| Department Colloquium |
Wednesday
December 8
Regents Hall 210
2:00 pm
Phone: 507-786-3120
email: russell@stolaf.edu
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How can we produce more electricity renewably while substantially reducing anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions? One approach: combining geothermal energy with geologic CO2 sequestration.
Jimmy Randolph '06
PhD Graduate Student
University of Minnesota
Geology & Geophysics
Carbon dioxide (CO2) sequestration in deep saline aquifers and (exhausted) oil and natural gas fields has been widely considered as a means for reducing atmospheric CO2 emissions. However, rather than treating CO2 merely as a waste fluid in need of permanent disposal, a research team at the University of Minnesota has proposed that it could also be used as a working fluid in geothermal energy capture. Geothermal energy offers clean, consistent, reliable electric power with no need for grid-scale energy storage, unlike most renewable power alternatives. However, geothermal energy is underrepresented in renewable energy discussions and has considerable room for growth.
CO2 Plume Geothermal (CPG) technology has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by displacing fossil-fuel-based power production and by sequestering greenhouse gases from conventional energy technologies, industry, and biofuel plants. Furthermore, the technology would 1) provide a highly scalable electricity source for base-load or dispatchable power; 2) significantly reduce subsurface temperatures required for economical geothermal electricity generation; 3) result in geothermal power plant efficiencies two to five times those of conventional water-based systems; and 4) provide an electricity source with efficiencies that scale with demand. Finally, preliminary modeling indicates that the levelized cost of electricity produced by CPG systems would be very competitive with other energy technologies.
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