follow SMUResearch.com on twitter at @smuresearch.

SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.

SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.

Tags David Blackwell, Maria Richards, Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences, SMU Geothermal Laboratory

Earth & Climate Energy & Matter Fossils & Ruins Plants & Animals Researcher news SMU In The News

NPR: “Boiling Hot: How Fracking’s Gusher of Geothermal Energy is Wasted”

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date October 22, 2013

Abundance of clean, economical geothermal energy in the state’s existing oil and gas wells gets the cold shoulder

In an energy and environment report on Texas, NPR covered the SMU Geothermal Laboratory‘s research to locate and quantify the huge geothermal resources available for production from existing oil wells within Texas. The NPR report relied on the expertise of SMU geothermal expert Maria Richards, director of the SMU Geothermal Laboratory.

SMU’s Geothermal Laboratory is a renowned national resource for the development of clean, green energy from the Earth’s heat.

Historically, geothermal development has been restricted to areas with substantial tectonic activity or volcanism, such as The Geysers field in California. But SMU’s sophisticated mapping of geothermal resources makes it clear that vast geothermal resources reachable through current technology could replace and multiply the levels of energy currently produced in the United States — mostly by coal-fired power plants.

Three recent technological developments are feeding increased geothermal development in areas with little or no tectonic activity or volcanism:

Low Temperature Hydrothermal – Energy is produced from subsurface areas with naturally occurring high fluid volumes at temperatures ranging from less than boiling to 300°F (150°C). This approach is producing energy in Alaska, Oregon, Idaho, and Utah.
Geopressure and Coproduced Fluids Geothermal – Oil and/or natural gas are produced together with electricity generated from hot geothermal fluids drawn from the same well. Systems are installed or being installed in Wyoming, North Dakota, Utah, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.
Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) – Subsurface areas with low fluid content but high temperatures are “enhanced” with injection of fluid and other reservoir engineering techniques. EGS resources are typically deeper than hydrothermal resources and represent the largest share of total geothermal resources capable of supporting larger capacity power plants.

SMU researchers have completed a national mapping project backed by Google.org that makes it possible to access reliable geothermal data (heat flow and temperature-at-depth information) culled from oil and gas development all over the country. Their mapping project already has determined that there is potential for more electric generation from geothermal sources in West Virginia than is currently being produced by the state’s mostly coal-fired generation plants.

NPR’s Oct. 17 coverage featured a radio interview with SMU’s Richards. “What might Texas look like if power plants replaced pump jacks?”

Read the full article and listen to the radio interview.

EXCERPT:

By Dave Fehling
NPR
There are thousands of oil & gas wells in Texas that tap into the earth’s supply of hot water, some of it a boiling hot 250 F. There are modern, high tech steam engines that could use the water to make electricity. There was a federally-funded experimental power plant that proved the technology could work in Texas.

Yet, geothermal power has gotten a cold shoulder in the state.

“They made (the power plant) work, they proved it was successful, and then they dismantled it because they didn’t have funding to keep the project going,” said Maria Richards, a researcher at Southern Methodist University’s Geothermal Laboratory.

A Texas Experiment that Worked
That 1989 project backed by the U.S. Department of Energy was called the Pleasant Bayou Power Plant. The electricity it generated would power about a 1,000 homes and was sold to what was then Houston’s utility company, HL&P.

The little power plant was located in Brazoria County in an field just ten miles north of Galveston Island which wasn’t by accident. Richards said she and colleagues have found that the hot water that comes from some two miles underground is hottest in the counties along the Gulf Coast where layers of sediment are thicker than in other parts of Texas.

“That layer of sediment acts like an insulator so it’s similar to your blanket on a bed that it’s keeping the heat down there, ” said Richards.

The irony is that while the boom in “fracking” has meant that there are thousands of wells being drilled that could be sources of hot water, the same boom has increased the supply of natural gas. The gas is a relatively cheap fuel for big power plants and its abundance diminishes the interest in alternative sources of energy like geothermal.

A Geyser that Ran Out of Steam
It wasn’t always this way. The Texas General Land Office said at one point, geothermal energy developers had taken out nine leases for wells on state land.

“Texas has a lot of holes drilled in it already from hydrocarbon production. And that also means anyone who’d like to do geothermal energy production can go down those holes and that saves them a considerable amount of money,” said Jim Suydam, spokesperson for the Land Office.

But none of the proposed projects ever took off and the leases lapsed.

