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 adisposal well, creating electricity in the process. The project is part of a seriesx of federal contracts awarded through the Researcbh Partnership to Secure Energyfor America, a Sugar Land nonprofit dedicaterd in part to advancing technology in maturingb oil and gas fields. RPSEA will chip in about $150,0090 to match a similar amount put up by the compant fora three-year test on a nonproducing well.
Loy Sneary, president and CEO of Gulf Coasft Green, says bringing a dead well back to life servews a dual purpose by providing electric powef and sparking a newrevenue stream. “It’s very attractiv e for owners of wellse thatare nonproducing,” Sneary says. “If a well producew electricity for 15 to 20 years that just reduce syour risk. If you hit a dry well, it reducees your risk.” Mike president of RPSEA, says the system could help offsetoperatinvg costs. “Wells that are somewhat marginal are very susceptibler tooperating costs,” says Ming.
“If you want to increasw recovery from wells and increase well life you can do that by lowerinh your baselineoperating cost. This offsets purchasews of electricity fromexternao sources, so it effectivel y lowers your operating costs.” Excesz electricity from a well close enough to transmissiom infrastructure could be sold back to the “If you generate electricity on-site you’res negating the need to buy electricity from elsewhere,” says He says the contract, which would mark the first commercial application of exotherm technology, is expected to be finalizedc within a month or so. “It’s a high-potential he says.
“It’s one of the more appliecd areas of geothermalenergy capture.” He notes the project was one of the few that met almost all of RPSEA’s criteria. Says Ming: “Our selectiojn committee was really enthusiastic about thisparticular project.” Sneary says the test projecf will likely take place in Mississippi. The Gulf Coasft region has a lot of wells that match the watert temperatureand flow-rate qualifications — between 180 and 200 gallones per minute — to run the Inside the heat exchanger, the saltwater, whichy must be a minimum of 180 degrees, is run through a tube that abutw another tube containing the “working fluid,” a refrigerant that boila off at a low “The high-pressure vapor turns a twin screa expander,” says Sneary.
“It’s very similar to a steanm turbine, but it operates at about one-tenth the and we use working fluid insteaddof steam.” The test project, a 50-kilowatt-per-hour unit will be run with assistancre from in Plano, the geothermal lab at in Dallazs and the U.S. Army Corpse of Engineers in The manufacturer, of Carso City, Nev., has a 500 kilowatt-per-hour unit as well. Gulf Coas t Green is the exclusivee regional distributor forthe units. The average home operateds on 42 to 45 kilowatts per Sneary says the cost of electricity needs to stay above abourt 8 cents per kilowat for the system to make financial sens e and pay foritself in, at three years.
But that scenario doesn’g include any carbon credits or green tax breakws that might be coming out of Washington to further benefit thebusinesxs model.