Water Resource Assessment of Geothermal Resources and Water Use in Geopressured Geothermal Systems

Clark, Corrie E.; Harto, Christopher B.; Troppe, W. A.

doi:10.2172/1219716

Cited by 5 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…A large and growing quantity of natural gas is consumed for electricity generation. A few recent papers have analyzed water consumption for electricity production across technologies and have found that water consumption for natural gas power plants is on the low end of the range for conventional thermoelectric power generation. − To differentiate this analysis from those studies, the impact of natural gas fuel source on the life cycle water consumption across different natural gas power plant types was evaluated and is shown in Figure .…”

Section: Results and Discussion Of Water Consumptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Life Cycle Water Consumption for Shale Gas and Conventional Natural Gas

Clark

Horner

Harto

2013

Environ. Sci. Technol.

198

131

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Shale gas production represents a large potential source of natural gas for the nation. The scale and rapid growth in shale gas development underscore the need to better understand its environmental implications, including water consumption. This study estimates the water consumed over the life cycle of conventional and shale gas production, accounting for the different stages of production and for flowback water reuse (in the case of shale gas). This study finds that shale gas consumes more water over its life cycle (13-37 L/GJ) than conventional natural gas consumes (9.3-9.6 L/GJ). However, when used as a transportation fuel, shale gas consumes significantly less water than other transportation fuels. When used for electricity generation, the combustion of shale gas adds incrementally to the overall water consumption compared to conventional natural gas. The impact of fuel production, however, is small relative to that of power plant operations. The type of power plant where the natural gas is utilized is far more important than the source of the natural gas.

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Section: Results and Discussion Of Water Consumptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Life Cycle Water Consumption for Shale Gas and Conventional Natural Gas

Clark

Horner

Harto

2013

Environ. Sci. Technol.

198

131

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“…The Aspen ICARUS Process Evaluator 26 was employed for itemizing plants' components and materials. For the wells, GETEM model results 27 were integrated into Argonne models [28][29][30][31] to quantify energy, emissions, and materials associated with well construction, And finally, a separate Argonne Model 28-31 was developed for itemizing materials in pipelines and associated components connecting wells and plants.…”

Section: Geothermal Facility Modelingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For the interested reader, more in depth discussions of the models can be found elsewhere. [28][29][30][31] However, a brief discussion of them is in order. Generally, geothermal wells comprised one or more casing strings, where the diameter of each string is smaller than the one above it.…”

Section: Well Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cumulative energy, emissions, and water consumption for geothermal electric power production

Sullivan

Clark

Han

et al. 2013

Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy

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A life cycle analysis has been conducted on geothermal electricity generation. The technologies covered in the study include flash, binary, enhanced geothermal systems (EGS), and coproduced gas and electricity plants. The life cycle performance metrics quantified in the study include materials, water, and energy use, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The life cycle stages taken into account were the plant and fuel cycle stages, the latter of which includes fuel production and fuel use (operational). The plant cycle includes the construction of the plant, wells, and above ground piping and the production of the materials that comprise those systems. With the exception of geothermal flash plants, GHG emissions from the plant cycle are generally small and the only such emissions from geothermal plants. Some operational GHGs arise from flash plants, and though substantial when compared to other geothermal power plants, these are nonetheless considerably smaller than those emitted from fossil fuel fired plants. For operational geothermal emissions, an emission rate (g/kW h) distribution function vs. cumulative capacity was developed using California plant data. Substantial GHG emissions arise from coproduced facilities and two other "renewable" power plants, but these are almost totally due to the production and use of natural gas and biofuels. Nonetheless, those GHGs are still much less than those from fossil fuel fired plants. Though significant amounts of water are consumed for plant and well construction, especially for well field stimulation of EGS plants, they are small in comparison to estimated water consumed during plant operation. This also applies to air cooled plants, which nominally should consume no water during operation. Considering that geothermal operational water use data are scarce, our estimates show the lowest water consumption for flash and coproduced plants and the highest for EGS, though the latter must be considered provisional due to the absence of field data. The EGS estimate was based on binary plant data. V C 2013 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.

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“…Given the above, we can estimate the incremental cement, steel, fuel, and water (see water data in Clark et al, 2011b) required for the exploration well activity. For the 10-MW HTBinary system, the incremental cement, steel, and diesel fuel is about 22% of the existing burden for the production and injection wells.…”

Section: Exploration Wellsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Finally, other combustion emissions are compared and contrasted among the various power production technologies. For a detailed discussion of the considerable water requirements for drilling geothermal wells, see the companion report (Clark et al, 2011b).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%