25.6 Million for Geo Thermal Power from Feds

[farmaholic]

AF5, There are some residential geothermal heating systems here. The owners claim in the coldest conditions the system has a hard time keeping up....need a back up or supplemental(fire place). These systems aren't in old houses with poor energy efficiency either.

Also they complain about their power bills...pumps, heat exchange fans etc.

Nothing is free, but which leaves the smallest Enviro footprint and most cost effective.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

AF5, There are some residential geothermal heating systems here. The owners claim in the coldest conditions the system has a hard time keeping up....need a back up or supplemental(fire place). These systems aren't in old houses with poor energy efficiency either.

Also they complain about their power bills...pumps, heat exchange fans etc.

Nothing is free, but which leaves the smallest Enviro footprint and most cost effective.

Back when natural gas prices were sky rocketing with no end in sight, and power prices were still reasonable, it was stating to make sense for residential applications, and quite a few systems were installed locally, I even considered that as a business venture. Then the fracking revolution happened, and gas prices dropped probably to stay there for decades to come, and the economics of home heating with geothermal fell apart, most systems I know of cost more in electricity for pumps than they return in heat equivalent. Even the new pool in town was geothermal, but last I knew the system was abandoned after pouring large amounts of money into it, and retrofitted to conventional heating.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

But, to be fair, most of the residential systems are very shallow loops with a very small temperature gradient, requiring pumping massive volumes of fluids to accomplish anything, whereas a deep well such as this project will have very big temperature gradients to work with, apples and oranges.

[jazz]

The Estevan system would be a true geothermal tap to underground water. Residential system us just ground heat. They work, but hey are expensive to buy upfront and run. I have one in my house here in Regina. It needs electrical power to run the circulation through the system and that can be wildly costly. I cranked up one of those -50 winters to see if it could run the entire house. Got a $1000 power bill. Now I just run it now as background supplemental floor heat in my basement - use NG cause its so cheap and efficient. Back 10 yrs ago these were popular when NG was skyrocketing. Basically wasted $20k.

Next I will start burning my worthless durum in the grain stove.

[WiltonRanch]

Iceland is heated by geothermal but sitting on a volcano. Steaming hot water on top of the ground makes it a no brainer. Here no active seismic activity hence it’s gonna cost money drilling. I wonder what the temperature change is the deeper you go. I was reading about the Russians deep drilling and innovations they made to address the heat and effectively pumping drilling fluids. What shut them down was heat after 20 miles. My question is where does the pumping cost outweigh the heat value? Lots of 600 metre holes here tapped into heavy oil. I assume the estevan area wells are a lot deeper so more hot in temperate and radioactivity.

[Rareearth]

That’s what the Moosejaw mineral spa is. Wouldn’t mind a spa.
Wonder if they have looked at generating power? Might get funding🙂

[Rareearth]

Not sure if or at what depth the “Judith water system “ is, or wha5 pressure and temp.

[makar]

Buddy of mine worked on the rigs dont remember exactly but it was one degree f a hundred feet.

[wd9]

Next I will start burning my worthless durum in the grain stove.

Jazz, have you done a careful cost accounting on burning your durum? If we complain all the time grain is so cheap, maybe we should burn more of it. Easy to handle, lots of supply, burns clean.

Geothermal provides 60% of the power on the Northern California coast. It is quite viable.

[farmaholic]

But, to be fair, most of the residential systems are very shallow loops with a very small temperature gradient, requiring pumping massive volumes of fluids to accomplish anything, whereas a deep well such as this project will have very big temperature gradients to work with, apples and oranges.

Very good point AF5. I BELIEVE the geothermal systems buried here are just loops below the frost line. I think there are "well type" too, but I don't know how deep they go for res-geo-thermal. ...Or which system would be more efficient.

This is going to reveal my naivety...bucket suggested two more dams on the South Sask River...I "assume" the power generation would still be steam turbines? So we still need a fuel source to heat water? I wouldn't "think" there is enough flow for plain old kinetic energy(flowing water) generation?

Can someone explain it to this landlubber.

Edit in; re: Gardiner Dam..... "An integrated power generating plant, SaskPower's Coteau Creek Hydroelectric Station, produces a net 186 MW of electricity from three 62 MW generators".