Between this and the imminent move to electric vehicles, we could undermine Trump & Republican efforts to destroy the environment. And because the power of petrochemical companies threaten Democracy all over the world. Lets make the industry all but obsolete.
This is cheap, green power, 24/7 unlike solar & wind which require storage for when the sun doesn't shine & wind doesn't blow.
Getting the word out will hopefully get investors on board. They have plenty willing to jump on the bandwagon later, but no one willing to be the initial investor.
- Miles below Texas are zones of hot, pressurized brine
- The potential of these zones was investigated & documented by the DOE in the 70s.
- Proven by the DOE in the 90s with a small power plant that produced and sold power to Houston Lighting & Power.
- It uses assets discovered & logged and wells already dug by the oil & gas companies. And there are 10s of thousands of these all along the gulf coast.
- It uses off the shelf hybrid generators. They are hybrid systems that produce both power from the hot water & pressure as well as the dissolved natural gas and put the carbon emissions back into the ground.
- It is a blackstart technology. That means it requires very little power to start up. When other power plants start up, they require hundreds of megawatts to crank up. They also need little maintenance and thus will have very little down time.
Miles below Texas are zones of hot, pressurized brine. Sologen is going to use that pressure and heat to make electricity, introducing a new source of clean power to the grid that has the potential to exceed all other sources.
Power from these wells comes from three sources: the heat, the pressure, and from burning the dissolved methane found in the water in a hybrid geothermal power plant. The methane is used on site to generate electricity and the emissions are injected back down an adjacent well along with the brackish water, sequestering the carbon.
Research and testing for the use of hot water from old oil and gas wells has been began in the 1960s, but was largely shelved. Since then, more than half a million oil and gas wells have been drilled in Texas.
In the 70s & 80s, the D.O.E. mapped geothermal potential of the U.S. including the Gulf Coast Region and in the early 90s ran the Pleasant Bayou Power Plant project in Brazoria County. Just one well produced enough power for about one thousand homes sold via Houston Lighting & Power. Then, before deregulation, it wasn't feasible for small power producers to sell power to the grid. And it couldn't compete with coal at the time. That has changed
Sologen has purchased and is developing 4 wells near that power plant.
You can find more info here on SECO's geothermal page. Scroll about halfway down to get to the relevant info: http://seco.cpa.state.tx
Some here http://geo-energy.org/Pot
Articles:
China: https://www.newscientis
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