A Systematic Review of Enhanced Geothermal System

Abstract

Enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) refer to methods of harvesting energy from Earth’s crust by passing fluid through a zone of enhanced permeability in rock at depth. The enhancements come from 1) drilling to sufficient depths that high temperatures are reached; 2) creating enough permeability that fluid can be flushed at significant rates through the hot rock deep in the crust, the objective being to transfer the thermal energy to the fluid without excessive loss of fluid into the rock; and 3) extracting the energy from the fluid to produce useful effects, either in terms of electricity generation or heating operations. This paper reviews the Imaging and Characterization methods for EGS, EGS Creation and Production, Potential Technologies for EGS and Also more objective approach to the pros and cons of ‘conventional’ EGS systems.