geo-thermal will put to use carbon dioxide

 Geo thermal energy

Geo thermal will put carbon dioxide to good use.

Geothermal power holds enormous opportunities to provide affordable clean energy that avoids green house gases like carbon dioxide ( CO2) that because Geo-thermal technologies rely on heat found under earth’s surface to generate uninterrupted, low cost renewable energy that is virtually emissions free. Now Utah based start up is working an innovative project that could make Geo-thermal power even more  beneficial .

Just last month , Green Fire Energy began work to demonstrate a process that would use CO2 to harness Geo-thermal energy to make electricity. What is more, the technology has to add carbon sequestration -not to mention reduced water consumption- to the benefits already associated with Geo thermal power. The originally emerged several years ago from work of Geo-scientist Donald Brown at department energy’s Los Ala mos national club. Karsten Preuss and others at department’s Lawrence Berkeley  national lab since over view of Green Fires process to convert CO2 into electricity.

Now Green Fire plan to test that theory on and around Arizona soil. In September 2010, the office energy efficiency and renewable energy’s  Geo thermal technologies program awarded Green Fire a 2 million dollars cost share award to conduct the first field demonstration of CO2 based Geo thermal system. This project will rely on Geo thermal resources and naturally occurring carbon dioxide from St john Dome near Spring-ville, Arizona.

Green Fire planned demonstration facility will work much like conventional Geo-thermal power plants, which sends a “  Geo-thermal fluid “ usually water -to be heated by under ground rock formations and return to the surface as a steam, powering turbines that produce electricity . Instead of water , Green Fire will test CO2 as its Geo thermal fluid. Usually  water -to be heated by under ground rock formations and returned to the surface as a steam, powering turbines that produce electricity. Instead water, Green Fire will test CO2 as its go -thermal fluid. Carbon dioxide from St. John dome- the product of past volcanic activity- will be tapped, pressurized to a ‘ super critical’ state and inject under ground when this CO2 returns to surface, it will cycle through power conversion system creating power. After each cycle, the CO2 will be compressed and re injected under ground. During this process, a portion of CO2 will be permanently tapped in porous under ground rocks. Thus the process emits no-carbon- and may actually store some of it deep under ground.

Getting Geo-thermal power with CO2 instead of water would be particularly beneficial in the arid south western U.S., where water is scarce. Moreover super critical CO2 may actually be a better geo-thermal fluid than water in key ways . Studies suggest that CO2 may have higher heat recovery rates, lower pumping costs due to buoyancy effects, and fewer problems with rock alternation and surface equipment problems.

Pending suitable results from geological testing that is under way, the company is scheduled to drill its first geo-thermal well later this year.

Should the project demonstrate the technical and economic feasibility of this un conventional Geo -thermal energy technology, Green Fire would ultimately look to build several 50 MW Geo-thermal plants, supplementing naturally occurring  CO2 from the St. John dome formations with emissions from conventional power plants in the region. Six coal fired power plants in the area account for 100 million tons of CO2 each year, much of which could be stored or canalized through Geo-thermal formation sequestrating emissions and generating clean, renewable energy as a rocks.

 The department of energy is working with innovative start ups like Green Fire energy to provide promising technologies with the funding and support they need, ensuring that lessons learned from demonstration like this one will help us better understand how Geo-thermal energy and carbon sequestration can contribute to meeting long term energy goals.