Low-Temperature Sedimentary Geothermal Exploration

Abstract

Low-temperature geothermal energy is an opportunity for the geothermal industry to expand beyond traditional high-temperature regions and to work with other industries to enhance both reservoir exploration knowledge and surface technology designs. Oil and gas fields are opportunities to apply new data for low-temperature projects. Coproduction of these related fluids has few production projects online, yet because of the waste-heat to power industry, the necessary conversion technologies have continued to improve with temperatures of 82°C able to generate power. Induced seismicity, primarily from injection fluids into formations below the oil and gas shale plays is a problem for the oil industry. These low-temperature opportunities overlap with potential sites for enhanced geothermal systems, and now provide additional modeling constraints to better understand stresses and reactivation of faults in the basement for the geothermal community to learn and use to our advantage.