According to the web site operated by the University of Utah’s Energy and Geoscience Institute, EGS (Enhanced Geothermal Systems ) development means identifying an incipient reservoir within a volume of rock that is hot, tectonically stressed and fractured.

It is unable to serve as a reservoir because of low permeability. Due to secondary-mineralization processes, those fractures have sealed over time. EGS Development applies force “to open, extend and interconnect the fractures”.

This results in the creation of a conductive fracture network and a reservoir that is indistinguishable from conventional geothermal reservoirs. This process could serve to extend the margins of existing geothermal systems or to create entirely new ones wherever appropriate thermal and tectonic conditions exist.

“Geothermal heat can be harnessed for clean electrical power generation wherever there is high heat flow in deep, fractured rock formations and a shallower, non-fractured or sealed caprock.”

The Geothermal Energy Association released a new report on Geothermal Technology that concluded subsurface technologies are the key to developing the vast, potential resource base around the world. EGS, a.k.a., HFR (Hot Fractured Rock), includes hydraulic, thermal, and chemical processes, often in combination, to re-establish fractures so that there is increased permeability of the target EGS reservoir.

Nonetheless, as previously noted, Hot Dry Rock (HDR) / Hot Fractured Rock (HFR) power is still at the experimental stage. Wikipedia informs that EGS systems currently are being developed and tested in France, Australia, Japan, the U.S. and Switzerland. (Although some spoil sports made them stop in Switzerland, after a tiny little 3.4 earthquake.)

Now I understand why there is no federal RPS (Renewable Portfolio Standard).

“Why is that?”

After investing in those uranium mines, the crackers are sulking because the desert rats found a way cheaper than nuclear to be movers and shakers.

Foucault’s Pendulum ASIN: 0151002153

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