Geothermal station
Fervo has completed the first series of tests of a demonstrator of its technology – a universal horizontal geothermal power plant. It is located in Nevada, covers an area of approximately 1 km, has a capacity of 63 liters per second. The injected liquid enters the outside in the form of steam with a temperature of 191 ° C, which allows the power plant to generate 3.4 megawatts of energy.
As Tim Latimer, CEO and co-founder of Fervo Energy, explains, they have adapted drilling and hydraulic fracturing technologies to optimize the heat collection of the planet's interior. In classical geothermal plants, water is pumped into deep vertical wells, then returned through other wells in the form of steam. But its volume and pressure are too low, so 40% of such facilities are frozen even at the construction stage. The share of geothermal energy in the world is about 0.5%.
Geothermal station
The Fervo method is based on laying several long horizontal wells at a relatively shallow depth. Liquid is pumped into them under pressure, which leads to hydraulic fracturing of rocks around. A "spot" is formed with many cracks in the heated rock, where water enters, and after heating and turning into steam, it is pumped out through another well. This approach allows you to collect much more steam, while reducing the number of drilling operations at depth. In 2020, Tim Latimer, at a speech to students at the University of Texas at Austin, said that he plans to increase the capacity of his geothermal plants to 200 megawatts, and then to 2 gigawatts. They can be built almost anywhere on the planet, not just where the earth's heat comes close to the surface. Investors believe in Latimer's ideas, he has already raised $187 million for the implementation of his projects.
Geothermal station
Alexander Martynenko