Investigators
- Arash Dahi Taleghani, associate professor of petroleum and natural gas engineering, aud440@psu.edu
The decarbonization of communities is currently considered as the main challenge of the energy sector. Huge upfront costs have always been a major obstacle for the development of different renewable energy resources including geothermal energy, wind energy, and solar power as examples. One obvious solution is repurposing existing oil and gas wells to generate geothermal power at the end of their economic production life. As an example, only in Pennsylvania, it is estimated that 300,000 have been drilled and are not producing at this time. Obviously, all these wells may not be a good candidate for geothermal energy production.
In this project, we study the feasibility of the idea of using existing oil and gas wells for geothermal energy production. We plan to identify technical and legal changes in repurposing these wells.
For more information
- Hamm, Susan G., Chad Augustine, Coryne Tasca, and Jeffrey Winick. 2019. An Overview of the U.S. Department of Energy’s GeoVision Report: Preprint. Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory. NREL/CP-5500-74378. https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy20osti/74378.pdf
- Dahi Taleghani, A., 2013, An Improved Closed-Loop Heat Extraction Method From Geothermal Resources. J. Energy Resources and Technology, 2013;135(4):042904-042904-7. doi:10.1115/1.4023175.
