Future Electricity Production from Geothermal Resources Using Oil and Gas Wells

Abstract

Various under-developed countries are not capable to accomplish its domestic energy requirements and are undergoing sensitive energy crises. Electricity Sector has been most suffered due to the energy shortage. Geothermal power production is capable to fulfill the electricity demand of different countries. Geothermal power plant can use water from an aquifer at moderately higher temperature and produce power using dry steam, flashing or binary cycle. Traditionally, geothermal energy has been exploited in places with plentiful hot water at relatively shallow depth. There are several high gradient geothermal resources available in the world but without the presence of aquifer it is impossible to utilize these resources. It is still unknown how to generate power by using dry rock resources. We aimed to focus on the way to generate electricity by utilizing the dry rock resources. This way of electricity generation will be cost effectively and can produce electricity on constant or permanent basis. Current study lead a new direction that how abandoned oil and gas wells are helpful to overcome the energy crises and have ability to generate the cheap electricity for a long term period. This study discusses the power generation system for commercial electricity production. Three different source temperatures (142˚C, 157˚C, and 177˚C) were considered. Optimal working fluid and optimal design that improve the performance of plant are determined. Here we saw that a 12 inch double-pipe heat exchanger, which penetrates to a depth of 3 km, could extract sufficient energy to drive a 3.2 MW turbine generator system.

Heat Dissipation Modeling of <i>In-Situ</i> Conversion Process of Oil Shale

“…The down-hole subsurface electric heaters are installed in heating wells during the in-situ conversion process of kerogen which provides slow heating to the formation and temperature is gradually increased upto 370˚C [17] [18]. To accurately model the heat dissipation within the oil shale formation it is required to develop a mathematical and numerical model which can acknowledge all means of heat transfer i.e.…”

Potential for heat production by retrofitting abandoned gas wells into geothermal wells

“…Oil and gas wells can aid in the extraction of subsurface geothermal energy. The drilled borehole provides useful geological, geophysical, and geochemical information about the sub-surface reservoirs and allows direct access to the sub-surface heat energy [6, 7]. Globally, there are many “candidate wells” that can be used for geothermal energy extraction.…”