The deep thermal field of the Upper Rhine Graben

Freymark, Jessica; Sippel, Judith; Scheck‐Wenderoth, Magdalena; Bär, Kristian; Stiller, Manfred; Fritsche, Johann-Gerhard; Kracht, Matthias

doi:10.1016/j.tecto.2016.11.013

Cited by 68 publications

(124 citation statements)

References 63 publications

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“…Specifically, the first geothermal heating plant Waren (Müritz) was installed in 1986 in the North German Basin, a CD1intracratonic basin play type. The highest geothermal gradient exists in the Upper Rhine Graben (Freymark et al, 2017), a convection-dominated CV3extensional terrain play type. The present-day vast geothermal development with the largest number of installed geothermal well doublets is situated in a CD2foreland basin play type, namely the Molasse Basin (Agemar & Tribbensee, 2018), where Upper Jurassic carbonate rocks are used as geothermal reservoir.…”

Section: Clustering Geothermal Resources Of Germany Into Play Typesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Geothermal play typing in Germany, case study Molasse Basin: a modern concept to categorise geothermal resources related to crustal permeability

Moeck

Dussel

Weber

et al. 2019

Netherlands Journal of Geosciences

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The majority of running geothermal plants worldwide are located in geological settings with convection- or advection-dominant heat transport. In Germany as in most regions in Europe, conduction is the dominating heat transport mechanism, with a resulting average geothermal gradient. The geothermal play type concept is a modern methodology to group geothermal resources according to their geological setting, and characteristic heat transport mechanisms. In particular, the quantity of heat transport is related to fluid flow in natural or engineered geothermal reservoirs. Hence, the permeability structure is a key element for geothermal play typing. Following the existing geothermal play type catalogue, four major geothermal play types can be identified for Germany: intracratonic basins, foreland basins and basement/crystalline rock provinces as conduction-dominated play types, and extensional terrains as the convection-dominated play type. The installed capacity of geothermal facilities sums up to 397.1 MWth by the end of 2018. District heating plants accounted for the largest portion, with about 337.0 MWth. The majority of these installations are located in the play type ‘foreland basin’, namely the Molasse Basin in southern Germany. The stratigraphic unit for geothermal use is the Upper Jurassic, also known as ‘Malm’ formation, a carbonate reservoir with high variability in porosity and permeability. Recently drilled wells in the southernmost Molasse Basin indicate the Upper Jurassic as a tight, fracture-controlled reservoir, not usable for conventional hydrothermal well doublets. Our new data compilation including the recently drilled deep geothermal well Geretsried reveals the relation of porosity and permeability to depth. The results suggest that obviously diagenetic processes control permeability with depth in carbonate rock, diminishing the predictability of reservoir porosity and permeability. The play type concept helps to delineate these property variations in play type levels because it is based on geological constraints, common for exploration geology. Following the general idea of play typing, the results from this play analysis can be transferred to geological analogues as carbonate rock play levels in varying depth.

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Section: Clustering Geothermal Resources Of Germany Into Play Typesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Geothermal play typing in Germany, case study Molasse Basin: a modern concept to categorise geothermal resources related to crustal permeability

Moeck

Dussel

Weber

et al. 2019

Netherlands Journal of Geosciences

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“…The URG highlights extension along the Alpine foreland and in the Landau geothermal region (southwest Germany); it consists of fractured Palaeozoic basement granite with uranium content of up to ca 10 PPM 6 , overlain by ca 1.5-km thick Cenozoic, Mesozoic and Permian sedimentary rock sequences 7 . Rifting makes the URG seismically active 8 , with significant crustal thinning that enables uplift linked to mantle upwelling 9 . The average geothermal gradient throughout the URG is ca 35-45 °C/km with high heat flow evident from numerous hot springs.…”

Section: Low-enthalpy Geothermal Energymentioning

confidence: 99%

South Africa's geothermal energy hotspots inferred from subsurface temperature and geology

