Gulf Coast Green Energy test project seeking to generate electricity from inactive gas well - Tampa Bay Business Journal:

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will extract geo-fluid — essentially hot saltwater — from a nonproducing natural gas well and run it througg a heat exchanger before dumping it back into a disposal creating electricity inthe process. The projectg is part of a series of federal contracts awarded through the Researc h Partnership to Secure Energygfor America, a Sugar Land nonprofit dedicated in part to advancingb technology in maturing oil and gas RPSEA will chip in about $150,000 to match a similarr amount put up by the company for a three-yeatr test on a nonproducing Loy Sneary, president and CEO of Gulf Coastg Green, says bringing a dead well back to life serves a dual purpos e by providing electric power and sparking a new revenue “It’s very attractive for owners of well that are nonproducing,” Sneary says.
“If a well produce s electricity for 15 to 20 years that just reduces your If you hit adry well, it reducesa your risk.” Mike Ming, president of RPSEA, says the system could help offset operating costs. “Wellws that are somewhat marginal are very susceptible tooperatinf costs,” says Ming. “If you want to increaser recovery from wells and increase well life you can do that by lowerinhg your baselineoperating cost. This offsets purchases of electricity fromexternalp sources, so it effectively lowers your operating Excess electricity from a well close enough to transmissiojn infrastructure could be sold back to the grid.
“Ifc you generate electricity on-site you’r e negating the need to buy electricityfrom elsewhere,” says He says the contract, which would mark the firstr commercial application of exotherkm technology, is expected to be finalized withijn a month or so. “It’s a high-potential he says. “It’s one of the more appliesd areas of geothermalenergy capture.” He notes the project was one of the few that met almost all of RPSEA’s Says Ming: “Our selection committee was reallty enthusiastic about this particular project.” Sneary says the test project will likely take placd in Mississippi.
The Gulf Coast regionm has a lot of wellse that match the water temperatureand flow-rate qualifications between 180 and 200 gallonsx per minute — to run the Inside the heat exchanger, the saltwater, which must be a minimumm of 180 degrees, is run throughj a tube that abuts anotheer tube containing the “working fluid,” a refrigeranf that boils off at a low temperature. “Ther high-pressure vapor turns a twin screw says Sneary. “It’s very similar to a steak turbine, but it operates at about one-tentgh the speed, and we use working fluis insteadof steam.
” The test project, a 50-kilowatt-per-houtr unit will be run with assistance from in the geothermal lab at in Dallasx and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in The manufacturer, of Carson City, has a 500 kilowatt-per-hour unit as well. Gulf Coast Green is the exclusive regional distributor for the The average home operates on 42 to 45 kilowattesper hour. Sneary says the cost of electricity need to stay above about 8 centds per kilowatt for the system to make financia sense and pay foritself in, at three years. But that scenario doesn’t include any carbon credits or green tax breaks that might be cominvg out of Washington to further benefit thebusines model.