“In 2005 there was a great deal of interest in Texas geothermal. Since then there’s been a glut of natural gas on the market due to the advances of hydraulic fracturing. And that’s lowered the price of natural gas substantially and has made geothermal energy production less economically viable,” said Suydam.

But it’s backers aren’t deterred.

“The market I think is huge for this because the fact is, there are over 800,000 oil & gas wells in the United States. And there’s three million gallons per minute of hot water just in the top eight states,” said Loy Sneary, CEO of Gulf Coast Green Energy.

Read the full article and listen to the radio interview.

Follow SMUResearch.com on Twitter.

For more information, www.smuresearch.com.

SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.

Tags David Blackwell, Dedman College, Maria Richards, Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences

Earth & Climate Energy & Matter Events Researcher news Student researchers

SMU Geothermal Lab students are finalists in U.S. Department of Energy’s National Geothermal Student Competition

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date October 1, 2012

Energy Department Announces Finalists for National University Geothermal Energy Competition

A group of SMU graduate students has been selected as one of three finalist teams in a prestigious national geothermal energy competition sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy. The DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy competition challenges student teams to conduct research aimed at breakthroughs in geothermal energy development.

The SMU Geothermal Laboratory student team members — Zach Frone, Joe Batir, Ryan Dingwall and Mitchell Williams — are presenting their project at the 36th Geothermal Resources Council Annual Meeting in Reno, Nev., Sept. 30-Oct. 3. The other two student teams presenting their work in this last stage of the competition are from Idaho State University and Boise State University.

SMU’s Geothermal Laboratory is a renowned national resource for the development of clean, green energy from the Earth’s heat. Sophisticated mapping of geothermal resources produced by David Blackwell, SMU’s Hamilton professor of Geothermal Studies, and Maria Richards, director of SMU’s Geothermal Laboratory, makes it clear that vast geothermal resources reachable through current technology could replace and multiply the levels of energy currently produced in the United States by mostly coal-fired power plants.

MIT study identified Snake River as potential area for geothermal development
The student teams involved in the DOE competition have been analyzing the economic feasibility of developing geothermal energy in Snake River Plain, Idaho.

In announcing the competition, the Department of Energy noted that a 2006 study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Blackwell and Richards were part of the study team) identified Snake River Valley as one of six potential areas in the United States for near-term geothermal development.

The region has geothermal resources with temperatures higher than 200°C at a depth of less than three miles, which is considered optimal for energy development.

Dingwall explained that the SMU team developed and ran fluid flow models for the competition, using temperatures measured in wells in the West Snake River Plain, published geologic information and other data.

The results indicate the area is viable for direct use geothermal applications (naturally occurring hot water drawn from below the earth’s surface) or enhanced geothermal systems, which require artificially circulating liquid through rock formations to heat it to temperatures high enough to produce energy.

U.S. install geothermal capacity exceeds that of rest of world
The United States currently has 3,177 megawatts of installed geothermal energy capacity, according to the Geothermal Energy Association, which far outpaces production in the rest of the world.

California and Nevada are the U.S. production leaders. However, Blackwell and Richards’ research through the SMU Geothermal Lab, available at Google.org’s EGS Home Page, has confirmed and refined locations across North America with resources capable of supporting large-scale commercial geothermal energy production under a wide range of geologic conditions. — Kimberly Cobb

Follow SMU Research on Twitter, @smuresearch.

For more SMU research see www.smuresearch.com.

Tags David Blackwell, Dedman College, Maria Richards, Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences

Earth & Climate Energy & Matter Researcher news Technology

Unconventional geothermal techniques a potential game changer for U.S. energy policy

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date March 29, 2012

SMU’s David Blackwell touts nationwide geothermal energy potential at Capitol Hill science briefing

SMU Geothermal energy expert David Blackwell gave a Capitol Hill briefing Tuesday, March 27, on the growing opportunities for geothermal energy production in the United States, calling “unconventional” geothermal techniques a potential game changer for U.S. energy policy.

Blackwell’s presentation outlined the variety of techniques available for geothermal production of electricity, the accessibility of unconventional geothermal resources across vast portions of the United States and the opportunities for synergy with the oil and gas industry. Also speaking at the briefing were Karl Gawell, executive director of the geothermal energy association, and James Faulds, professor at the University of Nevada-Reno and director of the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology.

Book a live interview

To book a live or taped interview with David Blackwell in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News and Communications at 214-768-7650 or email news@smu.edu.

View on Google Earth

To explore the new Enhanced Geothermal Systems maps built on SMU’s research via Google Earth, download the latest version of Google Earth and then download and open the file at http://www.google.org/egs/downloads/EGSPotential.kmz.