Dhansay¹,

Musekiwa²,

Ntholi³

et al. 2017

S. Afr. J. Sci.

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ARTICLE INCLUDES: Supplementary material × Data set FUNDING:None South Africa intends to mitigate its carbon emissions by developing renewable energy from solar, wind and hydro, and investigating alternative energy sources such as natural gas and nuclear. Low-enthalpy geothermal energy is becoming increasingly popular around the world, largely as a result of technological advances that have enabled energy to be harnessed from relatively low temperature sources. However, geothermal energy does not form part of South Africa's future renewable energy scenario. This omission may be related to insufficient regional analysis of potentially viable geothermal zones across the country. We considered existing subsurface temperature and heat flow measurements and performed solutebased hydrochemical geothermometry to determine potentially anomalous geothermal gradients that could signify underlying low-enthalpy geothermal energy resources. We correlated these findings against hydro/geological and tectonic controls to find prospective target regions for investigating geothermal energy development. Our results show a significant link between tectonic features, including those oncraton, and the development of geothermal potential regions. In addition, potential regions in South Africa share similarities with other locations that have successfully harnessed low-enthalpy geothermal energy. South Africa may therefore have a realistic chance of developing geothermal energy, but will still need additional research and development, including new temperature measurements, and structural, hydrogeological and economic investigations. Significance:• The regional low-enthalpy geothermal energy potential of South Africa should be further researched for consideration of low-enthalpy geothermal energy as a renewable energy option. IntroductionSouth Africa is the leading carbon emitter in Africa and has one of the highest rates of emissions of nations in the world. 1 This status can be linked to South Africa's vast coal resources, which are an important contributor to the local mining sector and also account for more than 80% of South Africa's energy generation.1 South Africa intends to reduce its carbon emissions by producing about 40% of the country's total energy through renewable sources by 2030.1 This goal will be achieved mostly through solar-, wind-and hydro-generated forms of energy and largely accelerated by a Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme, which has attracted considerable private-sector investment. 1 Renewable energy alone will not meet South Africa's growing energy demands and therefore the country will also consider additional large-scale coal-fired energy, nuclear energy and energy produced from shale gas. 1 Low-enthalpy geothermal energy is becoming increasingly popular around the world.2 This popularity is largely because it requires geothermal gradients as low as ca 40 °C/km, which may be found in many global settings. South Africa does not have any active or recent volcanism and is situat...

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“…This investigation is important since local SA have known deficiencies as they are only locally investigating the first-order parameter influence around a given parameter set. In geothermal applications, the parameters sets (e.g., thermal conductivities, and radiogenic heat productions) are usually associated with high uncertainties (Freymark et al, 2017;Lehmann et al, 1998;Vogt et al, 2010;Wagner & Clauser, 2005). These high uncertainties quickly lead to wrong initial guesses of the various parameters bearing the high risk of exploring the wrong part of the parameter space with a local sensitivity analysis.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This region has gained significant interest for deep geothermal exploration due to its increased geothermal gradient, for example around Soultz-sous-Forêts, Landau, and Bruchsal (Agemar et al, 2013(Agemar et al, , 2014Illies, 1972;Pauwels et al, 1993;Geothermie, 2007;Vidal et al, 2015). However, obtaining reliable spatial temperature distributions is a major challenge as seen in the ongoing discussion in literature (Agemar et al, 2013(Agemar et al, , 2014Freymark et al, 2017Freymark et al, , 2019GeORG-Projektteam, 2013;Stober & Bucher, 2015), also because of the unclear influence of advection on the temperature distribution within the Upper Rhine Graben. So far, only "trial-and-error" model calibrations have been performed in basin-scale models of this region (Freymark et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, obtaining reliable spatial temperature distributions is a major challenge as seen in the ongoing discussion in literature (Agemar et al, 2013(Agemar et al, , 2014Freymark et al, 2017Freymark et al, , 2019GeORG-Projektteam, 2013;Stober & Bucher, 2015), also because of the unclear influence of advection on the temperature distribution within the Upper Rhine Graben. So far, only "trial-and-error" model calibrations have been performed in basin-scale models of this region (Freymark et al, 2017). With this work, we aim to contribute with a detailed global SA, followed by a full calibration of a conductive geothermal model, and identify the suitability of such a model in different regions of the basin.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Global Sensitivity Analysis to Optimize Basin-Scale Conductive Model Calibration – A Case Study From the Upper Rhine Graben

Degen¹,

Veroy²,

Freymark³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Geothermal simulations are widely used in both scientific and applied industrial contexts. Typically, the temperature state is evaluated on the basis of the heat equation, with suitable parameterizations of the model domain and defined boundary conditions, which are calibrated to obtain a minimal misfit between measured and simulated temperature values. We demonstrate the essential need for global sensitivity studies for robust geothermal model calibrations since local studies overestimate the influence of the parameters. We ensure the feasibility of the study by using a physics-based machine learning approach, that reduces the computation time by several orders of magnitude.

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The deep thermal field of the Upper Rhine Graben

Cited by 68 publications

References 63 publications

Geothermal play typing in Germany, case study Molasse Basin: a modern concept to categorise geothermal resources related to crustal permeability

Geothermal play typing in Germany, case study Molasse Basin: a modern concept to categorise geothermal resources related to crustal permeability

South Africa's geothermal energy hotspots inferred from subsurface temperature and geology

Global Sensitivity Analysis to Optimize Basin-Scale Conductive Model Calibration – A Case Study From the Upper Rhine Graben

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