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4. CURRENT RESEARCH ACTIVITIES The Department of Energy research program is aimed at reducing the cost of geothermal electricity. This involves research in the following areas: 4.1 Exploration and Reservoirs Exploration research focuses on developing more accurate and lower cost means for finding and mapping geothermal resources. In this way the financial risk of developing a project can be minimized. Reservoir research is aimed at maximizing the production rate and lifetime of the geothermal resource. Both areas involve the development of improved computer models and better instrumentation. Recent accomplishments include development of instrumentation that can work in higher-temperature environments and more accurate field survey procedures. 4.2 Drilling The cost of drilling a well can be a significant portion of the overall plant cost. Drilling research has focused on means to reduce the costs of drilling through hard rock in high- temperature, corrosive environments. Recent accomplishments include the development of slimhole drilling that reduces costs by up to 50% and improved drilling control and tools. 4.3 Energy Conversion Energy conversion research is aimed at reducing the delivered electricity cost by improving performance, lowering equipment cost, and reducing O&M costs of geothermal power plants. Because geothermal power plants operate at relatively low temperatures compared to other power plants, thermodynamics dictates that they reject to the environment as much as 90% of the heat extracted out of the ground. Research has thus focused on improving the heat rejection equipment, and new designs of both water- cooled and air-cooled condensers have been developed. Other research accomplishments include improved thermodynamic cycles that extract more energy out of each kilogram of brine, better maintenance techniques, and the development of heat exchanger linings that protect low-cost heat exchanger materials from corrosion and scaling when subjected to geothermal fluids. 5. THE FUTURE OF THE INDUSTRY Operators of existing plants are working hard to lower O&M costs in order to improve their profit margins now that price guarantees for many plants have expired. The need to reduce labor costs has produced a trend toward more automation. Plant owners are also actively looking at ways to improve plant efficiency and, in some cases, are adjusting plant operation to accommodate a resource that is declining with time. In some cases, totally new power plant concepts are being considered. For example, one company is exploring use of the Kalina cycle, a binary cycle that utilizes a mixture of ammonia and water as the working fluid. This cycle has the potential to extract a third more energy from the geothermal fluid than a conventional cycle. There are a number of reasons to believe that the economic climate may improve. The movement toward consumer disclosure, associated with utility restructuring, will likely favor all clean energy sources, including geothermal. Portfolio standards aimed at requiring that a certain percentage of electric power generation must come from clean sources, and “green marketing” will also help make geothermal more attractive. Combining geothermal power production with other processes may provide sufficient financial incentives to make plants economic. For example, a new plant at the Salton Sea in California extracts zinc from highly saline brine that is also used to generate electric power. In addition to new plant development at the Salton Sea, there are two new proposed 50 MW plants at Glass Mountain, California, being done under a California Energy Commission program. According to Reference (6), there are plans for a total additional U.S. geothermal electric capacity of 578 MW over the next five years, although it is not clear how much of this will actually be built. As Asia emerges from its economic crisis, the geothermal industry there is expected to pick up again. A number of opportunities in Latin America and Africa are also being pursued. In order to improve the cost-effectiveness of small geothermal power plants, the Department of Energy, as part of a new Geopowering the West initiative, has released a Request for Proposals, entitled “Field Verification of Small- Scale Geothermal Power Plants.” Through this solicitation, DOE hopes to build several power plants in the size range of 300 kW to 1 MW. Data on performance and O&M costs will be collected for a 3-year period, after which it is intended that the plants will continue to generate electricity for sale to the grid or to provide power for a local process. Additional solicitations will be aimed at improved drilling and enhancing the recovery of energy from existing geothermal reservoirs. Geothermal electricity has already proven itself to be a clean, reliable, and comparatively inexpensive alternative toPDF Image | STATUS AND FUTURE OF GEOTHERMAL ELECTRIC POWER
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