Geothermal-energy developers plan to pump 24 million gallons of water into the side of a dormant volcano in central Oregon this summer to demonstrate new technology they hope will give a boost to a green energy sector that has yet to live up to its promise.
They hope the water comes back to the surface fast enough and hot enough to create cheap, clean electricity that isn’t dependent on sunny skies or stiff breezes — without shaking the earth and rattling the nerves of nearby residents.
Renewable energy has been held back by cheap natural gas, weak demand for power and waning political concern over global warming. Efforts to use the Earth’s heat to generate power, known as geothermal energy, have been further hampered by technical problems and worries that tapping it can cause earthquakes.
Even so, the federal government, Google and other investors are interested enough to bet $43 million on the Oregon project. They are helping Alta Rock Energy Inc. of Seattle and Davenport Newberry Holdings LLC of Stamford, Conn., demonstrate whether the next level in geothermal power development can work on the flanks of Newberry Volcano, about 20 miles south of Bend, Ore.
“We know the heat is there,” said Susan Petty, president of AltaRock. “The big issue is can we circulate enough water through the system to make it economic.”
To tap that heat — and grow geothermal energy from a tiny niche into an important source of green energy — engineers are working on a technology called Enhanced Geothermal Systems.
Wells are drilled deep into the rock and water is pumped in, creating tiny fractures in the rock, a process known as hydroshearing.
Fears persist that cracking rock deep underground through hydroshearing can also lead to damaging quakes.
The process has other problems. It is hard to create a reservoir big enough to run a commercial power plant.
Hopes for project run hot
The volcano
Geologists think Newberry Volcano was once one of the tallest peaks in the Cascades, reaching an elevation of 10,000 feet and a diameter of 20 miles. It blew its top before the last Ice Age, leaving a caldera studded with lava flows, two lakes and 400 cinder cones.
