Disturbing a dormant volcano might seem ill-advised, but that's what a company will do this month in a bid to exploit an untapped source of clean energy.
Engineers working for Seattle-based AltaRock Energy and the firm's partners have been given the green light by the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to start injecting water into a series of connected cracks 3 kilometres down at Oregon's Newberry volcano (pictured, right). Their goal is to heat the water, before returning it to the surface as steam to drive turbines and generate electricity.
Geothermal power projects usually tap into naturally convecting hot water below Earth's surface, but most geothermal energy is actually stored in impermeable hot rocks.
The $44-million Newberry project is one of a new wave of enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) that aims to exploit these rocks by fracturing them with pressurised water. This boosts permeability enough to support geothermal operations.
Hot rocks
AltaRock chose to perform its EGS tests beneath the flanks of the Newberry volcano to take advantage of the fact that rocks get hotter with depth at a much faster rate than in non-volcanic areas exceptionally high geothermal gradients in these rocks, which should improve the efficiency of their operation.
The BLM gave permission for the project only after independent studies had demonstrated that the project did not risk triggering earthquakes near the volcano or contaminating groundwater.
The testing phase should be complete by 2014. If the results are as good as AltaRock hopes, the system could rival the cost-efficiency of fossil fuels, says Susan Petty, the firm's CEO.
A study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2007 suggested that EGS resources could supply 10 per cent of the US's energy needs, mainly because it can be located anywhere where there is hot rock within 3 kilometres of the surface.
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