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Geothermal mapping can and should be dramatically improved with bottom hole temperature data already available from oil and gas companies.


Description

Summary

The oil and gas companies around the world have well logs.  Typically bottom hole temperatures are part of those logs.  This information along with the location of the wells cold provide very valuable input to a dramatic improvement in geothermal mapping.  It is well established that the production of geothermal energy is commercially viable.  However determining the proper location of geothermal plants is not easy, nor financially efficient.  Using bottom hole data is promising, it would be even more promising if the well locations stored in oil and gas companies databases were more correct than they are.  It would be advisable to improve those locations through the use of satellite imagery and other data sources.  In any case, the fundamental concept remains the same - improved geothermal mapping using oil and gas well bottom hole data.


Category of the action

Geoengineering


What actions do you propose?


Who will take these actions?


Where will these actions be taken?


What are other key benefits?

Another key benefit of this approach is the improvement of the location of the oil and gas wells themselves.  This would be a boon to the oil and gas companies, but also a boon to the safety of the public at large.  There are sometimes dramatic differences between where the companies believe their wells to be and where they are.  When bad things happen (i.e. the BP disaster) it is important to know exactly where the well spot is.  Since most wells are not "as-built" but rather these locations can be off by a large margin.


What are the proposal’s costs?

The database would cost approximately $2M to produce if the data could be made available.


Time line


Related proposals


References