By Susan Kraemer •
October 11, 2009
Recovered energy generation produces electricity from heat that would otherwise be thrown away. This “geothermal” energy technology would lower carbon emissions on oil fields and from cement makers, two of the three major carbon emitters to be covered by CEJAPA energy legislation. The potential is for 5,000 MW of electricity to be harvested, and CO2 reduced; just from oil drilling operations in this country.
I contacted Jim Nations at the Rocky Mountain Oilfield Testing Center, who was kind enough to give me some additional details on the tests that I wrote about last week. The DOE testing is being carried out on a 10,000 acre oil field with over 1,000 well bores to extract geothermal energy from the byproduct of oil drilling (hot water), using a 250 KW Ormat recovered energy generator unit (pictured above).
The power system comprises a commercial standard design Ormat Organic Rankine Cycle power plant. The binary power unit uses produced hot water as the heating fluid for a heat exchanger in the Ormat Energy Converter, where a secondary working fluid, an organic fluid with a low boiling point, is vaporized. That vapor is then used to spin a turbine coupled to a generator to produce electricity.
Jim’s answers, over the jump:
There is enough energy stored beneath the earth’s surface to power all of our energy demands thousands of times over. The problem is, it’s thousands of feet beneath us. Out of sight. Out of mind. But what if we could get to it? What if we could harvest that power?
By Ariel Schwartz •
November 7, 2008
Raser Technologies announced this week that it has completed construction of a plant on top of one of the United States’ largest geothermal hotbeds to be discovered in over 25 years—so large that Raser believes it could power one third of all homes in Utah.
By Tom Schueneman •
October 8, 2008
A study released last week from the U.S. Geological Survey reports that geothermal power production could significantly add to electric power generating capacity within the United States.
By Ariel Schwartz •
August 7, 2008
College students are demanding sustainability efforts in their schools, and now universities are stepping up to the plate. This past Tuesday, the Oregon Institute of Technology outlined a plan to build a $7.6 million geothermal power plant on campus. The plant will become the sole power source for the school in a few years, making Oregon Tech the only university to be powered completely by geothermal energy.
Since Klamath Falls, the home of Oregon Tech, sits near a fault line, heat and energy can be easily taken out of the earth.
And Oregon Tech isn’t the only institution to take advantage of the abundant geothermal energy in the area.
No matter what new energy proposal someone makes, it’s bound to attract an outcry of NIMBYs (Not In My Backyard). (My recent post about the U.S. generating all the energy it needed via a 100-mile-by-100-mile solar installation in the Mojave Desert, for example, evoked some protest.)
So I thought it might help to pose the future-of-our-energy question in another way: What do I WIMBY? (As in, Want In My Backyard?)
OK, here we go: Following are photos illustrating several clean and/or renewable energy options that could help us curb greenhouse gas emissions and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. Which ones would you be willing to view from your backyard as a tradeoff for a cleaner, brighter future? Be honest now: I’m asking literally if you would say OK if one of these was what you saw when looking out of the window of your home.
