Geothermal energy production with supercritical fluids
AssigneeThe Regents of the University of California
InventorDonald W. Brown
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
There has been invented a method for producing geothermal energy using supercritical fluids for creation of the underground reservoir, production of the geothermal energy, and for heat transport. Underground reservoirs are created by pumping a supercritical fluid such as carbon dioxide into a formation to fracture the rock. Once the reservoir is formed, the same supercritical fluid is allowed to heat up and expand, then is pumped out of the reservoir to transfer the heat to a surface power generating plant or other application.
Claims29
A method of extracting geothermal energy from an underground hot dry rock reservoir, comprising the steps of:
- (a) creating an underground hot dry rock reservoir by fracturing underground hot rock with fluid carbon dioxide consisting essentially of carbon dioxide fluid in the supercritical phase or carbon dioxide fluid that is transformed into the supercritical phase by the hot dry rock;
- (b) allowing the fluid to absorb heat from the hot dry rock of the reservoir and thereby increase the heat content of the fluid;
- (c) removing at least a portion of the fluid having an increased heat content from the underground hot rock reservoir;
- and
- (d) extracting heat from the portion of fluid having an increased heat content.
A method of extracting geothermal energy from an underground hot dry rock reservoir, comprising the steps of:
- (a) injecting fluid consisting essentially of carbon dioxide into an underground hot dry rock reservoir, the fluid carbon dioxide comprising fluid in the supercritical phase or carbon dioxide fluid that is transformed into the supercritical phase by the hot dry rock;
- (b) allowing the fluid to absorb heat from the hot dry rock of the hot dry rock reservoir and thereby increase the heat content of the fluid;
- (c) removing at least a portion of the fluid having an increased heat content from the underground hot dry rock reservoir;
- and
- (d) extracting heat from the portion of fluid having an increased heat content.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.