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“This is a crucial time to do this briefing,” said Blackwell, W. B. Hamilton Professor of Geophysics in SMU’s Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences and one of the nation’s foremost experts in geothermal mapping. “Everybody is worrying about energy right now.”

The session was one in a series of continuing Congressional briefings on the science and technology needed to achieve the nation’s energy goals, titled collectively, “The Road to the New Energy Economy.” The briefing was organized by the National Science Foundation, DISCOVER Magazine, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada was honorary host for the March 27 briefing at the Senate Visitor’s Center, which included congressional staffers, members of science and engineering associations, government, private and industry representatives.

SMU geothermal finds 10 times the installed capacity of coal power
SMU’s geothermal energy research is at the forefront of the movement to expand geothermal energy production in the United States. Blackwell and Maria Richards, the SMU Geothermal Lab coordinator, released research in October that documents significant geothermal resources across the United States capable of producing more than three million megawatts of green power — 10 times the installed capacity of coal power plants today. Sophisticated mapping produced from the research, viewable via Google Earth at http://www.google.org/egs/, demonstrates that vast reserves of this green, renewable source of power generated from the Earth’s heat are realistically accessible using current technology.

Blackwell began his presentation by debunking the common misperception that geothermal energy is always dependent on hot fluids near the surface – as in the Geysers Field in California. New techniques are now available to produce electricity at much lower temperatures than occur in a geyser field, he said, and in areas without naturally occurring fluids. For example, enhanced geothermal energy systems (EGS) rely on injecting fluids to be heated by the earth into subsurface formations, sometimes created by hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.”

Blackwell noted the potential for synergy between geothermal energy production and the oil and gas industry, explaining that an area previously “fracked” for oil and gas production (creating an underground reservoir) is primed for the heating of fluids for geothermal energy production once the oil and gas plays out.

Unconventional geothermal techniques a potential baseload power source
The SMU geothermal energy expert called these “unconventional” geothermal techniques a potential game changer for U.S. Energy policy. Geothermal energy is a constant (baseload) source of power that does not change with weather conditions, as do solar and wind-powered energy sources. Blackwell noted that SMU’s mapping shows that unconventional geothermal resources “are almost everywhere.”

Blackwell closed his presentation with acknowledgment that site-specific studies and more demonstration projects are needed to make geothermal energy a strong partner in the new energy economy.

The briefing was taped and will be posted to the Science 360 website hosted by the National Science Foundation at a later date. — Kimberly Cobb

Tags David Blackwell, Dedman College, Maria Richards, Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences

Earth & Climate Energy & Matter Researcher news SMU In The News

Daily Mail: How energy from under the ground could power American homes with existing technology

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date November 3, 2011

The Daily Mail has covered the geothermal energy research of SMU Hamilton Professor of Geophysics David Blackwell, Maria Richards and the SMU Geothermal Laboratory.

Blackwell and Richards, the Geothermal Lab coordinator, released a new map earlier this week that documents significant geothermal resources across the United States capable of producing more than three million megawatts of green power — 10 times the installed capacity of coal power plants today.

Funded with a grant from Google.org, sophisticated mapping produced from the research demonstrates that vast reserves of this green, renewable source of power generated from the Earth’s heat are realistically accessible using current technology.

The results of the new research confirm and refine locations for resources capable of supporting large-scale commercial geothermal energy production under a wide range of geologic conditions, including significant areas in the eastern two-thirds of the United States.

Read the full story.

EXCERPT:

By LUCY BUCKLAND
Daily Mail
America could be standing on the most powerful renewable energy resource, which can be tapped into with existing technology — new research has revealed.

Buried deep below the surface scientists have discovered hot rocks across the U.S., which could provide up to 10 times the amount of energy given out by existing power plants.

Although this energy, called geothermal, is already generated in western U.S., it had previously been thought the eastern part of the county didn’t have any hot rocks below the surface.

But researchers at Southern Methodist University, with funding from Google.org, have found huge potential to accessing this energy including ‘significant portions of the eastern two-thirds of the U.S.’ -website msnbc.com reports.

Researchers also say this unique energy resource can be accessed with existing technology.

On the university’s webiste it states areas of particular geothermal interest include Western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, South Dakota, and the areas in northern Illinois and northern Louisiana.

Read the full story.

Tags David Blackwell, Huffington Department of Earth Sciences, Maria Richards, SMU Geothermal Laboratory