9/20/22

Falling behind in emissions goals Colorado probes geothermal power generation



Last year the US Department of Energy awarded $12 million to seven projects intended to accelerate development of geothermal potential including $2 million to the University of New Mexico and $1.5 million to Montana State University. Geothermal mining has been a topic of keen interest in Montana for decades where radioactive decay heats groundwater.

Colorado could even tap orphaned oil and gas wells to supply hot water for electricity generation according to KUNC especially now that the state is falling behind on its own self-imposed emissions-reducing mandates.
Earlier this summer, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat who chairs the 22-member Western Governors’ Association, announced the group would be launching an initiative to explore expansion of the “underdeveloped” resource. The association will study permitting challenges, workforce issues, markets and mapping, among other factors. “[Wind and solar] will likely continue to be the biggest workhorses of powering the grid, but we see a role for low-cost geothermal electric as part of that baseload solution as we phase out coal and natural gas,” Polis said in an interview. “There’s no doubt in my mind that it will play a significant role in the energy future of the West.” [Geothermal Bubbles Up as Another Way to Fight Climate Change]
In 2021 the Bureau of Land Management sold a geothermal lease in Hidalgo County, New Mexico despite a 2016 blowout near a $43 million geothermal electricity plant erected by Cyrq Energy in 2013 when Republican Susana Martinez was governor. Cyrq Energy has four working geothermal projects including Lightning Dock Geothermal Power Plant near Animas. It's a 15.3 MW binary geothermal plant with two production wells and 7 injection wells that sells power to Public Service of New Mexico (PNM) with firm baseload power.
Conceptually, hot dry rock (HDR) heat mining is quite simple. As demonstrated at the Los Alamos Fenton Hill site (above, right) HDR system is operated by circulating water through the engineered reservoirs at a pressure somewhat less than that used during its creation. Under these conditions the overall volume of the engineered reservoir is relatively stable. In the closed-loop operation, the injection pump, working like the human heart, provides the entire motive force for the circulation. Nothing except a small amount of waste heat is released to the environment. [Los Alamos National Laboratory]
Naming a dark matter lab 5000 feet below Lead after a lecherous, usurious Republican billionaire sticks in plenty of craws in South Dakota yet real science is getting done there. The Homestake Mine represents 8000 feet closer to the geothermal potential capable of powering much of the region. New Mexico's Sandia Labs, Los Alamos National Laboratory, South Dakota School of Mines and others are collaborating on exploring that potentially limitless resource.

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