Essentially, repurposing fracking as a method for energy storage.
Geothermal Breakthrough in South Texas Signals New Era for Ercot
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Re: Geothermal Breakthrough in South Texas Signals New Era for Ercot
#12Essentially, repurposing fracking as a method for energy storage.
And generation
Re: Geothermal Breakthrough in South Texas Signals New Era for Ercot
#13As a Texan, I can assure you that ERCOT will find a way to add 6 layers of middlemen, over extend capacity, and generally screw it up. I watched it progressively get worse growing up. I don’t live in TX anymore, but I’ve still got family there and it’s more of the same.
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Re: Geothermal Breakthrough in South Texas Signals New Era for Ercot
#14I wonder if there is the possibility of a technique here to extract the heat by using something that does expand like pumped CO2 instead of water to steam? It is great they are using it for storage though. The more options the grid has for generation, transmission and storage the better.
Re: Geothermal Breakthrough in South Texas Signals New Era for Ercot
#15As a Texan, I can assure you that ERCOT will find a way to add 6 layers of middlemen, over extend capacity, and generally screw it up. I watched it progressively get worse growing up. I don’t live in TX anymore, but I’ve still got family there and it’s more of the same.
I too moved from TX, never been happier.
Re: Geothermal Breakthrough in South Texas Signals New Era for Ercot
#16I'm not a geophysicist but it doesn't seem like impermeable rock would "inflate like a balloon" and even if it did, that seems like it would be a pretty bad thing for the surrounding countryside. Given that water infamously doesn't like to compress, I'm at a loss for how this thing actually works. Does anyone have a better explanation than this article?
If you pressurize something "incompressible" like water under a cap of impermeable rock you are to still compressing the water and compressing the surrounding rock. The whole industry of fracking operates on compression rock to the point of fracturing it and forcing open the cracks. At 600-1300 bar water compresses 3-6%. It's the "equivalent" of a reservoir at the height of everest or higher.