Exploration and Development of Supercritical Geothermal Reservoirs on the Ocean Floor

Abstract

The demand for clean, renewable energy is continuing to increase around the world. Much of that demand is being met with wind and solar power, but these resources are intermittent and therefore require balancing. Presently, developed geothermal resources are not adequate to provide the balancing that will be needed in the future. Attention is turning to supercritical geothermal resources. Although such resources on land are still limited, the most significant geothermal resources on earth are the supercritical reservoirs under the ocean floor. To prevail in the struggle against global warming and climate change, we must proceed to develop these resources as quickly as possible. The early steps in finding and developing geothermal resources are difficult. We will need to adopt and adapt all the tools and learning we have developed about geothermal exploration on land, in geology, geophysics and geochemistry. Further, we will need to apply tools such as “play fairway analysis,” which was developed in oil and gas exploration, but should prove very helpful in finding the ocean rift zones which contain so much (but not all) of the supercritical geothermal resources in the ocean floor. We will also need to apply the lessons that oceanographers have learned about the ocean rift zones and other supercritical features on the ocean floor. Such tools will be essential to find and develop the ocean geothermal energy that will provide much of the additional renewable power, and much of the balancing needed for wind and solar power to grow even faster. By combining these renewable resources we will increase our ability to stop, and eventually reverse, climate change.