Models for Energy from the Depth
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- Uwe-Jens Görke discusses with a PhD student the simulation of a geothermal DRILLING, which is projected to the wall at the UFZ ‘s visualisation CENTRE. Photo: UFZ/André Künzelmann
When the GFZ researchers get geothermal energy from several kilometres deep down to the surface in order to produce electric power and supply heat energy, they literally advance into unknown regions. Nobody knows exactly what it looks like deep down, which fissures and cracks there are and how the geothermal power station changes the underground. Yet such questions are of interest not only to researchers but also to enterprises. For example, they want to know whether sufficient thermal energy arrives at the bore hole to operate a power station with profit. After all, one kilometre of drilling costs easily a million Euro. Of importance are also the estimates as to the risk of the drilling and the fluid forced in during the process causing ground motion.
Professor Dr. Olaf Kolditz and Dr. Uwe-Jens Görke from the Department of Environmental Informatics of the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ in Leipzig and their colleagues therefore develop computer models simulating such drillings and the operations of a geothermal power station. “We enter into the model the pressure, temperature measured underground as well as other information”, Görke explains. This is augmented by data regarding the fluid forced into the borhole. The model then provides results as to possible deformations in the underground but also information as regards the amount of prospective useable energy and how long the drilling presumably will provide energy before the environment in the depth cools down too much.
“Generally, these models are valid for underground transportprocesses”, stresses Uwe-Jens Görke. Thus with their help not only geothermal power stations can be simulated. They can just as well investigate how the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide behaves deep down, if it is captured in future power stations and forced into subterranean rock formations in order to slow down the climate change.
