ResFrac customer, Fervo Energy has shown that fracturing can be used to build a geothermal heating system in hot, hard rock. During a 37 day test at it’s Project Red test site, the Houston company produced as much as 63 L/s (998 gal/min) of water heated to 336 degrees F. By pumping water from an injection well through fractured hot rock to a producing well, it heated enough water to generate up to 3.5MW of power, according to a company release.

The project’s results are a “historic breakthrough” for geothermal power, but Fervo still has much work ahead, according to Mark McClure, CEO of ResFrac, a firm that develops hydraulic fracturing simulation software. “Even as they continue to achieve technical success, they will need to demonstrate the commercial model — that they can secure funding, execute, and drive down costs to achieve long-term profitability,” he said Wednesday in a review of the project’s results.

ResFrac Corporation Chief Operating Officer, Garrett Fowler, has been named 2023–2024 SPE Distinguished Lecturer. Garrett will be presenting on “How To Leverage What We’ve Learned About Hydraulic Fractures.” DL Speakers from various disciplines and professions focus on industry trends, challenges, technology applications, and advances. Scheduled DL events are in-person meetings only.

Hitting the next well during fracturing happens all the time. Predictably doing that on a large scale in granite looks a lot harder. Backed by $220 million from the US Department of Energy, the Utah FORGE team’s goal is to develop the techniques and tools needed to create well-to-well flow paths through rocks that are at more than 400°F and then send the heated fluids to the surface to power electric generation. This approach is known as an enhanced geothermal system (EGS). A paper recently presented at the SPE Hydraulic Fracturing Technology Conference highlighted the problem. The reservoir modeling firm ResFrac offered examples of what can be done to understand geothermal fracturing systems, but said it is not yet possible to model a well plan for a specific location.