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Posted on 08/20/2008 5:24:51 AM PDT by Uncledave
Google, Paul Allen back geothermal startup
By JOHN COOK P-I REPORTER
AltaRock Energy believes it can harvest energy by fracturing rocks deep below the Earth's surface, using the heat from those rocks to create electricity.
Some deep-pocketed investors -- including Google, Paul Allen's Vulcan Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers -- are big believers in the concept, too. They are among the investors leading a $26.25 million venture round in AltaRock, money that the 14-month-old company will use to test the concept at an undisclosed site next year.
Sausalito, Calif.-based AltaRock, which was founded in Seattle by Susan Petty and continues to maintain technical operations here, is one of a number of upstarts trying to harness the heat below our feet.
But AltaRock's system is different from other geothermal projects that attempt to discover existing reservoirs of heated water or steam below the Earth's surface. That's the equivalent of oil exploration, not knowing if a well will produce or not, says AltaRock Chief Executive Don O'Shei.
AltaRock is attempting to take some of the risk out of finding the perfect drilling location. It does this by intentionally fracturing rocks -- like granite -- two to three miles below the Earth's surface in order to release heat. At that point, the company introduces water to the heated rock, creating its own reservoirs below ground.
With water pumped below the surface at high pressures, the rock fractures in what O'Shei describes as a "big heat exchanger." And the leftover water then can be used to create power.
O'Shei says the technology has distinct advantages over other renewable energy projects like wind or solar. For one, it can operate 24 hours a day and seven days a week -- meaning that it can meet power needs at different times of day. He also says the facilities could be located near existing power generation plants, so power can be transported more easily.
Since many of the Western U.S. states have heated rock within the drilling range of two to three miles, O'Shei also said the wells could be located nearly anywhere.
"That means you can do it in places where these traditional hydrothermal reservoirs don't exist," said O'Shei. "If you drill deep enough, anywhere in the world is hot enough. So the places that will develop (engineered geothermal systems) first are the places where it is hot shallow."
That's most of the Western U.S., with O'Shei saying the northern portion of Nevada is one potential area where the systems could be deployed.
But the drilling can't occur just anywhere.
Since the process involves fracturing rock and creating man-made reservoirs underground, O'Shei concedes that locating a facility near a fault line might not be the best choice.
"There are so many places to do it, why bother taking the risk?" said O'Shei.
The recent capital infusion will be used to complete a demonstration site by the end of next year, which will include wells and a steam generation facility. AltaRock employs 23, with plans to reach 30 employees soon.
About 60 percent of the staff is located in Seattle, though the numbers will probably even out in the coming months as the company adds new employees in operations and fieldwork.
Google.org, the philanthropic arm of Google, is pumping $6.25 million into AltaRock. It also is investing $4 million in Potter Drilling -- which is developing new deep rock drilling technologies. And the Internet search giant is providing a $489,521 grant to Southern Methodist University Geothermal Lab to update geothermal maps of the U.S.
Other investors in AltaRock include Khosla Ventures and Advanced Technology Ventures, a powerful syndicate that O'Shei said will help the company bring the technologies to commercial deployment.
"These are people who are known for being fairly good at figuring out where technologies are about to break," he said. "We see it as more than just money; it is a confirmation of what we are doing at AltaRock."
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Dr. Steven Sorenson (Andrews) plans to tap the geothermal energy of the Earth's interior by means of a thermonuclear device detonated deep within the Earth. Despite dire warnings by fellow scientist Ted Rampian (Moore), Dr Sorenson proceeds with the experiment after secretly learning that he is terminally ill. This experiment causes a crack to form and grow within the earth's crust, which threatens to split the earth in two if it is not stopped in time.
(1965)
undisclosed..... what will they do with the heat they obtain?
....hmmm....sounds a bit far out to me....besides, didn’t Dr.Evil try this idea first in “Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery”....it didn’t work for him now, did it?
I assume they will drive a steam turbine with the heat produced.
It is probably somewhere north of I-80, west of Winnemucca. Somewhere in that chunk of Nevada is the easiest, most shallow geothermal resource available.
These guys obviously have never done this before, and aren’t consulting with others who have had the same idea. Let’s just say this: It has been tried before. They’d better have some terrifically deep pockets.
Oh, and when you want to know that they’ve started drilling, and exactly where they’re drilling, use the NV State Engineer’s database to give you the goods:
http://water.nv.gov/water%20Rights/permitdb/permit.cfm?CFID=584846&CFTOKEN=56113874
And when the wells are completed, use this query page to find the specifics, including the drillers’ logs:
http://water.nv.gov/engineering/wlog/wlog.cfm
The NV State Engineer requires that permits and logs be specific as to location, down to a quarter of a quarter section (ie, 40 acres).
You don't have to be an Einstein to be rich; all you need to do is stumble upon a "scalable" income source.
No matter how often it happens, someone will always try to reinvent the faulty wheel.
That it's done by people with lots of excess money and no real brains for science, may be a good thing.
This has been tried.
For over 50 years.
By one of the best brains in the energy field: PG&E.
The place is called The Geysers, in northern California and it was a hippy's wet dream. After 30 years of throwing money down the rathole, it was abandoned.
Have at it, morons.
Like the water coming up with all sorts of nasty salts and other dissolved compounds, having a pH of about 1.5 and eating pretty much all of your process equipment up over time? In the late 90's I was up there helping manage some ponds holding geothermal water. There was a LOT of it, and at the time in the particular area the decision makers were buying time hoping a heavy rainy season would breach the impoundment and drain it to the Russian river (or whatever tributary we were on). With the levels of boron in it, the vintners in the area were probably going to be a little peeved with that if it ever happened and they caught on ...
Of course it is still "going", with tons of "green" grants and subsidies hiding its inefficiencies.
But not run by a private, for profit group --- i.e. Taxpayer subsidies forever.
We have geothermal sites at Medicine Lake on public lands. They were explored by CalPine and ready for development as a significant source. The enviros. and Pitt River tribe kept filing court appeals until the project fell off the face of the map.
Just exactly where are they going to get the huge quantities of water required to generate the steam?
Water resources in the Western US are already in short supply.
This project will go nowhere fast.
Why couldn’t it be a closed-loop system?
I suppose a closed loop steam system would be reasonable.
But if the heat source is 3 miles deep, it would still take a considerable amount of water piping to return the steam back to where a turbine would be feasably located.
I am no engineer. The idea sounds pretty good on paper. But in practical sense, there are much easier ways to produce energy.
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