WorldWide Drilling Resource

Always Seeking a Better Look Adapted from Information from the U.S Department of Energy Over 80% of total U.S. energy needs originate from beneath the earth’s sur- face, and a key energy challenge is ensuring safe, sustainable, and affordable availability of these natural resources. Before drilling crews can reach these re- sources locked underground, they must first know if the location contains energy resources or at least have good reason for an exploration well. A key issue with the process, is being able to “see” what is in the subsurface. There are several tech- nologies which can help with this issue, and the Department of Energy (DOE) is funding research and development to advance these technologies. They are pursuing these advancements through the SubTER crosscut - a DOE initiative, uniting five key DOE agencies in a collaborative effort to ultimately improve our nation’s energy security and availability. SubTER’s objective is to provide solutions to these subsurface challenges by rapidly accelerating technology development. Their aim is to achieve mastery of subsurface processes, so next generation subsurface technologies can enable increases in domestic energy supplies, including more than 100 gigawatts of renewable geothermal energy from conventional hydrothermal and enhanced geo- thermal systems (EGS), which are reservoirs created by drilling wells thousands of feet below the earth to access hot rock at the earth’s crust. However, before the widespread develop- ment of EGS can occur, there must be a sub- stantial reduction of the initial high exploration and instal lat ion costs. Researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) successfully developed a “tool” called E4D-RT processing, which has the ability to better image the subsurface and give a gl impse of what resource potential might lie there. The tool was developed through a research and development project funded by DOE’s Office of Science and Office of Environmental Management. E4D-RT’s main advantage over other technologies is it provides faster, more accurate interpretations of data from simulation models, and improves the cost com- petitiveness of EGS development. Subsurface conditions are viewed through the collection of measurements made at the surface or by electrodes inserted in boreholes which pass an electrical current through the material being studied and record how difficult it is for that electrical current to move through the material. The models produced from these measurements reduce uncertainty and help to more accurately target where geothermal wells should be drilled, which is impor- tant for geothermal energy investors, decision makers, and stakeholders. PNNL scientist Timothy C. Johnson, who invented the E4D-RT said, “It’s very much like medical imaging. One of the unique things that we’ve done is bring high- performance computing to this problem. We have sensors in the field that are monitoring, and then this infor- mation is sent to the super computers that process it. Then, they deliver data back to the field in near real-time. That’s really, really powerful. We can do big imaging problems, and we can do them really fast.” A view underground utilizing E4D-RT. Atlantis Vault • Self-Contained • Simple installation • Trouble-free operation For more information call: (270) 786-3010 or visit us online: www.geothermalsupply.com Although the U.S. has only 4% of the world’s population, it consumes 25% of the world’s crude oil. 27 WorldWide Drilling Resource ® APRIL 2018