Journal of Petroleum Technology
By Shaun Toralde
Geothermal development is gaining steam and entering a transformative era, driven by breakthroughs in adapting and improving on engineering, drilling, completion, and production technologies to the efficient extraction of heat from the Earth.
Geothermal energy is heating up with pilot projects all over the world reporting technological advancements that are overcoming historic barriers of scale, cost, and resource accessibility. Geothermal development is gaining steam and entering a transformative era, driven by breakthroughs in adapting and improving on engineering, drilling, completion, and production technologies to the efficient extraction of heat from the Earth. The papers featured here and those included for further reading are but a sampling of the groundswell of data and knowledge that has been produced by the industry recently. This information is rapidly pushing geothermal frontiers toward a supercritical point that will allow it to reach its maximum potential for supporting global decarbonization and energy security.
Paper URTEC 4245311 shows how integrated fracture, reservoir, and thermal design and field implementation set a new benchmark for enhanced geothermal systems (EGS), achieving flow rates greater than 100 kg/s in an ongoing EGS project in Utah, with a planned capacity of 400 MWe. Simulation-driven well spacing and fracturing treatments optimized both short- and long-term energy production. The project’s replicable blueprint for crystalline basements worldwide demonstrates that commercial-scale EGS is now feasible, with low fluid loss and validated field performance.