The proposal by Battelle to drill a three-mile-deep well near Rugby, N.D., has been presented as test of rock properties to determine suitability for permanent storage of nuclear waste and for assessing the potential for geothermal energy.
Although there have been conflicting comments about the purpose of the well, this information is from the Department of Energy website announcing the awarding of the contract to Battelle.
As a geophysicist who specializes in heat flow from Earth's interior and geothermal energy, I would support getting as much science from the proposed well as possible. Samples of rock cores for measurements of thermal conductivity, composition and equilibrium temperature vs. depth measurements would yield insight on several problems such as basic heat flow, thermal maturation of hydrocarbons in the Williston Basin and climate change during the past 20,000 years.
But the suggestion that the well will provide information on the potential for geothermal energy is ill-considered. There is no potential for geothermal energy anywhere in central and eastern North Dakota. The scientists at Battelle and the Energy and Environmental Research Center at UND should know that.
I have conducted geothermal energy research in the United States since the late 1970s. Some of the research has been specifically in North Dakota, with resulting reports to DOE in 1984 and 1991 that, in fact, were published by EERC.
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As custodian of the Global Heat Flow Database of the International Heat Flow Commission of the International Association of Seismology and Physics of the Earth's Interior, I have been heavily involved in preparing and assembling data for the U.S. National Geothermal Data System. This work is a collaboration with Southern Methodist University, Cornell, Texas Tech, the University of Texas at Austin and the Geothermal Resources Council, and it has included 22 students and six faculty at UND.
We can assure everyone that there is no potential for geothermal energy from a three-mile-deep well near Rugby.
Our analytical methods predict the temperature at the bottom of the proposed well would be only about 105 °C (221 °F). Electrical power generation at an economic rate requires a minimum temperature of 150 °C (302 °F).
That temperature could be reached at depths greater than five miles at Rugby, but the cost of pumping fluids would make the project uneconomical.
William Gosnold
Grand Forks
Gosnold is a Chester Fritz Distinguished Professor of geology at UND.
